I started to leave Las Cruces for LA on Thursday evening. I got back last night.

I missed my flight on American Thursday night by not allowing enough time to get to the airport in El Paso. They put me on standby for a flight at 6:15 the next morning, so I kept my rental and got a room a couple miles away.

I got to the airport, but the flight to LA (via Phoenix) was full. My next opportunity was a non-stop to LA at noon, but also standby. This was all complicated by the fact that an early-morning Dallas flight had been delayed due to mechanical issues (brakes) and it was a nightmare for the agents to reroute people while they dealt with the issue. I was in a long line with Dallas people, and in front of a couple heading to New Orleans. But I did get my standby opportunity, and spent the morning working on my laptop.

At noon, the board for the flight was down, and there were no standbys listed. I was told to wait, but once again, it was a full flight (including Garrett Reisman of SpaceX).

My next chance was another one through Phoenix, at 2:45, also overbooked. I missed that one too, but as soon as I did, I went over to the agent who had switched me to that one, and just asked her if I could get to Dallas (the next chance out of ELP was the flight that I’d missed first thing in the morning, though this time I would have been confirmed). I figured that once I was in Dallas, I’d have a lot more options. Fortunately (this is about 3 PM), the Dallas flight that had been delayed since early morning had finally gotten its brakes fixed, and was about to depart. Because they’d rerouted people, it had a few empty seats. The one they issued me, by bizarre coincidence, ended up being between the couple heading to New Orleans that had been behind me in line hours earlier.

My confirmed flight to LA from Dallas was at 10:10 PM, to arrive about 11 in LA, meaning about a four-hour layover. When I got into Dallas, I looked at the board, and saw another flight leaving from another terminal in about ten minutes, so I took the tram over. But it was overbooked. I went to look for another agent who wasn’t busy boarding a plane, and asked him if I could get out earlier than the 10:10 (there was an 8:45 on the board). He looked, and said, how about 7:30? I told him, sure, but I didn’t know there was a 7:30. He told me that it was a 4:20 that had had mechanical issues, but would be ready to go. I asked him for a window seat, and he said sure, and gave me a pass, with priority boarding (sweet).

Turns out that it was a 767 that they’d brought in to replace a 737 that they couldn’t fix, so it had lots of empty seats. As a bonus (which believe me, I hadn’t asked for), they put a cute nursing student from TCU on a weekend visit to her sister in LA next to me (though I later suggested that she take the empty row behind, when she wanted to study but the woman in front of her put the seat back).

So thanks to maintenance issues with American, my day that had started out disastrously ended up on a run of good luck. I got into LA about 8:30, after flying about 2800 miles to get 800, and was beat, but I’m recuperating this morning.