Thunderstorms, Ground Holds, and a Midnight Repo
The last day of my most recent trip was supposed to be a marathon—four legs in one day, finishing with DCA → JFK → BOS. That was the plan, anyway. But as aviation loves to remind us, the plan is only a suggestion.
We woke up to a Northeast mess—storms, turbulence, delays stacking up everywhere. The first two legs were delayed but manageable; we got them done without much drama. It was the last two that turned into something completely different.
By the time we got to JFK, the EDCT pushed us more than two hours past our scheduled out time. That meant we sat in the airplane, watching the clock tick by while clearance and ATC funneled flights into narrow escape corridors—essentially one open routing trickling traffic northwest. Anything headed through New York Center’s airspace was at a standstill. Staffing shortages combined with weather made for a gridlock of epic proportions.
We stayed in the aircraft the entire time, waiting for updates that never really improved. Operations, gate agents, even customer service kept coming up the jet bridge asking why we hadn’t boarded passengers yet, and each time we explained: there’s no point locking 70+ people in a tube without any idea when we’ll move. After more than two hours of sitting, we got word that American was running out of gates at DCA and needed ours. A ramp agent came up, saying we’d have to deplane so that they could tow the airplane off the gate.
That was the turning point. The captain got on the phone with the company to confirm the game plan, and just as we were packing up to deplane, the call came: DCA–JFK is canceled, so is JFK–BOS, and turn this into a repo flight direct from DCA to BOS. Suddenly, I was looking at my very first reposition flight—one of those little “firsts” that sneak up on you. This repo was relatively hassle-free since we had our flight attendants onboard who did all the cabin prep, and the ground crew had already checked out the cargo compartments.
Honestly, it was pretty fun. No passengers, just us and the flight attendants. We filed a westbound route just to escape DCA’s traffic and then circled back toward Boston. Flying an empty jet feels different—light, responsive, almost jumpy—and the captain warned me about how easy it is to plop it onto the runway in the last 10 feet if you’re not ready. With his heads-up, the landing turned out fine.
We rolled into BOS about two and a half hours behind schedule, right around 1 AM. Company arranged a Lyft to my car, and just like that, the trip wrapped.
It wasn’t the plan, but that’s aviation. Flexibility is part of the job, and sometimes the “unplanned” flights turn into the most memorable ones.