A Tale of Travel Woe

Last week we traveled to Greenville, SC to visit with Josh's family for Christmas. Since I work all day on Christmas Eve and since, in general, travel on Christmas day is never very busy, we decided to book a flight to arrive in time for Josh's family reunion and dinner. For once, we were going to be with family on a major Christian holiday. Yeah...or so we thought.

In order to make it there in time for the noon meal, we had to leave at the god-awful hour of 6 am...meaning leaving the house by 4 am, meaning getting up at 3 am. Yet, the promise of a real Christmas family dinner was enough to lure me out of bed with only 3 hours of sleep.

We arrived at the airport in plenty of time. In fact, we were the first people there. As we sat down, we noticed that not only was the plane already there, ready to go, but the entire crew was waiting at the gate to get in. This had to be a good sign! We waited and waited and waited. Looking at our watch we realized it was past time to board....hmmm....the plane is here, the crew is here, what could be the problem? It was then we heard the voice on the intercom, echoing down the corridor from the flight scheduled to leave at the same time as ours...

"Ladies and gentelmen, may I please have your attention Flight Whatever to Wherever will be boarding late. Northwest has a shortage of gate agents this morning since many called in sick. I am the only gate agent available which means I will not be able to assist you with any needs other than boarding you. I am sorry for the inconvenience."

No gate agents? Apparently, everyone from Northwest called in sick so that they could go to their family Christmas dinner, leaving stranded passengers to fend for themselves. With no one else available to open the !?&@ing door, we had to wait until the other flight left before the crew could even board and ready the craft for flight. After finally boarding at ten to seven, I looked out my window to see that the luggage was just now being brought out to the plane to load. I watched as the luggage slowly went one by one on the conveyor belt. We were never going to leave.

Slightly anxious that we were going to miss our flight, I asked our flight attendant (who had set off a four alarm gaydar alert earlier), if he could give us the information about our connecting flight, "when he had the chance." I thought I was being very considerate and patient given what was happening. Wouldn't you know that queen snapped at me as if I had asked him for the moon. "I don't have that information! How would you expect me to know that? I have no way of knowing," and with that he turned back around to the current flight drama of a pale elderly woman and the nurse he found to care for her. Later in the flight, I overheard him saying to the nurse, "You know, some guy back there complained about how long I took to get his drink and I said to him, 'You know we have a medical emergency going on up here. Don't you think this woman's life is worth more than your drink?' Can you believe some people?" Of course, not five minutes after our flight attendant declared he had no way of finding out this information, did the other flight attendant patiently list out the connecting flights for the couple behind us, even calling back and forth to the cockpit to get the latest updates.

We had a glimmer of hope as we approached our destination when the pilot announced that many flights were being held...Jamaica, Cancun, Seattle...but not Greenville. While they could hold large, full flights to exotic locations, they could not hold our commuter flight (that runs from Memphis to Greenville and back again) just 14 minutes for us to make the connection. We missed our flight.

In general, I am not someone who gets angry with airline personnel. I didn't complain when I was stuck at O'Hare for 10 hours or when I was snowed in at Boston. Even during a 16 hour delay in the nasty Pittsburgh airport during the US Air strike in the early 90s did I ever complain to a soul. But now, I was furious. This was my one chance to have a normal family celebration and I was going to miss it. Not because of weather or plane malfunctions, but because some !$%*? called in sick to spend Christmas at home.

I know that airlines are not liable for missed flights due to weather or equipment malfunctions, but this was an error of the company who failed to have enough staff on duty to board the flights. Surely, we would be compensated for our lost Christmas.

At the gate, I asked the man handing out the revised itineraries if we would be able to have our money refunded or receive vouchers since the airline screwed up. Again, you would have thought I asked for his arm or leg..."No. You have a flight scheduled for this afternoon. Why do you think you would get your money back? It is not my fault. Look, here is a compensation packet with a $10 food voucher and $25 off your next flight. Move along. If you want to complain call the customer number. Don't tell me."

Okay, so let me get this right, I spent close to $700 for this flight to get me to Christmas dinner and because of a staffing failure, I miss my flight, lose out on Christmas dinner and the family get together and get a measly $10 voucher and a $25 coupon to fly this %$#^ airline again??? It was insulting. I was enraged.

I had to complain to someone who would take me serious, who would listen to my tale of woe and would care, someone who would refund my money or compensate me for more than $10 worth of disgusting airport food.

First, I called the customer number so lovingly given to me by the oh-so-kind gate agent.

"I'm sorry. No one is available to take your call. Please call again tomorrow."

Then, I called the 1-800 number. After waiting 20 minutes, listening to cheesy, happy musak, I finally got a real live person, who when I told her my tale of woe, sighed and said, "Awwwhhhhh, that must just be awful." Yes! Yes, it is. She understands. She said she could give me a refund. This wasn't so hard afterall was it!!

"Well, ma'am, I'll go ahead and cancel your flights for today."

"Cancel my flights? But, I'm still in Memphis. I need to get to Greenville or Boston at the least."

"Well, Ma'am, I'm sorry, but the only way to get your money back is to stay in Memphis."

"But, I don't live in Memphis. My family doesn't live in Memphis. Why the %&%#^ would I want to stay in Memphis?!?"

"So, you are saying that you don't want to stay in Memphis, is that right?"

"Uh. no. Why would I want to stay in Memphis???"

"Well, I'm terribly sorry Ma'am, but I can only refund your money if you cancel your flight. If you would like compensation, you need to call another number or see the ticketing office."

The other number, as you probably guessed it, would be the number I already tried.

So, off I went to the ticket agent. The woman on the phone told me if I complained enough they would give me my money back and by now I was getting well versed at complaining...though it didn't seem to do me any good.

I waited for what seemed an eternity at the ticket window, even though there was no one else in line. By now, tears had begun to flow, I was sniffling and sobbing and was really quite a scene in and of myself...just not a big enough scene for the agent to actually wait on me. Finally, after describing my whole tale of woe, the agent told me, "Well, Ma'am, I am sorry but I can't help you. You did receive your $10 food voucher, right? That is all we can do. Have a nice day."

"This is not acceptable," I proclaimed and demanded to see a supervisor...who was, as you can guess, unavailable. I refused to leave and so they sent another, actually quite genuinely nice man, Harold, to talk me out of my public scene. Harold and I went through the same you-can-stay-in-memphis-but-i hate-?@&%-memphis conversation for a good five minutes before he finally understood what I wanted.

"Look," I said, "Harold, right? I am sure you don't want to be here at Christmas either. I'm sure you would have liked to have been home with your family too. But you didn't call in sick, did you? You came to work beacuse you care. Harold, I am missing my family Christmas dinner and reunion simply because someone called in sick to stay at home with their family. It's not because of weather or even equipment failure. It is because of the selfishness of the Boston based crew who called in sick and shirked their duty. Do you understand why I want my money back, Harold, do you?"

It was a monlogue worthy of any Shakesperian drama...okay, well, maybe a cheesy movie of the week. The tears flowing, the earnest pleas all made my case. Surely, he would have pity on me and help me now.

"Well, Ma'am, if you really don't want to stay in Memphis there is nothing I can do. Would you like another food voucher? I can give you $20 more in food."

Of course I didn't want any more worthless vouchers for nasty food...but I took them because if nothing else it was $20 less that Northwest has in their pockets. I ended up giving some away to other stranded passengers and buying more Odwalla juice than I could drink.

You would think by now this never-ending blog post must be winding to an end...but there is more. Our afternoon flight was first delayed because the airline could not find the plane...they knew it was somewhere at the airport, but no clue where exactly. Once they found the plane and we boarded, we waited another hour due to "paperwork" and the fact that air control "did not understand our flight plan."

We finally arrived in Greenville hours after the last family members headed for home. Our saving grace was that Josh's family stayed and waited for us. They had platters of food ready to pop in the microwave and gifts to be unwrapped. Despite our utter exhaustion we managed to have Christmas after all.

This week I send off my poison pen letter to Northwest airlines....and the saga continues.