Misery multiplied: Readers' travel nightmares

Weekend getaway gets extended
It seemed simple: a Delta flight from Gulfport, Miss., to Orlando via Atlanta so I could meet my husband for a weekend getaway. The only problem was that at the scheduled departure time, the plane had not yet left Atlanta on its trip to Gulfport due to mechanical problems.  Finally the plane arrived, two hours later than it had been scheduled to depart. I was starting to worry, realizing that I would have little to no time to meet my connecting flight in Atlanta.  I politely asked the attendant at the gate if there was anything that could be done to ensure I made the next leg of my flight. Her answer?  "I guess you'll have to run for it."  Nice.  Landing in Atlanta, I had less than 15 minutes to run across two terminals to make my connection, but somehow I did it. 

Flying back, we left Orlando almost 2 hours late again, this time due to unspecified delays — they wouldn't say it was weather, but they wouldn't acknowledge mechanical problems either.  Here we go again. There's nothing like the panicked mad dash through the Atlanta terminal to meet a connection. We asked the gate attendant as we were running off the plane if we would make our connection, and she said "yes, they were holding the plane for all the latecomers from our flight." 

We arrived just in time, but the attendants had closed the gate and wouldn't let us board.  It was the last Delta flight home for the evening, and because Delta wouldn't acknowledge that it was a mechanical delay, they would neither put us on another airline or pay for a hotel. We spent the night at a dirty Ramada near the airport, where we ate dinner from a snack machine (restaurant was closed) and slept in our clothes because the sheets looked brown.

Delta put us on a 6 a.m.. flight home. To top it off, Delta misplaced our luggage and we didn't see our suitcases again for 3 more days. The Delta employees we dealt with were surly, obviously unhappy and completely unwilling to right their wrongs. I wrote a letter to Delta detailing our ordeal but never had a response. My blood pressure still rises when I think of that experience.
— Erin Thomas, Biloxi, Miss.

Searching the soldiers
Dear Mr. and Ms. John Q. Public, have I got a true story for you. 

This happened at the Philadelphia airport as myself and a group of soldiers were returning from Iraq after our first deployment in November 2005.

We had already received a through shakedown before we left Kuwait International Airport, traveled 16 hours before being held up at Fort Dix while we received our coordinating tickets for our remaining journey.

We arrived at Philly airport in our uniforms, received our boarding passes and proceeded through the checkpoint after we checked our weapons and baggage at the counter. We had three female soldiers and seven male soldiers with us. It just seemed a crock that my fellow soldiers were searched at the checkpoint especially since only the female soldiers were given the pat down search. I could not believe this!

A civilian passing by said it best when he saw this: "I can't believe we are searching our soldiers who are returning from a combat zone."
— Ken Heise, Copperas Cove, Texas

Luggage gets lost, lubricated
Travelling to D.C. from Columbia, S.C. via Atlanta-Hartsfield should have been an easy trip.  However, upon arrival in Atlanta, I was advised that my flight as well as two others destined for Reagan National had been canceled and I wouldn't be able to get to D.C. until the following night at the earliest. ...  After six hours of dancing the reroute rumba, I was able to get a flight on a different airline to Baltimore-BWI. I was advised, however, that my luggage had somehow made it to Reagan and would be waiting for me.

The airline refused to deliver the bags to my hotel so I had to get a cab from BWI to Reagan to pick up my luggage.  Upon arrival at Reagan, I discovered that the airport, to include the glass-walled area where I could see my luggage, was closed for the night (Reagan closes at 2300). Arriving at my hotel, sans luggage, I was informed that despite my confirmation a mere three hours earlier, they had assumed that I was a no-show (it's going on 0200 now) and given my room to another guest. 

The desk clerk was happy to provide me the only room available: a putrid smoking room complete with mildew in the bathroom and a heating system that was always set to "furnace."  As I need to get some sleep prior to a full day of class, I took what I could get. That night, after calling the airline, I was assured that they would, indeed, deliver my luggage to my hotel the following day.

After sitting in class all day, I expected to find my luggage waiting for me at the hotel.  Unfortunately, the hotel desk clerk had only booked my "new" reservation for one night and hotel staff thought that I had checked out (the personal items throughout the room must not have clued them in). Not only had the hotel refused receipt of my luggage from the airline courier, but they had cleaned my room and removed the few personal items that I had with me from my carry-on bag. ... After tracking down the various missing belongings from my room, I was forced to take yet another cab ride out to BWI, which somehow became the new home to my luggage to retrieve my bags. Upon retrieval of my luggage, I noticed something rather odd:  my bag was SOAKED. It was actually dripping water (or whatever other fluids I would rather not think about). Of course, the airline and courier service both refused to take responsibility.  Just to add insult to injury, my boss gave me an incredibly hard time for "excessive taxi expenses" and hasn't really trusted my expense reports since.
— John Cox, Columbia, S.C.

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