I can’t say that this was our worst flight home (catching barf in my hands and being unable to ring the call button above my head still stands out in my mind), but it had it’s moments. We travel from California to Michigan twice a year with all 3 kids. We are flying professionals (haha), but sometimes circumstances snowball out of our hands. We spent an extra 4 days in Michigan over the holidays due to weather, flight crew delays, and mandatory rest for pilots. Here is our flight fiasco of 2014 story and the end of this post has links to products I travel with that I either reviewed or read about on The Simple Moms and bought for myself.
It all began…SATURDAY, January 4th
Two days before we were supposed to depart from Grand Rapids, we started getting texts, calls, and emails that our flight on Monday was canceled. Seemed a bit extreme to cancel due to weather days in advance, but after a 6 hour wait on the phone (and an an attempt to stop at the airport only to find it abandoned), we had a 45 second phone call where we told we were rebooked on a later flight Monday night from Chicago to SFO. That was just the beginning.
SUNDAY, January 5th
Our Grand Rapids to Chicago flight was canceled. Boooo….we didn’t want to waste another 6 hours of our lives on hold with the airlines. Never fear, NOW our airline isn’t taking phone calls and the roads are too bad to make a trip to the airport to talk to an agent in person.
Another automated call…we were REBOOKED (again) for Thursday, January 9 from Grand Rapids to Chicago. What about the 2nd leg of our trip? Oh, it’s scheduled for Monday night. Are you following me? We had tickets from Chicago to SFO on Monday and Grand Rapids to Chicago on Thursday. That doesn’t work!
TUESDAY, January 6thAfter dinner, my mom and I set out for the airport. It was time to talk to a real person (our airline still wasn’t taking calls). The lines were minimal, there were real live agents there, and we got on a flight for Thursday morning at 9 a.m. We were to arrive in SFO shortly after lunch. {insert sigh of relief}
WEDNESDAY, January 7th
I packed up our bags, set the alarm for 6:30 a.m., and then I got a text as I was going to bed that our flight at 9 a.m. was delayed 1.5 hours. The flight crew was arriving late. While I was happy to sleep in longer, it made for a tight connection in Chicago. I felt a bit uneasy, but prayed for peace as I went to sleep.
THURSDAY, January 8th
Is this the day the we get back to CA? By 6 a.m. we had been rebooked AGAIN because our 9 a.m. flight delay was causing us to miss our connection in Chicago. However, this created a 10 hour layover in Chicago and we were on the last flight out. I didn’t want to get stuck there. Thankfully our airline was taking calls by this point and we got to spend those 10 hours in Michigan not Chicago. We were scheduled to fly out at 7:05 p.m. We had a 1 hour layover which was perfect….on paper. We enjoyed a day with cousins and played in the snow one last time.
We checked in, our bags were 49.5 lbs (phew, not over 50) and we got ourselves through security like the pro’s we are. We waited at the gate for 10-15 minutes for an agent to give us our seat assignment. Despite attempts to get seat #’s via phone and when we checked in, they said to see a gate agent. When a frazzled gate agent finally appeared out of the cold jetway, she was NOT happy with my request for seats. She told me I should have been there earlier. I apologized and kindly told her I had been waiting at an empty counter. That’s when a grumpy traveler piped in….”she means be there 20 minutes earlier, not 10.” Wow, things were feeling hostile, but I couldn’t be ruffled…I’d been waiting 4 days for this flight. That was nothing. The gate agent apologized for being short with me and grumbled her way through her computer work to get the 4 of us in 2 rows. Is it really that much to ask that a 4 and 6 year old sit with their parents?
This was my favorite part, she got on the intercom and said, “folks, I’m sorry for the delay in boarding, but a family with small children needed to be seated together {insert snippy attitude}. We will be boarding shortly.” We were the only family so about 50 sets of eyes landed on us. We waved like we were famous and said, “wonder what family is causing such a problem?” We then got to be the very last people on the plane and shimmied our way to the very last 2 rows as those same 50 people got to watch THAT FAMILY find their way to the back.
We had a smooth flight and landed a few minutes early in Chicago. Then we sat. We sat for 45 minutes and watched our layover slip away from us. My stomach started to get nervous, I kept checking for our next flight to be delayed. We didn’t have a gate to park at. Finally, with 18 minutes to spare we got a gate. Then the plane got hot, angry, and more frazzled when it was another 10 minutes before we got a jetway. We now had 8 minutes to get to our gate. We had a plan and Josh took off with Annabelle while I waited for the stroller and carry on. Jack was my helper and we RAN like the wind to our gate. It said CLOSED on the monitor, but Josh was at the counter begging for our spot on that plane. We were hot, dripping in sweat, but relieved when they let us on.
It was a HUGE international plane. One more hitch…our seats are not together. They have Josh and I in the exit row and the kids out of sight in random spots. The flight attendants told us we were on our own to switch seats. {that’s stinky customer service} We couldn’t legally sit in the exit row with kids (or a lap child) so they were bogus seat assignments. So much for the “documenting that we sit together” that took place on the phone earlier that day. It didn’t matter, we were on that plane and it wasn’t going to take off until we got seats together. We found an empty row of 3 and a kind older lady across the aisle took a different seat. We made it! I sat with Charlie in the single seat and Josh and the kids took a row.
We spent the next 4 hours with our own TV’s, snacks, and snoozes. Charlie snuggled on my chest and slept while I enjoyed 2 movies. It was great. We had kind passengers all around us and we all told our flying woes as we made it to SFO around 11 p.m. We didn’t care that it was 2 a.m. EST, we were holding up well. Just an hour drive home was left. We made it.
The flight fiasco of 2014 had come to a close. We will live to tell the story over and over. Our kids are troopers. If there is ever an Amazing Race with kids and babies, we could make an easy million bucks. My main advice that got us through the day is this….keep your cool. You might get HOT and sweaty, but remain kind and composed. It keeps our kids from getting stressed out and we have far more success getting help from whatever airline we are working with when we are reasonable passengers.
As promised, here are links to products I can’t travel without…
JL Childress car seat bag (free to check people! Fill that thing up with diapers, coats, etc.)
Melz Baby blowout blocker (review coming soon!)
Shavemob razor
Wearhop clothes for the kids
Like Twice clothes for me
Beth
January 14, 2014 at 10:03 pmWhat an adventure for your family. Fun memories were made on vacation though.
Emi
January 12, 2014 at 12:28 pmI would never fly that airline again. I would understand about the waiting for the gate part but airline personnel can talk to people at the gate and let them know that you are coming. I have had similar situations with two other airlines but they were handled much better.
Ginny
January 12, 2014 at 12:48 pmEmi, we are not loyal to any one airline, but I do think you speak truth that we might need to give this airline a break from our business. It was an unfortunate string of events with the weather, but they did not have the means to handle the customer service end of the ordeal. It was more then just weather that set us back 4 days. I hate to be a complainer, but I believe it’s the right thing for me to send a letter to the airline. If they can’t learn and improve from our fiasco, I will NEVER subject my family to travelling that airline again. Do you have an airline you like?
Krista
January 12, 2014 at 5:07 pmWe had a connection issue like that pre-kids where we ran like the wind only to find the gate agent coming back up the gangway having just closed the plane door. And they’d said they would call and tell them we were coming. Needless to say, we were NOT happy and because it was weather related they gave us nothing for overnight even though it was the last plane out of the day. I’m thankful my husband had friends in that city who so nicely let us crash at their place that day!
Then they had us booked on the 10am flight and when we got there in the morning they asked, well, why weren’t you here earlier, there was room on the 8am flight… as if we somehow should have magically known when they’d told us what flight they’d “booked” us on the night before!
Yeah, I’ve haven’t flown that airline again, they were very much less than helpful.
Thankfully our Christmas trip this year was so much better. And Iceland Air was bending over backwards to make sure all our kids had the best flight possible!