Idiocy of air travel

I flew out to Pittsburgh this weekend to re-visit the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. The flight to Pittsburgh was delayed two hours so my scheduled 7:10pm flight became a 9:10pm flight. There was another flight scheduled to leave at 9:00pm, also for Pittsburgh, which was running on time. After an announcement that the 9pm plane was not full, most of the people (including me) on the delayed 7:10pm flight rebooked onto the 9pm flight. At 9:10 they began boarding both flights simaltaneously. The delayed 7:10 flight was now practically empty, with fewer than 50 passangers booked, so I ran back to the counter and rebooked again, back onto the 7:10 flight.

I arrived in Pittsburgh at about 10:40 and headed straight to the tram that runs between the flight terminal and the baggage/ticket terminal. The tram broke down and we were stuck for about 20 minutes. Since we were in a tunnel our cell phones didn't work and no one was answering the emergency call button. Eventually the tram re-started and we made it to the baggage terminal.

I immediately headed outside to grab the bus into Oakland (a neighborhood in Pittsburgh) and watched one depart just as I got there. 30 minutes in the cold and another bus arrived (it's now a bit past 11:30pm). Who turns out to be on the bus? A former student of mine from when I was an economics TA who now hates his job in finance.

I did manage to get to my host MS1's apartment around 1am. I left my apartment at 5:10pm. That's almost eight hours and I didn't even leave the state.