On my return flight, two of the three legs were delayed due to maintenance issues. In CLT, I already had about a four-hour layover for a 10:15 p.m. departure to DFW. I heard the deboarding pilot tell the boarding pilot about some maintenance issues so the fact of the delay wasn't surprising. The length was: about two hours. I was on the verge of seeing if they could book me CLT direct to PDX when they announced the problem was fixed and we would be boarding shortly. So I arrived at my DFW hotel about 2 a.m. They had already charged me for a no-show room, which they did reverse. Then in the morning, the flight from CLT to PDX, in addition to having SIX gate changes prior to boarding, was delayed about an hour.

There's no way I can get nonstop flights from the West Coast so these delays are just a fact of life.