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Report: Delta bumps entire flight to get Florida to UConn

Southern v Florida

GAINESVILLE, FL - NOVEMBER 18: Guard Eli Carter #1 of the Florida Gators drives up court against the Southern Jaguars November 18, 2013 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center in Gainesville, Florida. The Gators won 67-53. (Photo by Al Messerschmidt/Getty Images)

Al Messerschmidt

There isn’t a more frustrating time to travel than Thanksgiving weekend, and on Sunday afternoon, about 50 Delta customers learned that the hard way.

Florida was scheduled to fly from Gainesville to Connecticut for their Monday night game against the UConn Huskies on Sunday afternoon, but the plane they were supposed to take was grounded by mechanical issues. So in order to make sure that the team got to Storrs on time, Delta managed to find them a new aircraft, one that was supposed to carry a full load of people to Atlanta.

Delta cancelled flight 5059, according to the Gainesville Sun.

They told the people that bought tickets that there was a mechanical delay, and then decided to load up the Gator basketball team close enough to the gate that some of those stranded passengers were able to see them getting on the plane.

I would have been livid:

People were upset as they scrambled to rearrange their travel schedules and some had to be driven to airports in Jacksonville, Orlando and Tampa to catch other flights, she said. A passenger who was moving from Salt Lake City to New Jersey was going to miss the moving truck, so he had to find someone else to meet the driver instead. A student’s father had to drive her to Atlanta so she wouldn’t miss an event she needed to make. Another passenger missed a funeral.

“It just felt like the wrong decision made by somebody who didn’t think it through,” she said.


Florida’s SID told the paper that the program had no idea that a flight was cancelled and that they have no control over which place they are placed on.

The Gators ended up losing on Monday night. They got Shabazz’d. If that’s not karmic vengeance at its finest, than I don’t know what is.

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