We finally made it home! I think both my husband and I breathed a collective sigh of relief when we pulled into our driveway just about two hours ago. We were supposed to be here last night and I had all sorts of things running around into my mind to post about but, we seem to be cursed by the airline elves.
We set out on our homeward journey more than 24 hours ago. After one exceedingly long cross country flight, all we had to do was to make our connection for just an hour long flight to our local airport from the hub of my now least favorite airline who shall remain nameless (unless I lose my resolve to be the better person by the end of my ranting post). Unfortunately, our plane was rerouted around a storm so we came in about twenty minutes late but we still had 30 minutes to make our connection. We caught a shuttle to the other terminal where our plane was and after running like madmen with two very exhausted boys in tow, we made it to our gate with the plane still there and the door still open. We handed over our boarding passes and the man looked at them and said, "I just gave your seats away to revenue customers. You'll have to rebook." We begged that since we were actually there and the door was still open, they could not do that especially as our poor kids were lying on the floor both sobbing that they wanted to go home and go to bed. How often do two and four year olds ask to go to bed? Not good... The oh so courteous gate agent ran away, closed the door, and was seen no more. On a side note, aren't all customers revenue producing? I mean, I distinctly remember paying quite a bit for these tickets and that, by definition, is revenue... Yup, fuzzy logic here for sure. Customer service tried to make them reopen the door but when they made the gate agent come out from his hiding place, he still wouldn't and by this time, the plane was ready to pull away and customer service did not want to pull off the people they had allowed to board in our stead. In some ways, I understand their quandary as fixing their mistake would have ticked off eight people instead of only four. So, the airline decided that they would give us vouchers for some food and a hotel and send us home today instead. I am quite thankful that at least we didn't have to pay for our room though. So finally we are home! Yay!
Sadly though, this kind of thing seems to happen to us proportionally more than average. When we were leaving on our trip, we were delayed so our hour and a half layover turned into a several hour one. Luckily, we were able to find an outlet so the kids could watch a movie and pretty soon, I noticed that we were entertaining more than just our own children. Apparently, the "Clone Wars" cartoons can catch the attention of bored adults too and any kids in the near vicinity.
When I flew in February, the plane coming in was delayed so I wasn't going to make my connection so the boys and I flew out the next day and we hadn't left yet so we weren't stranded. However, on the way back, the airline did somehow manage to lose my stroller for several days which I had gate checked. All they had to do was take it from the gate and put it on the plane which was at most a distance of 150 feet...
In November, my husband spent hours circling over Florida, unable to land and his plane needed to refuel so he was rerouted to Bermuda. Ironically, the passengers who were actually connecting to Bermuda were not allowed to stay and had to fly back to Florida to fly back to Bermuda. As Brian was heading to Haiti, this didn't affect him but he found this highly ironic.
The most interesting airline occurrence though was several years ago when Brian was flying from California back East for a wedding. Delayed flights again caused him to miss his connection and so they rerouted him. Let's just say he was able to check off several states off his list in his quest to visit every state in the country and it was kind of like that old kids' game show from many years ago, Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego? He called me from each of his four layovers asking me where I thought he was now. Though he was supposed to get there the day before the wedding, I think he had to go straight there, if I recall correctly. Such evidence is why I think the airline elves are against us. Road trip next time, anyone?
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