There’s no other way to describe my trip back to Blacksburg other than a nightmare. It was as if I was a character in a Lemony Snicket novel. Somewhere, some god was looking down upon me, laughing at enacting his/her karmic revenge. After this experience, I will adopt the policy of never flying American Airlines again.
It all started with a fitful night of sleep. It was one of those nights where you feel as if you never actually sleep. I “woke up” at 6:50am and checked my phone. I had two messages from AA saying, “Due to a delay, you’ll miss your connecting flight. We re-booked you for Sep12 on flight AA414 at 09:35A from JFK to CLT.” I clicked on the link and it brought me to a page to choose a new flight. I saw there was one leaving at 8:50am and being only 17 minutes away from JFK, it was possible for me to catch. I asked my dad if he thought we could make it and he agreed to leave right then. I ran to the bathroom to brush my teeth and looked at the flight info and realized the flight was for Monday, September 13th. Well, that would not work. I have class on Monday and I needed to get back to work on a studio project. The next available flight was at 1:00pm. Not the best, but it would get me into Roanoke at 5:30pm, and then I would have a 43-minute drive to Blacksburg. I figured I’d have at least two hours in the studio.
7:00am
I called AA because I wanted to talk to someone and figure out what was going on. The automated machine said the wait time was around 5-10 minutes. I waited for an hour. At 8:00am the lady on the phone told me there was a 10am flight from LaGuardia. LaGuardia is 40 minutes away without traffic. It was too risky, I couldn’t do it. If I had gotten a hold of someone earlier, my cousin and his wife were leaving at 7:30am for a 10am flight to LGA and I could have left with them.
9:07am
At 9:07am, I got an email from AA saying that they re-booked me. My original flight was flight 414, then I changed it and now I was back on 414. I had no idea what was going on. I called AA again, but the wait time was 1hr15+, so I called Chase. They couldn’t help me. I don’t remember how, but somehow I got notified or told that the 1pm flight was delayed until 3:25pm. I was melting. I had to go to the airport to speak to somebody and figure something out. My dad took me at 11:00am.
11:20am
We arrived at 11:20am and I thought, “it’s so empty here, this is good.” I was wrong. The airport was empty, but the customer service line was not. It wasn’t a long line, but it took forever. I watched a couple, for 20 minutes, move stuff from their overweight bag into their other bag and weigh it at least 10 times. It seemed that every person who went to the counter had some issue with their bags. I didn’t have bags to check, but I was no exception. The lady behind the counter was a sweetheart, and while I pleaded with her, she could not rearrange my itinerary. She checked if there were other flights to D.C. instead of Charlotte, but they were all full. Apparently, no one was in the airport, but they were coming. The 1pm delayed to 3:25pm was the only option. BUT, there was a 6:20pm connector flight to Roanoke that she put me on standby and put my actual seat on the 8:25pm to Roanoke. The flight from JFK to Charlotte is only 2hr (probably less), so if everything left on time, it would be no problem, assuming there was a seat open. I stood there for five minutes, internally debating. I decided to keep it the way she arranged it. She also issued me a $12 meal voucher!
12:25pm
There was no line for security. I let two people go ahead of me because I was in no rush. That was a mistake. They had enough MacBook Pro’s and iPads in their bags to start an apple shop. It took them 15 minutes to unload their bags and put them in the proper bins. Once through, it took the x-ray technician another 10 minutes to examine their contraband and another 10 minutes to collect their stuff. I wasn’t in a rush, but patience has boundaries.
I arrived at the gate with two hours to spare. The place was empty, so I walked around, stretched my legs, and used my phone. Eventually, it was time for me to use my meal voucher… and there were almost zero food places in the terminal. A crappy pizza place that looked like it used frozen pizzas and a bistro that served $20 burgers. No McDonald’s, no Burger King. I had my heart set on the impossible burger because on my way up; I didn’t have time between layovers to get one. I settled on a $13.61 buffalo cauliflower wrap from the Bistro’s fridge section. I tried to use my voucher; it was declined.
The only joy AA gave me was taken away from me.
At the moment, I wouldn’t have been surprised if they gave me a fake voucher, just to appease me. I went to the gate and there was a line. The same woman had been dealing with something for the last 30 minutes and it hadn’t moved. Eventually, I got my new voucher and went back to the Bistro. I was nervous the wrap wouldn’t be there because there were only two left and a significant amount of time passed. It was. I gave her the voucher and declined again. She called someone over who made it work. I wonder if the first one was fine, and it was just her.
2:30pm
Boarding should begin in 15 minutes. It didn’t. The departure time got pushed back because of a delay. An hour later, they go over the microphone saying that they can’t start boarding because they are missing a flight attendant. They don’t know where this flight attendant is; they said they’ll keep us informed. I still believed I could make the 6:20 pm connector flight, but at some point, that belief disappeared. The boarding time kept getting pushed back, and there was no news of the lost attendant. We all watched in despair as the “TVs” arrival time moved like a clock. Eventually, they borrowed a flight attendant from somewhere else and we began boarding at 4:08pm. Our estimated departure time was 5:00pm. My hopes of getting to Blacksburg with enough time to get to the studio were squashed.
6:18pm
We arrived in Charlotte at 6:18pm. The landing was the hardest landing I’ve ever experienced. Not a gentle bounce, but a slam, hard enough to knock out the guy’s Bluetooth headphones behind me onto the floor in front of me. At 6:26pm we were sitting on the tarmac. We couldn’t get to the gate 50 feet ahead of us because equipment was blocking it. How could someone be stupid enough to put a car or cart in front of an active gate? It’s mind boggling and I’m still thinking about it.
8:26pm
At 8:26pm, I boarded the plane to Roanoke and arrived at 9:24pm. I left the airport at 9:33pm, finally free from my mask that had been on since 11am. From there, I drove to Blacksburg and arrived at my apartment at 10:23 pm.
Never in all my years of traveling have I experienced something like this. Does that make me lucky? Or does it speak to the incompetence and awfulness of American Airlines?
Epilogue:
While the day was awful, it wasn’t without its moments. A great thing about traveling is the brief interactions and bonds formed with strangers. It’s the reason I rarely wear headphones in the airport. Headphones cut you off from the world and in an airport, there are always interesting things happening and people to talk to. While waiting in line to get my food voucher reissued, I spoke to a lovely Indian couple and another woman, whom I ended up speaking to while our departure was continuously being pushed back. We formed a companionship over our shared misery. Then on the flight (I actually didn’t feel like talking), I sat next to someone who did. He was a trucker who does deliveries and a lot of flying. He was already drunk when he got on and midway through; I found out he had tobacco in his lip (I’m not even sure it’s allowed on planes). I don’t know what he was doing with the tobacco juice, swallowing it? But he was friendly and would not stop talking. He told me about his first wife who was a heroin addict and was in and out of rehab 7 times until eventually, her (not his, also they were divorced at this point) 7-year-old daughter found her dead from an overdose. He told me how he built his house with his current wife. I asked him for a picture and he spent the next hour scrolling through his phone, showing me his photos and trips he’s taken with his family. He told me about his weight loss and weight gain. He was at 234 pounds, the lowest he’s been in a while. With 30 minutes left in the flight, I told him I was going to put my headphones in so I could finish a podcast I started on the way up, but I didn’t even get a chance.
Thanks American Airlines.
*postscript: after contacting customer service and complaining about what happened. Eventually they offered me a $200 credit. It was better than nothing!
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