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Content warning: Though funny, this story can cause extreme travel anxiety in someone predisposed towards that. I think in the end the laughter wins over the anxiety, as you can always go "Wow, at least I've never had it /that/ bad!" in the end, but you be the judge. On to the story! :)
Oh, and a disclaimer: I'm extremely chill while traveling or interacting with customer service in any way. My dad is one of those "I demand to see the manager!" type of assholes and I have absolutely no time or patience for those folks. If you do that in front of me I may well punch you in the face. Just... don't be a dick.
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This story begins in Tucson, a few days before memorial day in 2011. The plan is to fly to Harrisburg, PA, for my nephew's graduation, especially since as the computer girl of the family, I've gotten him a nice laptop to take to off to college with him and want to see the big dumb grin on his face when he opens it. (Note: Luckily I had this laptop shipped directly to their house, as as we'll see, if I had attempted to bring it with me, goodness knows where it would have ended up.)
My original itinerary is Tucson to Chicago to Harrisburg, PA on American Airlines. I get to the airport early, as I always do, since as you'll see, I have /wonderful/ luck with air travel. When I arrive, I notice there's a lot of people in line, and kind of wonder to myself, "Is this an entire plane's worth of people? It sure looks like it! I wonder if this is /my/ plane's entire worth of people?" Turns out, it was!
I stand in line, waiting with my checked bag, and the line ends up moving super slowly, quite a bit more slowly than you would expect. Eventually, the folks in front of me give up and drive up to Phoenix (approximately 90 minutes away) to catch their international connection, and then even more eventually, a little lady comes running down the line, handing out little slips of paper with a phone number on them. She apologizes and says our flight has been cancelled, and to call the redress number to be re-booked as soon as possible.
Okay... I do this. I call the phone number, answering a million questions along the way, including the following:
* "What is your name?"
* "What is your birthdate?"
* "What is your social security number?"
* "What is the last digit of Pi?"
* "What is the solution to the Riemann hypothesis?"
Okay, I might be creatively mis-remembering those last few, but you get the point. :P
Eventually, it gets you to the point where it's going to put you on hold to talk to a person, and promptly gives me a busy signal, hanging up on me! There are so many people on hold that the system can't even put anyone else on hold anymore! Welp, guess I'll stand in line then.
I try this a few more times, and after about two hours, end up at the counter. The lady trying to help is more than a bit frazzled and just trying to do her best, but re-booking multiple aircrafts worth of people is clearly taking a tole. As usual, I'm kind and understanding, and wait patiently as she looks up my records and tries to figure out what she can do for me.
It takes a few minutes (the system is badly overloaded), but she eventually pulls up my records and informs me that:
1. My flight has been cancelled as an emergency measure. There have been significant hailstorms in both Chicago and Dallas, and American Airlines has 150+ planes down for safety inspections before they can fly again. Absolutely all non-essential routes have been cancelled and Tucson is sadly one of them.
2. She can't do anything to help me on American, but she can help me if I'm willing to take US Air and am willing to accept a /slight change in itinerary/.
I kind of side-eye her when she says this last bit, as the way she says it has me going, "Okay... hit me."
She then goes, "Okay, I can still get you (mostly) there /today/, but you'll have to take US Air and the following itinerary. Your new itinerary will be Tucson to Phoenix, Phoenix to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and finally Las Vegas to Philadelphia, to drive two hours to Harrisburg." (US Air doesn't fly into Harrisburg, so it's the best she can do.)
I somewhat reluctantly accept this, with half an hour connections all over the place, and race over to check my bag with US Air. I make it /all the way to Las Vegas/ and am /sitting on the plane that is going to take me to Philadelphia/, when, during final boarding, a passenger steps out of the way of an airline stewardess and trips, slamming into an emergency slide arming handle and snapping it off at the door. (These are the little grey plastic levels you'll see sticking out from the door when the plane is at the gate. The sticking-out position disarms the slide so the door can be opened without triggering them.)
Now, this is an emergency safety feature, the plane can't take off without it. The part is in Phoenix, and I could have brought it with me had I known, and I now have my second cancelled flight (probably third, as I imagine the Chicago to Harrisburg flight was also cancelled) in less than eight hours.
The crew apologized profusely and proceeds to de-board us, promising us overnight hotel coverage, as it's 5:30 PM in Las Vegas, and there are no further flights heading to the east coast tonight with seats available. They further say they're going to pull our bags off so we at least have our luggage tonight. (Cue drum roll?)
It is at this point, having just gotten off the plane, that I pull out my luggage tag so I can go get my bag, and read it for the first time. My name is /apparently/ Raul Castro, and I am traveling from Tucson to Kansas City to Cincinnati New York City, where we'll be in a minute???
With all the chaos, I skip the redress number and go straight to the counter for help, waiting in line for a while again because obviously there are a lot of people who need help. The nice lady who helps me pulls up my reservation, and as I see the screen flash up the record (reflected in her eyes), she chokes. It's a half laugh / half 'oh my god this person is going to kill me', and I quickly laugh and tell her it's okay, she can laugh at me, as I certainly am at this point. She is /so/ relieved, and winces as she tells me she can't get me there for another six days, as they have taken on so many people from American that they are completely booked for almost a week. She /can/, however, transfer me to yet another airline, and United (and United's small regional carrier) can get me there tomorrow by 10PM if I'm willing to travel from Las Vegas to Washington, DC to Philadelphia. (I should, at this point, point out that United flies directly into Harrisburg, but US Airways now has a contract from American Airlines to get me to Philadelphia now and can't change my final destination even though it would save me hours of car travel. ;_;)
I consider just getting a one-way rental car back to Tucson and abandoning this whole mess, as I'm actually further west than I started after more than 10 hours of travel, but I end up taking it. I overnight outside Las Vegas (not sleeping a wink because I'm so wired from the anxiety) and through a series of nasty flight delays, end up at Philadelphia at /3 o'clock in the morning/. I'm wiped, but my parents come out (they drove from Chicago to Harrisburg a few days prior) and pick me up, and we end up back at my sister's place in Hershey (near Harrisburg) around 5 AM. I immediately crash out and fall asleep, only to be woken up two hours later, because we are headed to New York City to go see Wicked and celebrate! I am so excited! (I think you might be able to actually /taste/ that sarcasm?)
I do my best to sleep in the van, and as we are about two miles from the exit, receive a call from LaGuardia that they have my luggage and we swing in. I walk in and walk out with my luggage five minutes later. Mission accomplished, right? I can sleep, right?
LOL, what kind of story did you think you were reading?
That night, the hotel room is much smaller than it's supposed to be (they screwed up the reservation) and I end up on an air mattress on the floor, which promptly goes flat on me and leaves me sleeping on the barely carpeted concrete floor. I sleep anyways (more or less), because I'm so fucking tired it doesn't matter anymore, and eventually (mostly) recover over the next couple of days.
Okay, so, we're almost done, right? Not quite. My dad, as previously mentioned, is a raging asshole, and drove out with my mom to PA, but then flew back immediately after the graduation, because he wanted nothing to do with the rest of the family and couldn't be arsed to drive back with her. (She had/has poor eyesight and can't drive herself safely.) I had agreed previously to do this, and so I ended up driving all the way back to Chicago with her. I then flew home from there and had no further issues. End of main story (though there's an appendix you should also read).
Ridiculously insane summary:
1. Not counting my return flight from Chicago to Tucson, I was scheduled on eight flights, sat down on six, took off on five, and my luggage took a separate three.
2. My final itinerary was Tucson to Phoenix, Phoenix to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, overnight in Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Dulles (Washington, DC), Dulles to Philadelphia, to drive two hours to Harrisburg, to drive to New York City, to drive back to Chicago, to fly back to Tucson.
3. I circled over the Pacific while landing in LA and ended up standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier (museum) in New York on the Atlantic less than 48 hours later.
4. I was in /21/ states in /six days/, and was in or flew over /29/ of them.
5. I did all of this on frequent flier miles.
6. RE: 5, holy shit did I get my money's worth out of those things!
Final note:
As I'm writing this, I'm on yet another of my /many/ #AirTravelAdventures, this time with Southwest, and am currently at my /second/ unexpected city for the day. The lesson here is that you shouldn't travel on the same plane as me, or the same airport, or even from the same city if you have a choice. /Absolutely/ drive 100+ miles away and fly out of /there/ so you're not affected by my absolutely insane travel chaos aura. D:
Appendix:
At the time this happened, I happened to work for a defense contractor and carry a security clearance. One of the requirements with those is that you must report all contact with the media and foreign nationals, whether unintentional or not. I ended up, in order:
1. Talking to the head of AP News's technology division on on of the earlier flights. (I had to apologize and stop talking to him immediately when I found this out.)
2. Talking to a Russian national (who had no accent actually) in Dulles. (I obviously apologized and stopped talking to him when I discovered this.)
3. Stuck directly in front of the Chinese consulate in Manhattan for over and hour due to a car crash (not involving us).
When I reported this, my security rep looked at me like I was insane, and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head by the time I was done telling this entire story. XD
Also, I am much happier out of defense for a variety of reasons, among those being able to talk to whoever the hell I want without worrying about how it will be seen. <3
EDIT: Fixed a few typos, as well as the year this happened. (Went back and checked my email archive and it was 2011 rather than 2013.)
Oh, and a disclaimer: I'm extremely chill while traveling or interacting with customer service in any way. My dad is one of those "I demand to see the manager!" type of assholes and I have absolutely no time or patience for those folks. If you do that in front of me I may well punch you in the face. Just... don't be a dick.
----------------------------------------
This story begins in Tucson, a few days before memorial day in 2011. The plan is to fly to Harrisburg, PA, for my nephew's graduation, especially since as the computer girl of the family, I've gotten him a nice laptop to take to off to college with him and want to see the big dumb grin on his face when he opens it. (Note: Luckily I had this laptop shipped directly to their house, as as we'll see, if I had attempted to bring it with me, goodness knows where it would have ended up.)
My original itinerary is Tucson to Chicago to Harrisburg, PA on American Airlines. I get to the airport early, as I always do, since as you'll see, I have /wonderful/ luck with air travel. When I arrive, I notice there's a lot of people in line, and kind of wonder to myself, "Is this an entire plane's worth of people? It sure looks like it! I wonder if this is /my/ plane's entire worth of people?" Turns out, it was!
I stand in line, waiting with my checked bag, and the line ends up moving super slowly, quite a bit more slowly than you would expect. Eventually, the folks in front of me give up and drive up to Phoenix (approximately 90 minutes away) to catch their international connection, and then even more eventually, a little lady comes running down the line, handing out little slips of paper with a phone number on them. She apologizes and says our flight has been cancelled, and to call the redress number to be re-booked as soon as possible.
Okay... I do this. I call the phone number, answering a million questions along the way, including the following:
* "What is your name?"
* "What is your birthdate?"
* "What is your social security number?"
* "What is the last digit of Pi?"
* "What is the solution to the Riemann hypothesis?"
Okay, I might be creatively mis-remembering those last few, but you get the point. :P
Eventually, it gets you to the point where it's going to put you on hold to talk to a person, and promptly gives me a busy signal, hanging up on me! There are so many people on hold that the system can't even put anyone else on hold anymore! Welp, guess I'll stand in line then.
I try this a few more times, and after about two hours, end up at the counter. The lady trying to help is more than a bit frazzled and just trying to do her best, but re-booking multiple aircrafts worth of people is clearly taking a tole. As usual, I'm kind and understanding, and wait patiently as she looks up my records and tries to figure out what she can do for me.
It takes a few minutes (the system is badly overloaded), but she eventually pulls up my records and informs me that:
1. My flight has been cancelled as an emergency measure. There have been significant hailstorms in both Chicago and Dallas, and American Airlines has 150+ planes down for safety inspections before they can fly again. Absolutely all non-essential routes have been cancelled and Tucson is sadly one of them.
2. She can't do anything to help me on American, but she can help me if I'm willing to take US Air and am willing to accept a /slight change in itinerary/.
I kind of side-eye her when she says this last bit, as the way she says it has me going, "Okay... hit me."
She then goes, "Okay, I can still get you (mostly) there /today/, but you'll have to take US Air and the following itinerary. Your new itinerary will be Tucson to Phoenix, Phoenix to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, and finally Las Vegas to Philadelphia, to drive two hours to Harrisburg." (US Air doesn't fly into Harrisburg, so it's the best she can do.)
I somewhat reluctantly accept this, with half an hour connections all over the place, and race over to check my bag with US Air. I make it /all the way to Las Vegas/ and am /sitting on the plane that is going to take me to Philadelphia/, when, during final boarding, a passenger steps out of the way of an airline stewardess and trips, slamming into an emergency slide arming handle and snapping it off at the door. (These are the little grey plastic levels you'll see sticking out from the door when the plane is at the gate. The sticking-out position disarms the slide so the door can be opened without triggering them.)
Now, this is an emergency safety feature, the plane can't take off without it. The part is in Phoenix, and I could have brought it with me had I known, and I now have my second cancelled flight (probably third, as I imagine the Chicago to Harrisburg flight was also cancelled) in less than eight hours.
The crew apologized profusely and proceeds to de-board us, promising us overnight hotel coverage, as it's 5:30 PM in Las Vegas, and there are no further flights heading to the east coast tonight with seats available. They further say they're going to pull our bags off so we at least have our luggage tonight. (Cue drum roll?)
It is at this point, having just gotten off the plane, that I pull out my luggage tag so I can go get my bag, and read it for the first time. My name is /apparently/ Raul Castro, and I am traveling from Tucson to Kansas City to Cincinnati New York City, where we'll be in a minute???
With all the chaos, I skip the redress number and go straight to the counter for help, waiting in line for a while again because obviously there are a lot of people who need help. The nice lady who helps me pulls up my reservation, and as I see the screen flash up the record (reflected in her eyes), she chokes. It's a half laugh / half 'oh my god this person is going to kill me', and I quickly laugh and tell her it's okay, she can laugh at me, as I certainly am at this point. She is /so/ relieved, and winces as she tells me she can't get me there for another six days, as they have taken on so many people from American that they are completely booked for almost a week. She /can/, however, transfer me to yet another airline, and United (and United's small regional carrier) can get me there tomorrow by 10PM if I'm willing to travel from Las Vegas to Washington, DC to Philadelphia. (I should, at this point, point out that United flies directly into Harrisburg, but US Airways now has a contract from American Airlines to get me to Philadelphia now and can't change my final destination even though it would save me hours of car travel. ;_;)
I consider just getting a one-way rental car back to Tucson and abandoning this whole mess, as I'm actually further west than I started after more than 10 hours of travel, but I end up taking it. I overnight outside Las Vegas (not sleeping a wink because I'm so wired from the anxiety) and through a series of nasty flight delays, end up at Philadelphia at /3 o'clock in the morning/. I'm wiped, but my parents come out (they drove from Chicago to Harrisburg a few days prior) and pick me up, and we end up back at my sister's place in Hershey (near Harrisburg) around 5 AM. I immediately crash out and fall asleep, only to be woken up two hours later, because we are headed to New York City to go see Wicked and celebrate! I am so excited! (I think you might be able to actually /taste/ that sarcasm?)
I do my best to sleep in the van, and as we are about two miles from the exit, receive a call from LaGuardia that they have my luggage and we swing in. I walk in and walk out with my luggage five minutes later. Mission accomplished, right? I can sleep, right?
LOL, what kind of story did you think you were reading?
That night, the hotel room is much smaller than it's supposed to be (they screwed up the reservation) and I end up on an air mattress on the floor, which promptly goes flat on me and leaves me sleeping on the barely carpeted concrete floor. I sleep anyways (more or less), because I'm so fucking tired it doesn't matter anymore, and eventually (mostly) recover over the next couple of days.
Okay, so, we're almost done, right? Not quite. My dad, as previously mentioned, is a raging asshole, and drove out with my mom to PA, but then flew back immediately after the graduation, because he wanted nothing to do with the rest of the family and couldn't be arsed to drive back with her. (She had/has poor eyesight and can't drive herself safely.) I had agreed previously to do this, and so I ended up driving all the way back to Chicago with her. I then flew home from there and had no further issues. End of main story (though there's an appendix you should also read).
Ridiculously insane summary:
1. Not counting my return flight from Chicago to Tucson, I was scheduled on eight flights, sat down on six, took off on five, and my luggage took a separate three.
2. My final itinerary was Tucson to Phoenix, Phoenix to Los Angeles, Los Angeles to Las Vegas, overnight in Las Vegas, Las Vegas to Dulles (Washington, DC), Dulles to Philadelphia, to drive two hours to Harrisburg, to drive to New York City, to drive back to Chicago, to fly back to Tucson.
3. I circled over the Pacific while landing in LA and ended up standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier (museum) in New York on the Atlantic less than 48 hours later.
4. I was in /21/ states in /six days/, and was in or flew over /29/ of them.
5. I did all of this on frequent flier miles.
6. RE: 5, holy shit did I get my money's worth out of those things!
Final note:
As I'm writing this, I'm on yet another of my /many/ #AirTravelAdventures, this time with Southwest, and am currently at my /second/ unexpected city for the day. The lesson here is that you shouldn't travel on the same plane as me, or the same airport, or even from the same city if you have a choice. /Absolutely/ drive 100+ miles away and fly out of /there/ so you're not affected by my absolutely insane travel chaos aura. D:
Appendix:
At the time this happened, I happened to work for a defense contractor and carry a security clearance. One of the requirements with those is that you must report all contact with the media and foreign nationals, whether unintentional or not. I ended up, in order:
1. Talking to the head of AP News's technology division on on of the earlier flights. (I had to apologize and stop talking to him immediately when I found this out.)
2. Talking to a Russian national (who had no accent actually) in Dulles. (I obviously apologized and stopped talking to him when I discovered this.)
3. Stuck directly in front of the Chinese consulate in Manhattan for over and hour due to a car crash (not involving us).
When I reported this, my security rep looked at me like I was insane, and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head by the time I was done telling this entire story. XD
Also, I am much happier out of defense for a variety of reasons, among those being able to talk to whoever the hell I want without worrying about how it will be seen. <3
EDIT: Fixed a few typos, as well as the year this happened. (Went back and checked my email archive and it was 2011 rather than 2013.)
