Chengdu Trip #7 - Still stuck at LAX, part 2

What a frigging disaster. Right now it's 9am Friday morning and I'm sitting in room 550 of the Westin LAX. That's right, LAX. What's worse, there's no free Internet so I have to upload this after I get back to the oneworld lounge.

Anyway, after sitting around the lounge for an extra hour last night, I overheard some people from China next to me talking about "hotel" and "tomorrow morning." I went to the counter and they were telling us to either wait for a Cathay representative to come to the lounge or go back to the ticket counter. I went back out to the main terminal and there was a huge line of people. Since it was already 2:30am, there were only 3 counters open so I would probably be still in line if not for my super duper AAdvantage card. Here's what it says on the hotel voucher/letter they gave us:

Dear Valued Customer,

Cathay Pacific Airways regrets to inform you that your flight CX881, scheduled to depart Los Angeles (LAX) at 01:05 AM on March 13, 2009 is not delayed due to ill [sic] of Cockpit Crew Member.

From what I heard, the First Officer is not available so they have to wait for a replacement to fly in from Hong Kong. The flight now won't depart until 2:00pm and arrive in Hong Kong at 8:15pm. I made them look up the schedule in Hong Kong and found out that the last Dragonair flight to Chengdu leaves at 7:00pm. They said they will try to find a flight on another airline or pay for another night's stay at a hotel in Hong Kong so I can get on the Sunday morning flight to Chengdu. At first, I thought of going home and trying this again tomorrow but I left my car & house keys with Leon and I didn't want to wake him up. I ended up getting the hotel voucher for the Westin so here I am. I guess it's not too bad since my schedule wasn't too tight. I also didn't check anything in so I had all my luggage; a lot of people only had their carry-on. The only bad thing is that I had to burn a vacation day for nothing.


Line to check in at 3:30am.


Room at the Westin LAX

BTW, they also gave us a food voucher for $20. I just had their breakfast buffet. It was pretty lame compared to breakfast at Asian hotels (it was better than Jinghou Hotel though) and cost $21 + tax. Time for a quick nap before heading back to LAX for round 2.