Outsmarting your airline

Last Friday, I was sitting at the San Diego airport, trying to figure out if my flight was going to be on time.

Of course, Continental thinks it will:

Being suspicious, I notice that there's no plane at the gate.

Where is it?

Aha, looks like we're waiting for flight 1726. Where's that? I'll check FlightAware:

Arriving 3:21. A bit later than the display at the gate is showing, and a total of 39 minutes late. And indeed, we took off almost exactly 39 minutes late.

Thanks to Joe Farrell for this idea.

Oh, and by the way: My company, Fog Creek Software, has paid internships in software development for qualified college students. They're in New York City. Free housing, lunch, and more. And you get to work on real, shipping software with the smartest developers in the business.

About the Author: I’m your host, Joel Spolsky, a software developer in New York City. Since 2000, I've been writing about software development, management, business, and the Internet on this site. For my day job, I run Fog Creek Software, makers of FogBugz—the smart bug tracking software with the stupid name, and Fog Creek Copilot—the easiest way to provide remote tech support over the Internet, with nothing to install or configure.

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