I find it amusing, if not a little disturbing, to watch gate agents attempt to control the gate environment by withholoding key information about flights. Today, flying from La Guardia to Chicago O'Hare, I overheard a gate agent quietly telling a passenger that his 12 o'clock flight -- that's my flight too -- had been diverted due to medical reasons and that he would miss his connection to Frankfurt. She was attempting to put him on the earlier 11AM flight. Now, the monitors in the terminal still showed an on-time departure for the noon flight. No announcements had been made. Men with their briefcases and vacationers with their flip-flops lounged unawares in gate area.

This is a good reminder of one of my principles of travel: if you're at the airport and there's a plane there, take it. Even if yours appears to be on time, when it comes to air travel, a bird in the hand is better than one that hasn't even landed yet. After the agent helped the gentleman get a seat on the earlier flight, I sidled up to the podium and slid my 12 o'clock boarding pass across to the agent. "Any chance I can get on the standby list for the earlier flight?" A few keystrokes later and I got a departure management card.

I just cleared the list into first class on the 11AM flight five minutes ago. It's now posted as an 11:40AM departure and the noon flight is, well, still a noon flight. But we all know that's not going to happen. At least my plane is here.