I used to commute from SEA to BOS and had a few good stories because of it. My worst was when I had to go through Cananda. I almost always took the red-eye, Alaska and JetBlue had them just a few minutes apart, and I could almost always get on one of them. Well, one night it wasn't looking like it was going to happen, both were full with lots of standbys listed. I looked at all my other options, and everything was full that night. The only thing that looked possible was going through Canada. All this planning was last minute, and I was only listed for the direct flights that weren't going to happen. So, first leg, on to Calgary on Horizon. No problems there, showed up and got on. Once I got to Calgary, I had an hour wait to go to Toronto on Air Canada. Found the gate agent about a half hour before the flight and my troubles started. They couldn't find me in their system (not CASS at the time) and had to have the pilots call their dispatch and get me okayed the old fasioned way. Made the flight about 10 minutes late because of it, and the pilots weren't happy at all. I should have been listed blah blah. I would have liked to, but I didn't know I was going to try to be on the flight untill I left SEA. Anyways, I get to Torronto. I have about two hours, the plane leaves at 7:30 and its about 5:30am. I fight my way to the Air Canada ticket counter and talk to the gate agent. She says that she has no way of listing me, I have to call the 800 number to list. I call the 800 number, it says to call back after 8am, they aren't open until then. Well, that won't work. Stand in line again to talk to the gate agent. She tries a bunch of stuff, but says again that I have to be listed over the phone. She sends me to the manager on the other side of the terminal. Finaly get to the manager and she is able to get me the ticket, it is now about 7:10, and I still have customs and security to go through. Anyways, I manage to get through both to run up to the gate right as they are closing the doors. I was within about 15-20 sec of not making it. Finally, get to boston about 45 minutes before my show time to fly a 1900 around all day.
Also, any time you commute over the red eye and are stuck in a jumpseat and they won't let you sleep. Then have to fly people around all day on no sleep.
Or the time going home that I got bumped off two planes in Boston (I was sitting on the direct flight home and they bumped me off). Finaly took a Jet Blue jumpseat to Long Beach or something to get bumped off two more flights (I was sitting in the plane and they had to have me get off again). Finaly found a plane to take me to Vegas, where I knew that they had a 12:10am or something flight back to SEA, got on that and managed to get to SEA at 2 something am so that I could wait a few more hours to get the airporter to my car. Had I been on the direct that I was sitting on, I would have been at home at 9am the prevous day.
Yah, commuting sucks.