AAMAS-16: Rebooking + Austin to Dallas

This series is written by Katie about her trip to AAMAS 2016 in Singapore, Singapore.

The day before departure, American Airlines canceled my DFW to HKG flight due to weather. Based on the other routes that were still operating out of both Dallas and Hong Kong – and the fact that the plane was rather empty 26 hours out – it seems they actually canceled it due to a low load.

After spending three hours rebooking, I had a later departure from Austin and was flying AUS-DFW-LHR-KUL – still arriving early enough to (hopefully) catch my Malindo Air flight to SIN. Multiple other more preferable options – such as flying into SIN, flying Qatar, and flying British Airways AUS-LHR – were all shot down as ‘impossible’ by even a supervisor.

I left the apartment at 9:45am and headed to the library for its 10am opening. Although my held Lonely Planet Pocket Singapore (which showed to be in transit online) was not out on the hold shelves, I asked and they kindly looked through four transport boxes before finding it. This gave me a smaller guide book, and allowed me to return the non-renewable one that was due in a few days.

After leaving the library, I headed to campus, parked my car in my garage, struggled to get the driver’s side door to lock, and walked to take the 100 Flyer to the airport.

The bus arrived at the airport just before 11:30am. I quickly checked my suitcase and obtained boarding passes to DFW and LHR (but not KUL – which was only strange because it printed when I checked in online).

I could have went to the Admiral’s Club, but instead decided to walk back and forth across the airport a few time to get my daily step count up to 6,000 by the time I boarded the plane to Austin.

I noticed as Executive Platinum and Platinum were boarding that my free under-500-mile upgrade had cleared. I went to the counter and got my new 5E boarding pass from a cheery gate agent.

This Super 80 had much more comfortable seats than normal. One negative though was that the aisle seats had a support bar right in front of your feet. This made it impossible to put anything bigger than a messenger bag at your feet without encroaching on the leg room of the window seat.

Shortly after takeoff, the First Class flight attendant distributed napkins and then came around with the snack basket. There were many good looking options but I opted for GinnyMinis Coconut Oatmeal Bliss cookies and Boulder Canyon Sea Salt kettle chips. The cookies were particularly good, likely due to the coconut flakes.

I opted for diet coke during the drink service. The flight attendant for the first class cabin was curt but extremely efficient – which is really what you need for such a short flight.

Shortly after I finished my drink, the plane began its decent into DFW. Overall, a really nice short flight!

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