Funny,this doesn't LOOK like Atlanta

Oh yeah, that's because I'm still in OKC after practically watching my flight leave.

Being VERY familiar with how the OKC airport works, and having been here 2 hours, 1 hour, and thirty minutes before my flights on various trips, I know that the only difference between the three is how long you wait in the terminal.

So, while I woke up at five for my 7:30 flight, I kind of dilly-dallied around, and didn't even get to the airport until about ten til seven. I've done this before without issue. But apparently, today is issue day.

I (stupidly in retrospect) opted to park in the airport parking garage and walk to the terminal instead of my typical ground parking/shuttle to terminal routine thinking the timing wouldn't be much different. By the time I got to the check-in counter and through the line, it was 7:04, which is a bad thing as it turns out.

I was told bags have to be checked by thirty minutes before departure. I tried to insist that with 26 minutes to go, the bags would make it. But the counter guy would have nothing of it, and directed me to the courtesy re-booking phone to change flights. That's right, he wouldn't even re-book the flight FOR me.

So I called the re-booking line only to be told that the next flight out was at 10:20, but that they couldn't re-book flights earlier than three hours in advance, so I'd have to hang up and call back at 7:20. That was in eleven minutes at that point. Can you believe that?

After waiting the requisite eleven minutes, I called and got my flights re-booked, for the low-low cost of $35 in re-boking fees, all due to my four minutes of time misuse.

The beautiful thing about all this is the fact that I've gotten to sit around the OKC airport for three hours (while everyone else on my original flight is in Atlanta), and so could have just not gotten up at five this morning instead. On top of that, I got to listen to my original flight board and leave without me. What a great day this has turned out to be (he said knowingly)!

To shine SOME positive light on the matter, most of the waiting has been front-loaded, so my layover (in Cincinnati now) will be much more tolerable than Atlanta would have been (only in terms of time and terminal size/transit issues). Also, I arrive in Allentown at 4:33 instead of 4:01, so there's not a great deal of difference in overall travel time. Though as I type this my new flight's departure time has come and gone, so hopefully it's not an indicator of further (unexpected) travel nightmares to come. Fortunately, the Cincinnati airport is not so big that you can't run across it in short order to catch a nearly departing connection (ignoring the luggage issues for a moment).