Post #4327786

Yesterday/today might have been my worst work travel experience. I drove from Champaign to O'Hare, which took 30 minutes longer than normal (2 hrs, 15 min) due to traffic problems caused by very heavy rain and water on the road, which caused severe problems at the airport too. When I got to O'Hare, my 4 pm flight to Minneapolis was delayed to around 7 pm, along with all other flights, so I changed to the prior flight which was also delayed but only to 6, earlier than my original flight. This flight kept getting pushed back, until it was 8:45 pm, at which time, my original flight had been cancelled. When we were ready to board around 8:15 pm, we continued being delayed because a flight attendant was missing, and then the captain and co-pilot had been on-duty their max time for the day and couldn't fly. So we were told that a new captain was identified, but wouldn't arrive until 11 pm, but no co-pilot had yet been identified. Around 11 pm, this second flight was cancelled, and I switched to the last flight for the day, delayed to 12:45 am. At 12:30 am, this third flight was cancelled. If I wasn't giving an invited talk this afternoon at the #PEARC26 conference, I would have just driven home and given up on the conference, but since I was, I decided to drive 6 hours to Minneapolis overnight, and I got here about 6:30 this morning. After a short nap, today I'll give my talk, and then tomorrow, I'll drive the 7 1/2 hours back to Champaign.