Lloyd had to be in Toronto by Wednesday and had an early flight booked on Sunday morning. We had gotten home from the wedding Saturday evening around 10:00 pm and were exhausted. Off to bed with the alarm set for 4:00 am to be at the airport for the 6:00 am flight. Drag ourselves out of bed and head off. Unfortunately the flight is full so no go. Not to worry, back home for a nap, then we'll try to get him onto the 1:30 flight. Back to the airport at noon and again, no luck.
Airlines typically overbook as there is generally a small percentage of passengers who for one reason or another have a change of plans and don't show up or take a different flight. That's where the standby passenger comes in - to occupy those seats left vacant at the last minute. But that was not the case on Sunday. Those people who had planned to fly - flew. So now there are standbys as well as regular fare passengers waiting for a flight.
We spent the afternoon in town playing tourist and actually it was quite lovely. Later it was back home for another little while. The plan was to try the 8:30 to Halifax as there was a later flight from there to Toronto that looked to have open seats. Problem solved.
So back into town at 7:30 to catch the 8:30 flight. I thought the airport looked awfully quiet for a place that had a flight getting ready to board in 15 minutes - no cars around, no people around (it's a VERY small airport). But he assured me it was just because the plane to Halifax was just a little one. I said goodbye once more and he went inside but I didn't leave right away. Shortly after I got a phone call from him that the flight was delayed by an hour and a half, leaving now at 10:00. He advised that I should go home and he would get out eventually. So I did.
Morning comes and these people who are trying to get to Toronto are on the list with everyone else trying to get to Toronto. Because of the standby population and the oversold people, apparently there was a list of approximately 70 people trying to get to Ontario. Everything was booked solid - Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto - they were going out a few at a time. When it gets like this you can't even buy a full fare seat as there's just nothing available. I guess that's what it is to live in a vacation destination!
So now Monday goes by and towards the end of the day the list of people waiting is down to 25 or 30. Small consolation when everything is full. The odd seat that is available goes to the full fee paying passengers, as it should be, of course.
By Monday night, he's really cranky and can't even get back to Charlottetown if he wanted to. He leaves the airport and checks into a hotel so he can get a decent nights sleep, a shower and clean clothes. Meanwhile Patti is waiting on standby through all of this as well - to pick him up when he does eventually get there. Then they came up with a new plan. Looking at what the options were out of Halifax airport they decided to send him to Boston, and from there to Toronto on Tuesday mornng. Patti went online and changed his flight. It just might work. Only trouble is he overheard a desk agent suggest that to another passenger.
When I checked the flight loads on Tuesday morning, it indicated there were 3 flights to Boston in the morning and the first one had 6 open seats and 12 standbys. Here we go again! All he needed was to get stuck in Boston. But the next 2 flight had plenty of open seats so it shouldn't be a problem. We expected him to be on a flight that got into Toronto at 3:00 pm, but Patti got a call from him that he was already in Toronto at 1:30. It seems he did indeed get on the first flight but it was a very rushed process and he did send Patti a text message to say he was on it but it didn't go through. She got it the same time as his phone call to tell her he was in Toronto. That meant having to wait in Toronto until she got there from Guelph, but at least he was in the right country and the right city!
What an ordeal. He called me to let me know he was there, but of course, I already knew as Patti had texted me. He sounded pretty weary and said he was never going to fly anywhere ever again - which is pretty funny as the whole trip was because of an airplane!
He wasn't sure if he was going to ride the bike back home or not, but that decision might be a much easier one now. We'll see.
I don't know if he'll have time to get the last minute little things done on the plane that needed doing before the inspection or not. I'll find out later.
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