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Good Morning El Paso!
Dec. 2nd, 2006 09:02 amYesterday we spent the entire day trying to get from our house in Wisconsin to D's grandparents' house in El Paso, TX. We made it safe and sound, but exhausted. As many people with news access know (ie not me, see stuck in an airport), there was a blizzard that pretty much shut down Chicago yesterday. NOAA were predicting 3" of snow by morning and up to a foot total accumulation in Milwaukee. And we were booked out of Milwaukee at 6am. So at 2:30 am we got up and ready and were on the road by 3:15. No snow at home, so we didn't have to shovel first. Yay! The snow started around the I-94 exit for Hartland & Wales. Just light at first. By the time we hit Pewaukee it was getting heavy and by the time we got on 894 there was accumulated snow on the road. Slow going.
Our flight boarded on time, but then the pilot told us that the current weather was categorized as "heavy snow". The FAA rules forbade us to fly in that, so we were just going to sit tight and wait for it to let up. Then we waited for the de-icing crew and the plow to clear us a way to the main taxiway. Finally a flight attendant looked out at the wings, declared them to be free of ice & snow, and we were off! I have never been so glad to be in the air.
Here's where I tell you how much Frontier Airlines staff rock. First off, they decided that since we were all sitting in our seats for longer than anticipated, they would waive the TV fee so we could watch the seat-back TVs for free. Which was how D found out that Chicago and Dallas had been slammed by the weather. Then when we got off the plane in Denver, they had already rebooked everyone who missed connecting flights! No standing in line fighting with customer service. Yippee! On the next flight I noticed that the flight attendants hammed up the announcements just like Southwest used to do. We were very very happy.
Unfortunately instead of leaving Denver at 8am we were now booked on the 2:30pm flight. Got some breakfast and settled in. The Denver airport is quite nice, relatively new with decent (if overpriced) food. We checked to see if we could get wi-fi, but it cost more than we were willing to spend. Otherwise I'd have contacted![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
gloriap to see if she was volunteering right then. We called D's cousin who also lives in Denver, but they were at work. Ah well.
So we finally arrived in El Paso at 4:45pm. D's grandparents had just arrived, after being stuck in traffic. We had a nice dinner with them at the Greenery (D & Bubi's favorite) and fell into bed at our hotel.
Our flight boarded on time, but then the pilot told us that the current weather was categorized as "heavy snow". The FAA rules forbade us to fly in that, so we were just going to sit tight and wait for it to let up. Then we waited for the de-icing crew and the plow to clear us a way to the main taxiway. Finally a flight attendant looked out at the wings, declared them to be free of ice & snow, and we were off! I have never been so glad to be in the air.
Here's where I tell you how much Frontier Airlines staff rock. First off, they decided that since we were all sitting in our seats for longer than anticipated, they would waive the TV fee so we could watch the seat-back TVs for free. Which was how D found out that Chicago and Dallas had been slammed by the weather. Then when we got off the plane in Denver, they had already rebooked everyone who missed connecting flights! No standing in line fighting with customer service. Yippee! On the next flight I noticed that the flight attendants hammed up the announcements just like Southwest used to do. We were very very happy.
Unfortunately instead of leaving Denver at 8am we were now booked on the 2:30pm flight. Got some breakfast and settled in. The Denver airport is quite nice, relatively new with decent (if overpriced) food. We checked to see if we could get wi-fi, but it cost more than we were willing to spend. Otherwise I'd have contacted
gloriap to see if she was volunteering right then. We called D's cousin who also lives in Denver, but they were at work. Ah well. So we finally arrived in El Paso at 4:45pm. D's grandparents had just arrived, after being stuck in traffic. We had a nice dinner with them at the Greenery (D & Bubi's favorite) and fell into bed at our hotel.
