AA was really hammered this week - first that computer crash, then bad weather on Wednesday and Thursday in Chicago caused a lot of delays and cancellations. When we landed Thursday afternoon from our flight from London they had shut down a runway due to the wind so we circled for awhile. We stayed at the Hilton at OHare to break up the trip and the wind was howling all night.

But there is no excuse for the ramp guys not to load the valet bags for an hour or so despite repeated calls from the pilot. The de-icer was there right away but had to leave since they couldn't close up the plane and then when they did it took forever for them to come back.

There were myriad delays and cancellations in addition to our flight on Friday - lots of maintenance delays on those old regional jets.