Texas Sized Mishap

So this weekend we were due to fly to Austin, Texas where my brother is getting married. We had our flights all lined up, 7:55 Friday morning, the car service was ready to pick us up at 6:00, and the bags were packed.

The first thing that happened on Thursday night; I got an e-mail from the airline, Continental, asking me if I wanted to check in electronically for my 7:55 A.M. flight, and I allowed as how I did and printed out boarding passes. Then an hour later I got another e-mail from the airline asking me if I wanted to check into my 8:50 PM flight. First I thought, wait, my return flight was supposed to be 4pm on Sunday. But no, it was a NYC to Austin flight. My next thought was, "did I buy two tickets like a total moron?" I clicked on the link in the e-mail for more information, and it brought me to a page asking if I would like to confirm that they'd moved me from the 7:55 AM flight to an 8 PM flight on the same day. I thought, "Well, that's rude. The whole point of the trip was to be there for the ceremony at 7pm!" I went back and looked at the schedule and, sure enough, they'd "cancelled" the original flight. How Rude!

I called their help number and hung out on hold for a few minutes before I gave up. After consulting with various other family members, we decided to try for a different airline. So at 11pm Thursday night I found a (now expensive) flight on Jet Blue leaving coincidentally at exactly 7:55 AM Friday morning. Then I called the car service and told 'em the trip was back on, just to JFK instead of Newark, and went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up at 5:20, and as predicted there were a couple of inches of snow on the ground but nothing too bad. I grabbed a coffee (Starbucks opens at 5:30; I checked), got the family, and only 15 minutes late we made it into the car and started driving towards JFK. It was a little slow going with snow on the roads, but no traffic jams, and no mishaps except Erika, er, "putting" some half-digested apple juice onto Mom's coat.

Arriving at the airport, we used the curbside checkin for our bags (only $2 per bag! tip not included! at least it was fast) and proceeded through security. Erika managed to make it through security without crying this time, and we headed towards the gate. Or rather, we made it halfway there when I took a trip into the rest room. Coming out, Yoshie tells me she thinks they announced that our flight had been cancelled. I hadn't heard anything from the rest room, so we walked over to the display board, and it was still listed as departing at 7:55, "on time". So we sat down, bought some drinks, and waited.

And waited. Around 7:35, 10 minutes after the supposed start of boarding for our flight I got up and had a gander, and this time the display screen listed our flight at cancelled. Now, if you're at the airport, and your flight has been cancelled, and you decide to just go home and give up on the weekend trip, the question becomes: what about the bags you checked in?

We didn't know, and the person handling our gate had a line of 50 people, so we went off in search of answers. Before too long we found someone at a gate fiddling with one of the signs, and we asked him. The correct answer is to go to the "baggage service center" downstairs. So down we went, and when we explained the situation to the lady, the very first thing she did was get on a phone and make an announcement to all the agents to not send people to the baggage service center to get their bags. Anyway, she further added that they "didn't have the manpower" to pull our bags but I could call back later.

So anyway, the guy who drove us to the airport was close enough that he was able to pick us up in 10 minutes and drive us back to Manhattan. And after not too long we were back home, considerably lighter than when we'd left.

As for the wedding, we went with the 21st century option: attending the ceremony via Skype. I highly recommend it over the alternative of spending a lot of time and effort to get to the airport and have your flight be cancelled there. In that respect, Continental turned out to have great foresight.