My wife and I were waiting near the departure gate at a miniature regional airport in Louisiana when the announcement blared: “Due to weather in Atlanta, your scheduled flight will not be disembarking for 15 minutes.” Dismayed by the news, we exchanged worried looks and prepared for the worst. We had two further connections to make after Atlanta, where we’d be dealing with a layover of 1 hour and 20 minutes. It wasn’t lost bags or missed connections that concerned us; it was the wedding in Scotland to which we’d been invited.

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