Just an update on this. Val & I did leave Boston on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. That's where plans then went awry. Our ongoing flight from ATL to TPA was scheduled to depart at 4:30 pm.
When we got to the gate we found that it was delayed, the first in a long string of delays. Soon our Captain "timed out" and we had to wait for another captain to be assigned.
Second captain arrives, we are delayed boarding further because of the weather and de-icing constraints. Sometime around 7 pm we actually board the plane. Plane had been sitting there for a while and snow had built up on around the wheels causing problems for the tug trying to push us back.
Somehow they managed to clear that and we slowly taxi towards the de-icing area. We are #6 in line and the de-ice process takes about 20 minutes per plane. Optimistically. In reality, we were on the plane for nearly 3 hours and were still waiting for de-ice. Due to federal regulation that prevents passengers being stuck on the tarmac for longer than 3 hours we had to leave the de-ice queue and taxi back to the gate so that anybody that wants to get off could. One person decided to leave the plane at that point.
We then sit for a while so they can take on additional fuel and taxi back out to the de-ice queue. Again we are #6 in line so are facing a further 2+ hour delay. Sometime around 3 am we are still waiting. At that point Captain #2 "times out" and we have to return to the gate and the flight was canceled.
Val & I called the airline and got us rebooked to Orlando the next morning (and also changed our return from Orlando instead of TPA. We grabbed a blanket and found a set of seats to lay down on for a few hours of "sleep".
Our ATL>MCO flight was scheduled to leave at 7:50 am and of course we were at the gate early since we had spent the night in the airport. Everything is looking better that morning except that hardly anybody could actually get to the ATL airport because of the road conditions. You've never seen ATL so empty. Most shops closed, hardly anybody in the concourse, etc.
Further problem, no crew except a captain and one FA. They are scrambling to find crews for the planes and ultimately our priority was fairly low because they pulled the pilot to fly a different flight and canceled our flight. We scan our boarding passes at the automated rebooking center and get assigned to new flights on Thursday (this was Wednesday morning) that goes ATL>DTW>MCO, arriving there at 3:00 pm. Since our closing was scheduled for 11:00 am that day we thought we were really in trouble. However, another call to Delta got us rebooked on a Flight scheduled to leave ATL for MCO at 11:00 Wednesday. Great.
By now you may have guessed, that flight got canceled too.
So we called again and got booked on the next flight to MCO, which was scheduled for 1:00 pm. Amazingly enough, we actually got out then, arriving in MCO some 27 hours after we left BOS.
We haven't recovered yet.
