Yeah pretty envious of the guy who got that 7pm to MEM to a 9 hr overnight and back by 830am.

There is no stupid quite like my stupid in an A-period. Crossed eyes, ham fisted flying, and yelling "DUUAAAAAHHHHHHH" at every light that blinks.

Speaking of, my day 2 is an A-period. Wahoo!

Over the last 7 years I've been to Europe ~20 times, including quite a few during the height of summer, and all as a jumpseater or DCI (ie bottom of the barrel) and have only got stuck twice, both times for one day only (and one time it was thanks to ornery Air France agents at CDG, plane left with open seats). My advice is to look well beyond the Delta flights; I would get left behind >50% of the time if I only went on Delta. To/from BCN, you have DL to ATL & JFK, AA to MIA & JFK, US to PHL, Air Canada to YYZ, and UA to EWR. All of these are jumpseatable options, plus ZED if you have non-pilots with you. Most of these airlines also fly into Madrid, 3 hours away by high-speed rail.

But as a backup plan, get a ZED pass for KLM to Amsterdam, from which Delta has ~20 flights a day to the US. This is what my wife and I typically do as our primary plan as it's easier to connect through AMS than JFK or ATL. We've never *not* got on a flight on a European carrier...due to EU regulations that make denied boardings punitively expensive, they tend to not overbook flights, and you're often the only standby. If you're not willing to try the ZED thing, Vueling and EasyJet have cheap flights BCN-AMS (but watch out for their bag fees, higher than in the US).

The MD88 enforces the "runway clear zone." It cares, and it does not tolerate anything too close to the pavement it decides to mark as it's own. If there is a truck crossing too close to it's localizer antenna, it will try to take it on landing roll out.

Fortunately a MD88 can take a HMS Host Ford F350 junk food and newspaper delivery truck without damage. Wonder how many ground crews with belt loaders have been innocently blamed for acts of Douglas aggression?

"But Sir, there was twinkie filling near the door, it could not have been us"

disregard......

Did anyone see that Abu Dhabi is getting its own US Customs pre-clearance facility funded 80 percent by them? ALPA pac grass roots effort FAIL!!!! This was something small. If ALPA can't stop this, there's no way cabotage will be stopped.

Oh what, did you think your letters to Congress was going to make a difference? LOL He who has money makes the rules. UAE government has lots of money, and the US government thinks it has lots of money and in the interest of safety and security, the Abu Dhabi pre-clearance facility will happen.

Pretty freaking ridiculous considering not a single US airline flies there.

Thanks, actually trying to plan a trip to Ibiza which is not far from Barcelona, but definitely somewhere people only go in the summer

Great, thanks for all of the advice! Amsterdam would be a great option, I didn't think of that.

I went to Spain 2 years ago. Flew into MAD, spent a couple of days there, headed to Pamplona for the running of the bulls. Trains were all sold out to Pamplona, so we rented a car and drove. Pamplona is in the Pyrennes foothills and temps were 20 degrees cooler. After a couple of days there we drove to BCN and hung out for a few days there. When I realized we couldn't get out to either ATL or JFK, we took the high speed train back to MAD and got on in Business Elite back home.