Watching the news on TV and reading the reports in newspapers I can nod, and confirm: yes, air travel is a bit messed up right now. Originally scheduled to return from the US to Germany on Thursday last week, 15th of April, I received my flight cancellation notification literally on my way to the airport. Fortunately I had a meeting half way to the airport when I received that message so that within what seems a few minutes I was rebooked on a flight on Saturday, April 17th.
After online check-in on the 16th, I was careful enough on the morning of the 17th to watch for flight status changes --especially given the discouraging news about continuing eruptions of volcano Eyjafjallajokull on Iceland. Certain enough, the flight cancellation was waiting for me early in the morning. Working two reservation hotlines on Skype (thank you, Skype-guys and -gals!) the one quoting the shorter wait time (16 minutes --or did she say 60 minutes?) came through after about 40 minutes of holding. Someone with sufficient authority at that airline should listen that long to their wait loop... Now I am rebooked for a flight tomorrow night (Wednesday, April 21st) and keep my fingers crossed that Eyjafjallajokull, winds, air traffic control, and airline let me get back home...
Downside: extended separation from my loved ones.
Upside: since I was "stuck" in Exton, my colleagues and I had extended time to stick our heads together. I hope that GC will demonstrate a few months down the development road that there are benefits to these types of collaborative thinking. "Preview" opportunity will be a usability lab at Be Together in Philadelphia next month.
PS: just for the curious reader: the longer wait time was quoted to be 180 minutes. 3 hours on that wait loop would have made me all loopy...
Post Post-Scriptum: Thanks to Wikipedia and bing.com here is Iceland with a volcanic underlay, and Eyjafjallajokull volcano's location on the island: