The early bird ... gets delayed

Stumbled out of the gate on today's race west -- all Delta flights from BWI to ATL delayed, currently by an hour.

Many apologies to my good friends John and Barbara for unnecessarily rushing to the airport, and thanks for delivering me promptly to the departure unloading zone! ( I never know about airlines.)

TSA "randomly"chose me for the new mandatory patdown inspection. After four decades -- yes, the first time was in '73 -- I don't even bother to get irritated.

Update at 2:03 Eastern time

Good news -- Delta's scheduled 8:10 has departed for Atlanta, only 5 1/2 hours late. Bad news: Southwest has flat cancelled their flight. On hold waiting for a rep to look for a new direction in my wanderings.

Update at 3:30 p.m. Eastern time

Delta 1495 is on its way north, schedule to leave Baltimore about 5 p.m. The usually optimistic airline schedules show arrival in Atlanta's Terminal E about 50 minutes before the scheduled departure of the flight to San Jose from Terminal A. Jetway sprint time?

Update at 10:15 pm Eastern time

Memo to Delta Airlines. Re: Best practices for customer management. Corporate reputations depend on customer interaction experiences under stressful conditions. The worst outcome for both parties is one that forces repeated encounters to address the same issue.

 For the company, many employees waste time and communications resources, often at cross purposes, until the hapless dancers in the bureaucratic Caucus Race collapse at the sill of the Person Who Know How To Work The System ... thereby adding unnecessary stress to said Person's work experience. For the customer, the apparently incomplete and inaccurate guidance appears as corporate incompetence and -- even worse -- a refusal to consider the customer's issue as a serious matter.

Noted while browsing the twitterverse for options that United has at least gone to the trouble of stationing dogs in the boarding areas to calm stressed passengers. Not much, but more than I've seen from Delta this evening.

On standby with a long list of other marooned souls for departure at 11:37 pm.

Update at 02:10 Pacific time

Well, I made it -- and in style, last standby chosen, with cheers and best wishes of the season from the remaining marooned travelers in Atlanta. Even better,  the seat was one of the three that are just behind the 757's main door; I had miles of leg room, and was first off the plane when we arrived!

Still unresolved, whether my checked bag was delivered here, or went on to San Jose without me.