On the edge of our seats

I guess it was last week that our families and friends out here were waiting to find out if we would be able to fly out of Denver before the blizzard hit. This week it’s us, as Jackie and KK are flying out here to celebrate New Years today — just as another blizzard is due to hit.

Busy monitoring the flight status, watching the weather alerts and map … and thinking Good Thoughts their direction …

UPDATE (1:36p MST): BD reports United and Frontier are canceling flights … but follows up that it’s later (evening) flights. UAL and DIA are both reporting the flight is on time and not yet departed …

UPDATE (1:51p MST): Jackie’s on United — fortunately not on Frontier, which seems to be having the same sort of, ah, complications that they had last week.

The lines at the Frontier ticket counter were at least 3 hours long around noon, and the situation was deteriorating for passengers trying to get out ahead of the storm.

Recognizing that thousands of passengers were ready to miss their flights, Frontier agents tried to cull the long lines. They created one “close connections” line for people who only had 1.5 hours to make their flights. The agents tried to get those people to form a separate line. They tried yelling “Follow me” to the line, but without bullhorns it was hard to communicate with passengers.

Agents also tried to tell people in line who didn’t have a confirmed seat to go to another part of terminal for rebooking for another day. Frontier has already canceled 60 flights scheduled to leave Friday evening.

Frontier spokesman Joe Hodas said the airline is still advising people with confirmed seats to come to DIA at least 4 hours early. He advised those with only carry-on luggage to print out a boarding pass online so they could avoid the ticket counter. “Don’t come out here if you don’t have a confirmed seat,” Hodas said.

I suspect that people are a bit more forewarned this week, after seeing last week. I certainly would have been there significant hours earlier (and I’m concerned with some other critical tasks Jackie had to get done today before heading airportwards).

That said, if Frontier’s online boarding pass printing process is still as broken as it was last week, some of that good advice is for naught.

UPDATE (1:56p MST): Just got an IM from Jackie — she’s at the gate, no delays on the flight as yet! Huzzah!

UPDATE (2:20p MST): And her plane (well, the one she’ll be flying out on) has landed!

UPDATE (2:49p MST): And … she’s boarded. (Which means they’re running a bit behind, but …)

UPDATE (3:11p MST): And … away from the gate! And/or maybe in the air! Huzzah!

UPDATE (6:32p MST): And … she’s on the ground in California, picked up by Margie, and on her way here. Yay!