Let me tell you a little story about the last flight we took and the adventures we had.
First, a little background: We live in Washington State and were going to a cousin's wedding in Tahoe. (I could blog about the wedding but this is a public forum and I think I'll keep my comments private.) From Tahoe we were going to travel to Southern California to visit family and friends.
Anyway, we normally fly on Alaska Airlines - most of the family does and I have my mileage program with them. The problem was that, though we could fly from Seattle to Reno, Alaska doesn't fly from Reno to Burbank so, we were forced to fly with someone else. I thought, "Hey, Southwest flies the route we need, they apparently have great customer satisfaction (they sure boast about it enough) and they have good prices so let's go with them."
Mistake! (as sung by the opera guy in Scrubs season 2, ep 5)
So, our flight leaves Reno at 2:30 so we get there in plenty of time. Upon check-in, our troubles start. For one thing, all the agents are surly. The woman "helping" us was rude and made us feel like criminals because we didn't have our son's birth certificate. In her eyes, we appeared to, either, be trying to cheat the airline by trying to pass off our son as younger than two years-old (which he is and, thus, doesn't have to pay) or kidnappers trying to skip town with their prey. She actually called our pediatrician to verify his age.
Who flies with their children's birth certificates? I mean, come on, really?
(At this point I must comment that, since the early years, the TSA has really gotten their act together and, if you follow the rules, it's a piece of cake to get through security. Their staff always seems friendly and helpful too.)
Once we got past that ordeal, we arrived at the gate to find that the flight was delayed until 3:00. Then it was until 3:10. At that point, they seem to have given up updating the boards because we actually didn't leave until around 3:30. We also found out that our flight to Burbank stopped in Oakland first (a fact that wasn't evident when I booked the ticket).
So, we get to Oakland, everyone for Burbank starts getting comfortable (our son, who normally sleeps on planes is still asleep) and then the captain gets on the PA and announces that, since the flight was so late, the plane has been reallocated to Denver. Everyone needs to get off or they'll end up in Denver. He doesn't know what they'll do with us but we need to go to gate 23 to find out.
So, we all grumble and curse under our breath (which, over the next few hours, becomes a regular thing), retrieve our belongings and deplane. The worst thing for us was interrupting our son's nap because we knew that he wouldn't go back to sleep. Any parent knows that you never, never, interrupt a child's nap unless you have no other option.
Once we get to gate 23, we're told that we need to go to gate 29. Now, we arrived at gate 20, we go to 23 then on to 29 - that's clear on the other side of the airport - a very long distance with a grouchy toddler who insists on being carried.
At gate 29 we wait. There are already passengers there for another flight so it's hard to find seats. Finally, we find out that our flight is scheduled to leave at 4:50 but, at 4:40 there's not even a plane at the gate. Eventually, it shows up and we leave at about 5:15. I must say that we appreciated that they let all the Burbank passengers board first.
At Burbank, we had the horrible experience of seeing the baggage carousel eventually stop without ever seeing our luggage.
So, about 20 angry people crowd into the Southwest baggage claim office to find out what's going on. Apparently, though the plane was redirected to Denver, no one told the baggage handlers what plane to put our stuff on so it was still sitting in Oakland and would be on the next flight to Burbank.
Unfortunately for us, we could not go to our destination and let them bring our bags to us because we had checked our son's car seat. No car seat, no driving. We ended up waiting until about 7:20 for the bags from the other plane to arrive.
Now we had our bags but we needed to rent a car. The rental place is on the other side of the airport so we had to hoof all of our bags and a cranky, hungry, little boy all that way, through the car exhaust and smokers in the heat. By the time we rented the car, took the shuttle to where the car was and got to where we were staying, it was about 9:00 - over three hours later than it should have been.
How were we compensated for all of this? A lousy $50 travel voucher... on Southwest... to be used within a year.
Why would I travel on Southwest again after all this? We could have gotten a more valuable voucher but the moron who checked our bags in Reno registered them all on one ticket. So, since (technically) only one passenger's bags were lost, only that passenger was compensated.
The moral of this story? Don't travel with kids. Pack light. Carry on your bags. Oh, and don't fly Southwest.
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