Southwest Airlines Flight 271

NOTE: This is a review of Southwest Airlines Flight 271, not of Southwest Airlines in general. Unilocal Oakland, please stop changing the names of the «businesses» I add. I know what I’m doing.
Far be it from me to overrate an atrocious flying experience, but it’s September 11, and while I generally feel like patriotism is just a euphemism for nationalism/​chauvinism/​jingoism/​militarism, we did sort of pull together. Not on a fateful Tuesday morning thirteen years ago. No, I’m talking about a Friday afternoon-​into-​evening a few days ago.
It was humbling. Weather-​induced delays always are. The flight got to Kansas City twenty minutes early, and I was shocked that only eight of us were continuing on to Chicago. I know that there are nonstop flights to Chicago, but who knew so many people lived in and visited Kansas City? When we arrived, they informed us that our departure would be delayed an hour because of bad weather, and right on cue, it starting pouring pouring pouring rain on the tarmac.
We were allowed to get off the plane and wander around the terminal. They assured us we would be boarded before everyone else, but I assumed we would still have to wait for the official boarding time. Nope. A friendly guy was stationed at the gate door, and all I had to do was flash my ID, and he let me on the plane. In fact, he remembered checking off my name when I left, so he let me in and addressed me by my last name without even looking at his list.
They boarded the plane all quick like because our pilot wanted to get us off the ground before Chicago stalled us again, but that didn’t work. Everyone was ready to go, and then Midway was telling planes that hadn’t taken off yet to stay put; the bad weather had traveled east of Chicago, but there was a huge backlog of planes to get through, and we either waited while connected to a gate at Kansas City or got to sit out on the tarmac at Midway.
Our pilot and flight attendants were super communicative. After an hour, they allowed anyone who wanted to to get off the plane again. I stayed put, but people weren’t being idiots; they were getting back on time, which meant we could leave within a few minutes of getting the go-​ahead. We got updates every twenty minutes or so. I fell asleep. The unoccupied seat next to me became occupied. After three hours of waiting, we were off, and everything went fine from there.
When I deplaned at Midway, we weren’t in one of the two usual Southwest terminals. No, they were using every gate available, so I was on the commuter side. (They were going to move the plane over to the correct terminal for the final leg of its journey down to Albuquerque, with a total of six through passengers on board.)
My dad was sitting there, as if nothing had happened. His direct, nonstop flight from LAX to Midway had been diverted to Milwaukee, and he had endured basically the same thing I had. He was serene, and he told me to sit down. I was worried that something had happened. But nothing had happened; he was just glad to see me, and his unexpected trip to Milwaukee happened to fall around the sixty-​year anniversary of his grandfather’s one and only plane ride, a trip from Los Angeles to Milwaukee in 1954. My dad had accompanied his grandpa on that trip and the train ride back, and despite the delays and frustrations of a typical bad-​weather day for Chicago airports, we just sat there and lost track of time until I realized we had to get to baggage claim.
Thank you, Southwest, for making what could have been a horrible experience that much more pleasant.