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Thursday, January 26, 2006
Airplane Stories: #1
Coming home from Disney world
When I was 8 (?), Mom took Michael and I to Disney World for winter vacation. I remember landing and seeing the green palm trees and being amazed at the difference between home in Massachusetts in February and there in Florida. But that's off topic
Flying between Mass. and Florida we had a layover in Pennsylvania somewhere. On the way home our flight out of Florida was delayed slightly. We were told on the plane that all connecting flights were being held.
We get to the Penn. airport, get off the plane, to find our next plane is going to be leaving in two minutes! And it's not in the same part of the airport. Picture it: Mom running through the airport as best she could manage with two young children, each with carry on luggage (and that was before carry on luggage had wheels).
We get to the gate, and run up to the counter. "We're here," Mom informs them, somewhat out of breath. "We made it on time!"
The two employees behind the gate counter look at us. One looks to the other, who checks the monitor in front of us. Out the window it can be seen that there is no plane.
"Who are you?" the one in front of the monitor asks.
Mom gives them her name, I can't remember if they only asked for last name or full name.
Either way, the woman kind of shrugs and says, "You're not in here."
Mom puts our tickets down on the counter. And says something to the effect of, "we're supposed to be on this flight. The plane from Florida was late-" etc.
The first woman takes the tickets, sees that they do indeed say we're supposed to be on the flight, and doesn't quite know what to do. She may have been a bit annoyed that we weren't in the computer either because she made a gesture with the tickets and some off hand comment towards the computer before saying to the other woman, "They aren't in here."
The other women points out the window at a plane being pushed back by one of those little cart thingies. "Well, that's your plane taxing down the runway," she says.
"Well get it back," Mom tells her in true Mom fashion.
The second woman tries to explain that they can't bring the plane back because it's already been locked, and pressurized(?).
First woman makes an "oh I get it" gesture and says to the other, "Oh here they are. That explains the two I couldn't find." (For some reason I have memory of her saying two, even though there were three of us.)
Of course Mom is quite annoyed/upset by now. They direct us to the customer service desk, where Mom recites the whole story, and is backed up by the info sent over by the two women from the gate.
In the end, we didn't get on the plane, and it was the last one out to Boston that day (a Sunday). The airline put us up in a nice hotel, upgraded our return flight seats to first class, and gave us the option of any of the flights out in the morning. Mom didn't want to do the 6am flight, which was the earliest. None of us did. The next one wasn't until the 8am hour sometime, but school started at 8:15-ish. So if we took that one Michael and I would be late. Of course Michael and I wanted to miss school altogether that day, but in the end we took the 8-something flight and got to school about 11-noon, in time for half a day.
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