Houston Jinx

It seems I can't just fly to Houston and back on business without some travel adventure finding its way, unbidden, into the works.

My last visit was in June. I flew in Monday, spent all week giving "Eye on Safety" training sessions (something we cooked up internally to teach behavioral concepts) to our hourly Texas employees, and had a Friday morning flight home. Everything went fine until Friday, when the first two Cincinnati flights of the day were cancelled and the rest filled up before I could rebook. I had been boarded and returned to the terminal twice due to mechanical problems with our plane, with a total of about three hours sitting on the tarmac before the flight finally was cancelled, while others gobbled up available seats on later flights. The best I could get at that point was a Saturday morning flight home, and I spent the night Friday in the airport hotel.

This week I am traveling to Houston again for the supervisor part of the training. My morning flight from Cincinnati proceeded on time until we got close to Houston, at which point our pilot was instructed to circle while controllers tried to get a stack of planes on the ground through the thunderstorms spawned by tropical storm Hermine. Eventually we had to divert to Alexandria, LA for a quick fuel stop, we were told. But as soon as we were on the ground, the pilot announced that Houston was holding aircraft due to the weather and so we deplaned. We proceeded to spend 2 1/2 hours at the tiny terminal there, where our planeload of Delta passengers overwhelmed the little snack bar like hyenas on a wildebeest. A fish sandwich and fries were a 45 minute wait - but hey, at that point we were just killing time.

I had honestly never heard of Alexandria, and I was traveling with my boss Terry, who is a Louisiana native but had never been there. The military trained bomber crews there during WWII but it was turned over for civilian use years ago and now handles just a few commuter flights a day - plus the occasional plane diverted from New Orleans or Houston, like us. The terminal is brick and the control tower is built right on top of it, not separate like at most airports (see picture). It's a perfectly nice terminal unless you are being held there against your will.

Eventually we were called for reboarding and packed back onto our Canadair jet. Once we were onboard, the captain announced that we would be underway as soon as we got fuel. What? They hadn't had time to do that yet? So a fuel truck came out and, while we waited for that, we received another hold from Houston and spent 45 minutes more sitting on the runway before taking off. And instead of the 30-minute Alexandria-Houston leg the attendants promised, we flew a roundabout course well to the south (to avoid the storms, I'm sure) that took an hour.

So my nifty two hour direct flight ended up taking eight hours. I'm not complaining - I'm always glad when the airlines and air traffic control folks keep our plane from flying to our doom. But what is it with me and Houston?