Flights for 2026 Summer Trip to the Rocky Mountains

A post about the flights that carried me between Boston and Albuquerque for my 2026 summer trip to the Rocky Mountains, when, for the first time in all my years of travel, I ever missed a flight.

Background

Throughout the past few years, I have visited the Rocky Mountains on numerous occasions, though all of these trips occurred toward the end of summer,when only sparse patches of snow lingered on the peaks. I therefore resolved to head to the Rockies over the 2026 Independence Day holiday, a date that seemed perfectly calibrated: early enough in the season for abundant snow to still crown the mountains, yet late enough that sufficient melting had occurred to pose no difficulties for my hiking adventures.

Moreover, I had been renting an apartment outside Boston, with a lease set to expire on June 23. As a result, I prepared two sets of refundable tickets from Boston to Albuquerque, one departing Tuesday the 23rd, the other Saturday the 27th. My plan was straightforward: if I could renew my current unit under favorable terms, I would do so and fly out on Saturday, making this one of my typical week-long trips. Otherwise, I would end the lease, fly out on the 23rd, and move into a new place early July, thereby skipping a few days of rent.

It turned out that despite my current apartment's very high vacancy rates, the management demanded a substantial rent increase for my current unit. Intriguingly, while browsing their website, I discovered several units similar to mine listed at considerably lower rates. I inquired whether I might "transfer" my lease to one of these new units with a delayed move-in date of July 5; to my surprise, they agreed. Thus materialized my grand scheme: I would rent a storage unit within the apartment complex, shuttle all my possessions there and check out on June 23, then commence my new, cheaper lease on July 5 with my belongings instantly at hand. Moving my things between the unit and storage would be trivial,what could possibly go wrong?

As with all my trip, I gravely overestimated my packing ability. Despite having begun packing sporadically two weeks prior, and having dedicated the entire weekend of June 20–21 to the endeavor, I found myself far behind schedule on the evening of June 22. Consequently, after only three hours of sleep that night, I was still frantically maneuvering wagon carts throughout the building on the morning of the 23rd. In the end, I surrendered the keys to my old unit at 7:45am, armed with two suitcases and facing a 9:01am flight.

Given that it was a Tuesday morning with predictable traffic, I opted for my usual method of taking the subway to the airport. By 8am I reached the airport subway station, where the information board showed the next shuttle was in 2 minutes. It turned out to be an 8-minute wait, and the shuttle dropped me off at the terminal at 8:16am, precisely the baggage drop deadline for American Airlines. Thus, I experienced the first missed flight of my life. Naturally, I attributed this entirely to Boston's misleading and incompetent airport shuttle service; it surely had nothing to do with my catastrophically delayed overnight packing. Additionally, by the time I reached American’s check-in desks, there were long lines snaking through both the priority and regular queues. Had it been a few minutes earlier, I would have aggressively cut to the front to make the deadline. But since I was already late, I abandoned any such thought.

Originally, I was ticketed as

• AA479 BOS 0901 – DFW 1223
• AA9 DFW 1427 – ABQ 1517

The agent behind the desk proved remarkably helpful, offering to rebook me on the next available flight to Albuquerque free of charge. Unfortunately, since all flights from Boston to Dallas were sold out, he could only arrange a connection via Phoenix:

• AA377 BOS 1200 – PHX 1440
• AA1351 PHX 1606 – ABQ 1819

The Phoenix-bound flight was already delayed by more than two hours (likely contributing to the saleout of Dallas flights), though this still left sufficient time to make my connection. Worse case scenario, as the agent put it, there was a late-night flight from Phoenix to Albuquerque as a final backup.

June 23: Flights to Albuquerque

Unfortunately, while chilling out in the lounge, I received notification that due to maintenance, my flight to Phoenix was further delayed till late afternoon, rendering my connection impossible. Ordinarily, I would have called American Airlines at this juncture, but surprisingly, the app prompted me to select a different flight directly, and somehow it worked. (This considerably defied my stereotype of their antiquated IT systems; they must have invested in digital infrastructure over the years.)

While the delays so far hadn’t had a significant impact on me, I had a strong financial incentive to make it to Albuquerque before the airport rental shop with my reservation closed at 10pm. Failing that, I would be forced to spend the night in Albuquerque (rather than the hotel I had booked in Santa Fe), and a last-minute rental reservation would prove far more expensive. Fortunately, one (and only one!) viable option remained:

• AA1610 BOS 1201 – ORD 1404
• AA2257 ORD 1459 – DFW 1743
• AA2698 DFW 1844 – ABQ 1937

This itinerary featured two tight connections, so everything must pan out perfectly. Nonetheless, it was my best option.
By the way, American Airlines offered numerous alternative routings to Santa Fe, which was where I needed to be that evening. But since I had to pick up the rental car in Albuquerque, I had to pass those off.
Additionally, since the delay of AA377 had crossed a certain threshold, American Airlines issued me a meal voucher, which I happily redeemed in Chicago.

American Airlines 1610
Boston, MA (BOS) - Chicago O'Hare, IL (ORD)
Boeing B737-Max8 (N306UH)
Seat 21B
Scheduled Departure - 12:01pm
Actual Departure    - 12:12pm
Scheduled Arrival   - 2:04pm
Actual Arrival      - 1:27pm
2 hours and 15 minutes

Fortunately, the first two of the three legs of my flights departed largely on time, and arrived significantly early. Most notably, after landing in Chicago, I found my connecting flight was just two gates away, with a McDonald's in between them. As if there was divine intervention in orchestrating the exact spot where I might redeem my meal voucher.

American Airlines 2257
Chicago O'Hare, IL (ORD) - Dallas Fort Worth, TX (DFW)
Boeing B737-800 (N831NN)
Seat 9B
Scheduled Departure - 2:59pm
Actual Departure    - 3:11pm
Scheduled Arrival   - 5:43pm
Actual Arrival      - 5:12pm
2 hours and 1 minutes

For my next leg to Dallas, the tray table hadn't been cleared of biscuit wrappers from previous passengers. Not that I minded much, I caught a surprisingly restorative sleep along the way, likely making up for the overnight packing earlier.

The early arrival of my Dallas-bound flight left me with some time to unwind in Capital One's Lounge before my connection to Albuquerque, whose boarding gate was conveniently located right next door.

Unfortunately, just as I left the lounge at 6:09pm and made my way to the gate, I received a notification that the flight would be delayed by an hour, as American Airlines wanted to wait for connecting passengers(, which initially struck me as surprising since there was another flight to Albuquerque later that night). A chat with the gate agent revealed that they were waiting for 45 connecting passengers from Madrid, whose flight had been delayed by 2 hours. This really cut into my rental car margin. What puzzled me the most was that American Airlines should have known about the Madrid flight's delay 10 hours earlier, yet had seemingly done nothing until the last moment.
Fortunately, by that point the Madrid flight had already landed, and we simply had to wait for those passengers to clear immigration and customs, a process with a fairly predictable timeline.

American Airlines 2698
Dallas Fort Worth, TX (DFW) - Albuquerque, NM (ABQ)
Boeing B737-800 (N301NW)
Seat 8B
Scheduled Departure - 6:44pm
Actual Departure    - 8:21pm
Scheduled Arrival   - 7:37pm
Actual Arrival      - 8:50pm
1 hour and 29 minutes

Once airborne, there was a weather system in northern Texas, so we took a less direct route to Albuquerque. Nonetheless, we reached the gate in Albuquerque just before 9pm. Then, with typical American Airlines baggage handling inefficiency, I retrieved my two bags from the carousel 20 and 27 minutes after gate arrival. Fortunately, unlike in Boston, Albuquerque's "knowledgeable and professional" shuttle drivers (as the PA put it) got me to the rental car center just before closing, and I successfully retrieved my reserved car.
In the end, I arrived in Albuquerque about 6 hours late, with about half the time attributable to my heavily delayed packing Boston Airport's unreliable shuttle, and half to American Airlines' operational woes. But since they eventually got me to Albuquerque, I wouldn't complain and would consider the day to have ended on a merry note.

July 5: Flights from Albuquerque

Fast forward to July 5. My original itinerary had me flying home on the evening of July 4:

• AA1355 ABQ 1935 - PHX 1955
• AA2701 PHX 2145 - BOS 0541+1

The schedule suited me perfectly. I would be driving back from South Fork, Colorado to Albuquerque on July 4, and after the redeye, I would have the entire day of July 5 to check into and furnish my new apartment. Not surprisingly, given American Airlines' habit of canceling redeyes on major holidays, those flights were axed. By then, I had already locked in my July 5 lease start date, so I had to rebook on the earliest flights the morning of July 5 to make it back in time.

So on the morning of July 5, I dragged myself out of my hotel bed at 3:30 am, an early rising that also meant an early bedtime the night before, forcing me to miss the Independence Day fireworks. After returning the rental car, there was no line for security at Albuquerque, and everything proceeded smoothly, we even took off a few minutes ahead of schedule.

American Airlines 1231
Albuquerque, NM (ABQ) - Dallas Fort Worth, TX (DFW)
Boeing B737-800 (N339PL)
Seat 3F
Scheduled Departure - 5:24am
Actual Departure    - 5:21am
Scheduled Arrival   - 8:20am
Actual Arrival      - 7:40am
1 hour and 19 minutes

Here's GPS tracking:

 

As for the flight itself, the charging port next to my seat wasn't functional, together with the front lavatory. Not that I cared, I spent most of the flight trying to catch some sleep.

 

Here's a video of the landing:

For my next flight to Boston, there were 58 empty seats on the 190-seat A321, but 52 were listed on the upgrade list, speaking of the elite density in Dallas.

American Airlines 1595
Dallas Fort Worth, TX (DFW) - Boston, MA (BOS)
Airbus A321 (N185UW)
Seat 8A
Scheduled Departure - 10:22am
Actual Departure    - 10:31am
Scheduled Arrival   - 3:10pm
Actual Arrival      - 2:45pm
3 hours and 14 minutes

Here's GPS tracking:

Here's a video of the takeoff:

Here's a video of the landing:

Overall, it was an uneventful flight from Dallas to Boston, which concluded this trip to the Rocky Mountains.
END