AKA The Day American Airlines Couldn’t Recover
Sunday, March 24, 2024
We had arranged with Rich, the silver Tesla driver to pick us up at 9:30 am to take us back to the airport, but by 8:30 am, Dave and Joan had been in line at the airport for hours and were warning everyone to get back to the airport as soon as they could.
I messaged Rich and he came for us right away. Once at the airport, Nathan and I were able to drop our bags using the kiosk, but ended up paying the checked bag fees again. At this point, I’ll fight with American about that later. Todd, however, was completely unable to use the kiosk and needed to stand in line to check his bag. Lame!
Dave, Joan, and their kids, and Tom and Joy had given up on American by the time we arrived at the airport. Standing in line this morning, they all missed their first flight out. So they bought new tickets and switched to United. Nathan, Todd, and I were staying the course, at least for now.
Nathan and I hung out with Todd in line for a while, before we decided to go through TSA and US Customs and get into the gate area.
Once in the gate area, we stood in line for over an hour to get breakfast or lunch, and we were finally seated at 11:25. Lunch it is! The restaurant typically pauses between the breakfast and lunch seatings, and we were caught in the middle of the switch.
We both ordered food and before it came out, wouldn’t you know it, our American Airlines flight had been delayed to Charlotte in a way that would have made it unlikely to make our connection.
So we repeated yesterday’s process. I booked a new flight on United, we waited in line to retrieve our bags from American, got escorted out of the terminal by American Airlines staff, collected our bags, went out to the United counter, rechecked our bags, went through security and US customs for the third time in 2 days, and rejoined our crew, most of whom had by now rebooked with United. Only Joan’s sister, her husband, and their child stayed with American, and I have no idea if they got home. They might still be in Nassau now!
Tom and Joy managed to get on the direct flight to Denver, but Dave, Joan, and their kids, plus Todd, Nathan and I were on the Nassau to Denver via Houston. We had ample time to loiter around the gate and buy Guava Jam from a vendor before boarding the plane, just a few minutes late. The mood was nervous apprehension and excited to finally be headed home.
Once we were boarded, the pilot announced that we were in line to take off, but due to the backlog in the skies and on the tarmac, we weren’t expected to actually take off for 30 minutes.
Damn. There went our 60-minute layover in Houston.
By the time we got into the air, we had burned up about 40 minutes of our 60-minute layover. I held out hope that we would make up time in the air, and if we didn’t make our connection, that we could hop on board a later flight still that night.
The flight was relatively uneventful. Todd, Joan and I were Whatsapping on board, and we hatched a plan.
Since Nathan and I were in row 15, we would get off the plane as fast as we could, sprint to the gate and try to delay things, so that everyone in our group would have a chance to catch up from the back of the plane with kids in tow.
Once we landed at C32, Nathan and I summoned our inner track star and took off running. We ‘scuse me’, ‘scuse us’ the whole way to E3, while simultaneously asking gate agents and airport staff to point us in the right direction.
We made it, with zero minutes to spare. Todd joined us within a few seconds, followed by Cody, Joan, Dave & Jasper in the stroller. The gate agents at E3 were quite worried about making the 10-minute close-the-door deadline, but they worked feverishly to get all of us on board. Thank you, United!
Once on board, we all breathed a sigh of relief, and once in the air and we were able to use the restroom, we were finally able to relax.
We were headed home.
The flight to Denver was uneventful, and it was not lost on us that we would have never made the connection if we hadn’t already cleared US customs in the Bahamas.
We landed in Denver amid a blizzard, and driving home in the driving snow was just one last hurdle to getting home to our own beds. Our bags weren’t able to run as fast as we were in Houston, so we left the Denver airport after coordinating our bag delivery with United.
Tomorrow is a new day: A day to fight with American about a refund, a day to submit a claim for trip insurance and a day for laundry!