Waiting at PDX

I got out to PDX Airport early in the hope of getting on the 5 PM Horizon flight. My ticket is for the 8 PM Alaska flight, and when I checked in, the system informed me that the flight is delayed until at least 10 PM. I'm now on standby for the 5 PM flight and I really hope I get on to it, because I really don't want to be stuck here at PDX so long. That's a sufficient delay that there is a chance that I might not get to Oakland until after BART closes, which would mean a very expensive taxi or shuttle ride home to Fremont.

More Waiting at PDX

The 5:00 flight left at 5:45 after a maintenance delay. Even so, there was one person who didn't show up for it. Her sister, who was on the flight with her, was frantic, but couldn't reach her. ("She has a cell phone, but it's only for emergencies and it's not turned on and she's mostly deaf anyway.") The sister who was at the gate went ahead and boarded the plane, as did every other confirmed passenger. The sister who didn't show up freed up one seat, but that went to the poor woman who missed her 6 AM flight and had been waiting around all day to try and get on a plane, which seemed only fair to me.

So now I'm back to my confirmed reservation, which was the scheduled 8:05 departure that currently shows a planned ETD of 10:25 PM, and arrival OAK 12:08 AM. This is too late to make it to BART -- BART gates close at midnight.

But I do have an idea: There is an 8:05 PM departure for San Francisco that is currently showing on time. If I can get on that flight, which arrives SFO 9:54 PM, I can take BART home. I might even be able to take BART to Oakland Coliseum, take the bus to the airport, retrieve my luggage, take the bus back to BART, and go home from there; however, the more likely scenario has me going home and then driving to OAK tomorrow sometime to rescue my luggage. This would be annoying -- I'd be without my CPAP tonight, for instance -- but not catastrophic.

It's likely that my luggage went on ahead of me, as this usually is what happens in these standby situations, I've found. This at least means that I shouldn't have to wait long to get to my luggage when I eventually do get to Oakland.

If this scheme doesn't work out, I might be better off if they need to bump people here at Portland and just stay the night here and work something out for work tomorrow. OTOH, I absent-mindedly packed my blood pressure medication in the checked luggage, so even though I remembered to put an extra dose in my travel kit, I don't have the travel kit with me. It won't kill me, but it's not a good thing.

Update, 18:25: I'm now on standby for the 8:05 flight, and the agent confirmed that my luggage went on without me. (The "V/S" on my luggage claim ticket means "Voluntary Separation" and means I agreed they could do this, which I did.) While I won't know for another hour whether I'll get a seat, the agent seemed cheerful about it, saying that there were nine seats open on the flight.

Home Before Midnight, Barely

I did manage to get a seat on the SFO-bound flight, which landed at SFO before my original Oakland-bound flight left PDX. (Both flights are ordinarily scheduled to depart at 8:05 PM.) I did not try the trick of getting off at Oakland Coliseum and riding back and forth to the airport to retrieve my luggage -- too much chance of getting stuck there. As it was, the BART train I was on arrived Fremont about 20 minutes before midnight. I took a short taxi ride home, and got in just before Midnight. This is still much better (and cheaper; $7.35 BART fare and $10 for the taxi) than having to take a taxi home from Oakland airport and getting home about 1:30 AM or thereabouts.

I'm sure glad I'm planning to work from home tomorrow.