As travel agents, we have the opportunity to travel a lot more than most. Since we travel more, we have also experienced more delays, interruptions, and cancelations of our travel plans. A couple of years ago, we got to the airport in St. Lucia and all flights coming in had been delayed so the flights going out were delayed. We spent the day in a cramped, HOT, humid airport without good food options, dilapidated bathrooms, and generally unclean conditions. I had never really noticed this before because I was only in the airport two hours or less. This day, it got the best of me and I quickly disintegrated into a tantrum throwing toddler. Thankfully, my patient husband has a lot of experience (23 years) of handling my unnecessary but common anxiety. He tried to de-escalate my stupidity but it was tough. We had an amazing week-long trip to Sandals Grand St. Lucian but I was ready to get home to our kids. As the hours grew longer it became clear we would not be getting to our connecting flight. We would have to get to the airport, clear customs, get our luggage and get to another flight...nope, was not going to happen! PANIC, anxiety, and ugliness swelled.
Another time, we arrived at the Indianapolis Airport on our way to the Bahamas and AFTER arriving at Indy International airport we were told our flight had been canceled that morning...UGH, we had our kids all set up with family getting them to and from events, we had the days off work and it was a quick 3-day trip, going the next day was NOT going to work.
This week in Indiana the temperature dipped to a record-breaking -30 something windchill. Apparently, that meant that flights going out midweek were delayed. So, when my husband tried to login for check- in 24 hours in advance we realized our flights to Vegas had been canceled and we had tickets to Cirque du Soleil and a hotel.
Here is where this long list of my anxiety and experience as a travel agent concludes...it always works out. Not always without some frustration but I do have some pointers and some explanations for different ways these issues get remedied.
First, I find there are always people being affected far more severely than me, I try to let my brain fix on that quickly so I don’t waste time on self-pity. Get a “conquer the situation” mindset as quick as you can because anger and tantrums don’t solve problems.
Next, question, question, question, so let’s look at the first scenario. While we were in the St. Lucia airport, we had no idea how long we would be there. We had a long layover in Miami. We truly believed in the early hours of the delay that we would still make our connecting flight. As the day wore on, I realized I needed to make alternative plans for my kids just in case we didn’t make it back. I did this while we were still optimistic. This relieved some of the “what if” issues brewing under the current. Then we went to the airline employees and explained we may miss our connecting flight. We were told, if the airline's issues cause you to miss a flight they will already be working on how to reroute you before you even land. There are employees that literally work on this type of situation. It was nice to be reminded that while this situation was not something I frequently experience, others do have experience. Finally, we did miss our flight and all outgoing flights for that night. Once we arrived and sat in customs waiting to claim our things it became abundantly clear we were spending the night. As we came out, in a stream of unhappy people they met us with a hotel voucher, transfers set up to and from that hotel, rebooked morning flights and a food voucher to eat at the airport. I was still a grump about it but I will tell you, it all worked out at no further expense to me. All of my frustration was unnecessary.
On both of our canceled flights we have found the best thing you can do is solve the problem yourself then tell the airline what they are going to do to help fix the problem. They told us on our 3-day trip that there was no way to leave Indy that day. I started looking it all up on my phone at the ticket booth and told them if I wasn’t getting to the Bahamas I wanted them to get me to Orlando so at least we were out of the weather and could catch an early flight. I knew there was a Bahamas connection but there was only 7 minutes between landing and take off. They told us there was no way the plane would let us on...well, we just heard ‘you wanna bet?”. They booked it even though they thought we were crazy.
As soon as we got to the gate to go to Orlando we explained what we were doing. They sat us in the front row, gave us extra snacks and announced to the entire plane upon landing that we had to get off the plane first! We RAN through Orlando, like crazy people. YES, we did make the connecting flight and when we boarded they were expecting us, someone had called ahead. We also became somebody's story of morons running through an airport.
Finally, this week when we were told the flight was canceled we immediately started searching for alternative options. We ended up changing our trip entirely using their cancelation as an opportunity to change our plans. Since the flight was canceled by the airline and no fault of ours, all tickets and hotel rooms were refunded. We booked a trip to Jamaica last minute for about the same cost because it was last minute.
Basically, ASK questions, ADVOCATE for yourself, look up alternate options and control what you can. Today, at Indy we realized there was an earlier flight to our destination than the one we booked. Guess what, we asked and they moved us at no cost because there was space. Always pay attention and questions what’s going on.
