Note — this is not a partisan post, though it involves politics.
In this example of last-minute planning, all worked out for the passenger, California Senator Alex Padilla. Chairman Dick Durbin of the Senate Judiciary Committee was able to delay the hearing by several hours. This happened because Senator Padilla’s redeye flight was canceled.
The hearing in question was the vote on sending President Biden’s Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson out of committee and to the House for a vote. And the Democrats needed every one of their 11 votes on the committee to do that.
Democrats needed every vote. But they were missing a Senator. He didn’t follow a normal on-time travel warning.
When the hearing started, California Senator Alex Padilla wasn’t there. And he wasn’t close to being there. He had returned to Los Angeles, to his home for the weekend, as many Senators do. Plus, he had scheduled a redeye flight, the last redeye of the night. It was scheduled to arrive about two hours before the committee meeting started. The Senator was faced with a flight cancellation.
The plane did depart the gate on time, but was delayed a bit due to weather and then had to return for a passenger medical emergency. Add to that the pilots and crew were limited on hours. Finally, the airline rescheduled the flight until late morning — about 12 hours after the scheduled departure.
A medical emergency caused the problem. But luck was on the Senator’s side.
At this point, all redeyes had departed, including connections via Chicago. So even with what no doubt was a very high priority for airlines and cost not an issue, the Senator had to take the first flight in the morning. That flight arrived eight hours later than expected for his original flight — at 4 p.m. This was for a 10 a.m. meeting.
Again, it worked out. The committee chair was able to delay the hearing and ended up costing his colleagues nothing but time. The on-time travel warning turned moot. He was also fortunate enough to get a seat on what apparently was a very full flight in the morning on a different airline. But had he been going to an important meeting that couldn’t have been postponed, or a wedding, or some other event, he would have been out of luck. And had he been flying somewhere to embark on a cruise, he’d have missed the boat, literally.
I continually warn my clients not to schedule the last flight before an important event. Always leave yourself some wiggle room in case of a flight cancellation.
While I’m an optimist, I strongly use this on-time travel warning on my clients about and practice myself. (Even when we took a family cruise to Mexico from San Diego, we flew down the night before, just in case. There are just too many things that can go wrong — weather, mechanical issues, mechanical emergencies… not to mention if you need to check luggage, and potentially lost bags.
Admittedly, in some cases it’s not possible to fly and arrive a day before a special event. Even in those cases, given an opportunity, it’s better to take, at the very least, the second-to-last flight. Had Senator Padilla scheduled himself on an earlier redeye flight, there would have been more options when the plane was delayed.
And to be fair, I have no idea why he took the last flight, and there may have been very good reasons, so this posting is not to blame him. But it illustrates a point. For almost all travelers, having a flight be delayed won’t affect a potential Supreme Court confirmation. But it doesn’t mean that a delay can’t mean missing an important life moment. So, if possible, please build in some extra time.
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Janice Hough is a California-based travel agent a travel blogger and a part-time comedy writer. A frequent flier herself, she’s been doing battle with airlines, hotels, and other travel companies for over three decades. Besides writing for Travelers United, Janice has a humor blog at Leftcoastsportsbabe.com (Warning, the political and sports humor therein does not represent the views of anyone but herself.)
