Two Flights on Three Jets

 Mike, Nicole's husband, said it best--"Time to leave the red-eyes behind you Bob. That's a young man's game."

Truer words have not been written.

Broke Jet
Atlanta, GA
June 23, 2026

It was a plan and I thought it a good plan. We would get to spend a whole day in the Las Vegas area doing activities and then fly a red-eye to Atlanta and from there to West Palm Beach (PBI) on an early morning flight. It was a great plan, but it did not get executed as planned.

We had a great last day in Nevada. We left the hotel about noon and headed to Boulder City for lunch and a tour of the Hoover Dam. More about that in another blog later. After the dam tour we visited the Outpost 51 Alien Museum  and had a Blizzard at a Dairy Queen back in Boulder City on our way to the airport to begin our journey home. 

The initial flight on Jet #1 was perfect. It departed early and arrived early. I got a couple hours sleep and was not too groggy when we deplaned into Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson Airport at 4:46 AM. Our flight to PBI was scheduled to depart at 7:05 AM. 

We boarded Jet #2 on time and without incident. The jet pulled from the gate on time and that is when things went awry. We stopped on the tarmac for more than a few minutes before the pilot announced that there were engine fumes gathering in the aft portion of the cabin and that we were going to have maintenance check the aircraft, possibly deplane and wait for another jet. 

After a while the jet began moving. I hoped we were going to take-off, but that did not happen. We taxied for a long time before arriving at a new gate. Now for those familiar with Atlanta, we originally landed at gate F09 and traversed nearly the entire airport to gate A09 where we boarded the jet which ultimately broke. We subsequently taxied around Atlanta before arriving at E16. Time was passing. 

I felt the Delta crew and ground support were great. We deplaned and waited in the gate area for about 15 minutes before they announced we would be boarding another aircraft which was at the E18 gate. BUT, there was a problem. The pilots were fine, but two of the required 4 flight attendants needed to be replaced for an unspecified reason. That took well over an hour and then we were ready to board the Jet #3. 

Things went smoothly and we took-off and flew to PBI, landing just after a thunderstorm had forced a ground stop at the airport. That caused us to taxi around PBI a bit because the originally assigned gate had a jet still engaged because of the ground stop. Our bags were also slowed arriving in the terminal, but after being on three different jets, they arrived!

But all ended well. We got home about 2.5 hours later than we had planned. Tired, but happy to be hope. Even the high humidity of the post storm was welcome because we had been drying out and baking in Nevada. It was 106 degrees Monday while we were at the Hoover Dam.

Delta did a great job keeping us informed of the situation verbally at the gate and through messaging on our phones. Panic never ensued. I know that more than a few people were able to change their flight. It was a bit of a mess at PBI with our flight arriving so late.

I was a bit amazed that we boarded three jets to complete two flights. But I learned: no more red-eyes for Bob and Chris.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL