The Not So Friendly Skies

Soooo...this trip certainly didn't get off on the right foot, to say the least. I drop the ladies off at the airport on Thursday about noon for their 1:40pm flight to Atlanta where they were anxious to enjoy a relaxing 5 hour layover prior to their 6 1/2 hour flight to Lima.

Well the internet is an amazing tool, so about 2:00 I though I'd spool up the flight tracking system on Delta's website and watch their progress across the country. They still hadn't taken off yet! About 3:00 I get a call from Marie saying they weren't even on the plane yet because the de-icing equipment was bad and it had to be replaced. They didn't get out of SL until 4:00pm. That was fun.

With that bit of bad luck behind them (good that the ground crew figured out before they were at 37,000 in a spiral), what else could go wrong? 10:15 rolls around and I boot up Delta's tracking system again to see if their 10:00pm flight was enroute. Again, they were on the ground. No news from Marie, no news on the web, no news...is NOT good news. Marie calls again at some point. They indeed had taken off but had to come back because a fuel pump was bad. She-ma-neesh...as Marie would say!

Again, way to go flight crew for properly reading the instruments...I guess. They finally take off 3 hours late, miss their connecting flight in Lima to Cusco, spend 12 hours in the Lima airport before they figure out they can't get a flight to Cusco for another 50 hours! Fortunately the group leader from AYS was able to book some rooms for the next couple of nights.