Change in Flight Plans

The Big Bird to LA I'm going to be on January 7th, 2015

As regular followers of this blog (and aren't you lucky?) know I have planned a get away trip to Los Angeles on January 7th with my Canadian buddy Pat.  We'll be in Los Angeles for ten days, making ourselves available for discovery.  Never too late I say. Pat's already working as an extra in movies that film in Toronto so we have an "in" but I digress.

I'm meeting Pat in Los Angeles the morning of January 7th.  Pat was taking a direct flight from Toronto to Los Angeles. I was taking a direct flight from Philadelphia, PA.

Well, we have been informed that our flight plans have changed.  Pat now has a stopover in Chicago.  On the way back he has a stop over in Philadelphia.  So he had this wonderful idea that I could change my flight going back (on U.S. Airways, he's flying Air Canada - of course, what else would he be flying? Korean Air?)  

I called U.S. Air.  I could change my flight so we would leave at the same time on the 17th but it would cost me an extra $200 plus I would have to pay the difference in price of the ticket.  My original going back ticket was $191.  The new ticket would be $797.  Well, that kills that.  I'm doing alright but not that good that I have to put out another $700 just to fly back on the SAME plane as Pat, and there was no guarantee that we would even be sitting together.  So, Pat will be leaving 7:30 A.M. for Philly and I'll be leaving at about 10:30 A.M.  Oh well.

Now here is the really interesting part.  I checked my reservation, which I made a couple of months ago (in the summertime, that's how I got the low price of $191 - NON-REFUNDABLE).  The airplane I catch in Philly is coming from . . . are you ready for this?   

Tel Aviv, Israel

ARE.YOU.KIDDING.ME?  

I hope I'm not on an El Al flight - I don't think so but they've already changed my flight plans once

Even better, my flight going back to Philly, the ending destination if also 

Tel Aviv, Israel

Philly is just a stopover both ways.  How did this happen?  When I made my reservation it was for a plane leaving Philly to LA and then back to Philly as the ending destination.  

So you see the obvious here don't you?  I'm going to be on a flight that originates in the Number One Terrorist Destination In The World.  And yes, my ticket is NON-REFUNDABLE.  

And I thought I had a long flight - there's going to be a lot of grumpy folks on that plane

But you know what folks?  The more I think about it, and this was confirmed by my neighbor this morning when I was crying to him about it: If you going to get on a flight what is the safest possible flight you could get on? 

One that is going to or from Israel.  I think he has a point.  

At least this is what I'm telling myself.  Just in case I reminded Bill that I do have a $200,000 travel insurance policy.