I wish I could be writing this post as I soar through over the Atlantic Ocean en route to Milan, a short stop away from Prague. But unfortunately, I’m in a hotel room in downtown Atlanta watching the Heat demolish the Thunder for the NBA championship.

A few things went wrong today. Most of them done by Delta.

  1. My flight out of Baton Rouge was supposed to depart at 12:50pm. At 1pm, there was no announcement on why we were delayed. I called Delta to get an reason, and they did not know the flight was even delayed. At 1:15pm, while I was on the phone with Delta, they announced over the PA that mechanical issues was the source of the delay, and that we would be boarding soon.

We finally boarded and departed around 1:30pm, 40 minutes later than the scheduled departure time.

  1. Our layover in Atlanta was about an hour.

The departure time for Milan was 3:35. We finally got off the plane at 3:18pm. After waiting for our valet bags to return, we ran from gate D33 to E8. Carrying luggages with hemispherical speakers and other equipment, Corey and I sprinted from concourse to concourse, asking people move out of our way, scaring little children, and evading airport workers who were yelling at us to not run.

We arrived to the gate at 3:34 and the gate was closed. Sweaty and winded, the gate persons told us we would have to rebooked. We could see the plane through the window.

We went to the guest support and Lajan was going to help find another flight to Prague. We planned on arriving in Prague and immediately taking a train to Vienna, and meeting with Andy. We would then leave for Budapest in the morning. Of we got further delayed, we could potentially miss Budapest.

Lajan sat typing at her keyboard and writing out European hubs, Madrid, Barcelona, Amsterdam, that could be rerouting options to Prague, but she would cross the, off almost immediately after writing them down. After 20 minutes, she said she found a flight for Paris that was leaving in 20 minutes at another concourse. She printed out Corey’s ticket and said mine would be ready at the gate.

Again, Corey and I ran to the new I I international concourse F. Corey show them his ticket and waited as I showed them my confirmation number. They told me that my ticket was not confirmed and I had to walk to guest services and have them straighten things out. By the time I explained to the new Delta guest service person named Karen, it was 10 minutes before departure. Karen kept shaking her head and muttered “why would she do that?” referring to Lajan.

In the end, I missed the Paris flight because there was no available seating, Corey also missed the flight because he did not want to fly to Prague alone.

Karen rebooked us again for tomorrow (Friday) at 3pm arriving in Prague at 8am Saturday. We were originally supposed to arrive in Prague Friday at 10am.

In the meantime, Corey and I booked return flights together by way of Prague, Stuttgart, and Atlanta, but 4 days ago, Delta alerted me that the Prague-Stuttgart leg was cancelled. Delta rebooked us both through Paris instead. In the mix of rebooking today, my return flight was rebooked with the original Stuttgart layover while Corey’s remained through Paris.

Not only have I lost days planned in Europe, I have lost several prepaid train fares and hostel fees. The compensatory hotel room and $18 of food vouchers hardly repays the re-coordination and new travel fares to come.

I hope to be making much happier updates in the couple days.