MJ is growing up fast! Today I took him to the airport. He is going to southern California to stay with friends for a week. He had to fly out from Newark to LAX by himself, and what a bummer of a flight he had!!
We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, so we sat down and had a nice dinner, just him and I. Afterwards we checked in at the gate to find out the plane was delayed by 2 hours. The plane was coming in from an International flight and was late getting off the ground. After the plane landed, the gate attendants then told us it would be another 45 minute wait while customs clears the plane.
MJ finally boarded the plane almost 3 hours later than scheduled. I was told that since he was flying as an unaccompanied minor that I had to stay in the terminal until the plane was in the air. With all the flying I do that makes sense. I can’t recall how many times we’ve returned to the gate due to problems. So I went to an area of the terminal where I could see the plane. I also used my Blackberry to check the status of the plane. I found out that Continental has their website tied directly to flight operations. The plane’s status on my Blackberry would update before the plane took the action!
Well, the status was upgraded for the plane. It had another delay due to catering. Delay due to Catering – I never heard that one before! About 9:30pm his plane was released for taxiing. He finally got into the air around 10:15pm!! A full 4 1/2 hours late.
MJ then had to endure a 5 hour flight to California. Fortunately he had armed himself with 2 movies on his iPod, 2 books and about another 10 hours of music. When he got to California, he gave us a call to let us know he was ok. He slept about 2 hours of the flight. When he landed it was close to 4am on the east coast.
I can only hope that his return flight is better!!