Yesterday I flew cross country to Alabama. I arrived extra early in anticipation of my full flight and going through security (which only ended up taking 20 minutes). After a short delay, we eventually boarded the plane. Much to the surprise of everyone on the plane, the flight attendant came on the loud speaker: "Direct service to Dallas Ft. Worth, via a stop in Ontario." What? Ontario, did she say Ontario? No big deal, Ontario is also a California city and only an 11 minute plane ride, but definitely was not on the flight schedule I had reserved. The captain then informed us that because our flight was full to the max, we were too heavy to gain enough speed on the shorter runway at Burbank Airport to make it over the large mountain at the end, and couldn't even fill up the plane's tank completely. So, we were off to Ontario to fill up the tank the rest of the way (40,000 gallons according to the captain) and use their much longer (and mountain free) runway. When we took off from Burbank we immediately made a very, VERY sharp u-turn and cruised along Los Angeles at a really low altitude -- very bizarre. Like riding in a helicopter or something, it felt like we were that low! After arriving late to Dallas I fortunately didn't miss my connection like lots of others on my flight. But, I did get to ride through a lightning storm on a small commuter plane into Alabama. Not fun at all.

Very glad to be safe on the ground again.