Jim, my copilot, peered at the computer screen as I tapped the appropriate codes onto the keyboard. We both glanced at the green display that appeared. Yup … our airplane was late as usual-almost 40 minutes. We were departing La Guardia, flying to Miami, and then on to Port of Spain in Trinidad. Little did I know that the delay had set in motion a chain of events that would haunt us until the very end of our two-day trip. Our tardy departure was about to begin a domino effect.
The airplane was arriving from Miami and had left late because of typical weather flow control delays through Washington Center airspace. Fortunately, the same airplane would be used for our thru-flight to Port of Spain. That would eliminate the drill of packing up our flight nest and bag-dragging to another gate when we arrived in Miami. But we still had one minor problem.
