Southwest Airlines Flight 7 leaves Lubbock at 6:55 a.m. and stops in Dallas before flying on to Houston. Its 9:30 arrival at Houston Hobby Airport makes same-day appointments at MD Anderson feasible. But today something unusual happened on the way to Houston.
The flight leaving Lubbock was oversold, so the automated voicemail I received from Southwest at first seemed to be a consequence of that circumstance. I became aware of the voicemail shortly after I turned my phone back on after landing in Dallas. The message said that portions of my flight had been canceled, and suggested that I might want to call Southwest to get details
Now that seemed strange, because there I was sitting on the plane, in Dallas. The flight attendant had just announced that passengers continuing on to Houston should remain seated until the crew had counted noses. So I wondered, was this a ploy to deflect people from and oversold flight? Was it a message I should have had before I left Lubbock?
So there we sat on the taxiway while I pondered the message. Just as we pulled to the gate, the announcement came that there had been a change in aircraft for those going to Houston. We were supposed to check in at Gate 6.
There was a long line at Gate 6. The board at the gate said the Houston flight, Flight 9, would be leaving at 9 a.m. The gate attendant asked if I had a boarding pass. I repeated I had just come in from Lubbock and that they had taken the boarding pass in Lubbock. She looked incredulous. I said “Flight 7.” After she did something on her computer, she told me to talk to the agents at Gate 8.
I was beginning to worry about my first (11 a.m.) appointment at MD Anderson as I stood in line at Gate 8. There I received a boarding pass – position B51 – for Flight 9, back at Gate 6. Now it was 8:30 a.m. As I took a seat at Gate 6, I soon realized there was no plane at the gate. The plane arrived at 8:45, and I thought, “now we’ll see if Southwest can turn this thing around in 10 minutes. They did.
Plane arrived in Houston right at 10. At 10:08 I was putting my bags in a taxi. At 10:11 we were leaving the airport. I told my driver the dilemma. He said he could have us at the Medial Center at 10:35. He beat that by 2 minutes; I dumped my bags at the hotel and got to my first appointment at 11 a.m. It’s now 7:39 and I am waiting for my last procedure.