rwy in sight
the airline industry has more back up plans than any civilian industry I can think of, except perhaps the electrical generation by nuclear power folks.
Overworked crews? Believe it or not crew duty times have been reduced by federal regulation. And most major airlines are hiring new pilots for a variety of reasons.
The question about the pilot and his response made me think. Perhaps he was pointing to his stripes so that he wouldn't have to yell across 30 feet HEY DUMMY I AM A PILOT AN DON"T KNOW HOW TO REBOOK YOU>
I would like to think even the most casual of travelers can tell the difference between a pilot and a ticket agent.
In all seriousness, would you ask a ticket agent who was on the plane, to land the plane if the pilots got sick? You could ask, but would you really think that they were trained to land the plane. Well, pilots are not trained to rebook. And pilots often use non verbal language like POINTING. Sometimes we do it in the cockpit for various things.
The main problem is the original poster expected everything to go perfectly. Most often planes do run on time and things go well. And you will almost always be treated the way you treat an airline worker.
IF the original poster had been given another flight 24 hours later it would not have worked for him.
To the poster who spoke of my reaction to getting served a bad product in some other industry, unless my life depended on it, I would be mildly inconvenienced . And I would get redress from the company in due time.
But come on. IF he had to get to Seattle, he could have driven to LUV field and tried to get there somehow via another airline. Things didn't work out and even ORBITs wouldn't go the extra mile for him.
Hey, even former president clinton just had an engine problem and things didn't go right.
Still waiting to hear from OP about a call today to get a refund.