A Journey to forget

Trip to Fort Wayne, or how to describe a Cluster ¥€£#

Tuesday, December 17, we are booked via United departing Medford at 6pm, then through San Francisco and Chicago, bringing us into Fort Wayne at 8am, on Wednesday. This was a "red eye" trip, but we were anxious to see the kids.

Around noon, on Tuesday, I happened to log on to United.com to check the flight's status. All flights to SFO have been cancelled due to fog in the Rogue Valley. Promptly, we called the 800 United number and began a long, painful process of finding an alternative schedule. Yes. There is a United flight leaving from Eugene at 6am on Wednesday. Great. We could hot foot it to Eugene, stay the night with cousin Chris and David, and scoot out to the airport early in the morning.

Seats were available, but wait, what about the return to Eugene, instead of to Medford?  We had to be able to drive our car home. The 800 operator at United put us on hold while she conferred with others about the return dilemma. That's when we got disconnected.

Anne suggested we drive to the airport and talk one-on-one with a United human being. The line to the counter was quite long. A lot of other Medfordites had also just been misplaced. Anne waited in line, while I found a large marble stone which had been fashioned into a quiet area sitting spot. From the stone, I recalled 800 United. Drat's, the flight out of Eugene no longer had available seats.

By the time I received the depressing news about Eugene, Anne had progressed to the front of the service line. I thanked the 800 lady, hung up, and joined Anne. The agent at the counter was yawning from fatigue. They had been working a long, no break day due to all of the fogged out trips. None the less, we were greeted with a smile and, "How may I help you?" That was certainly a good start.

"Let's see now. The soonest, and nearest flight we can get you on will be flying out of Klamath Falls." All of the flights leaving Medford, assuming no more fog, were booked solid beyond December 20.  We told the agent, yes. Book us.

This is Tuesday evening. The flight from Klamath Falls (LMT) to Portland, Chicago, and Fort Wayne wasn't leaving until 6am, Thursday. We were given itinerary stubs and told to present them to United at LMT to exchange for boarding slips for our flights.

We left Medford at 2pm the next day for our hour and half drive over the mountains to Klamath Falls. Anne had booked a night for us at the Maverick Motel, on Main Street. We would rise early, drive to the airfield, and begin our real journey. First, however, we Google mapped our way to the terminal to exchange the schedule stubs for our boarding passes. Whoa. Nobody home. The next available assistance will be at 4:30am, tomorrow. Well, at least we now know how to get to the airport. Not a wasted trip.

Klamath Falls airport is home to Kingsley Air Force Base. Kingsley is a training base for F-18 pilots. Although United was a no-show this afternoon, the USAF is always good for putting on a presentation.

From the airport we drove to the city's visitor's center so we could pick up a city map. Anne was also eager to find out where the Kla-Mo-Ya Casino was located. The logic seemed to be: we haven't eaten dinner yet, and all casinos have restaurants. It was a 50mile round trip to Chilloquin, but the meatloaf and mashed potatoes were worth it. We were both tucked into bed with our books by 7pm Wednesday night.

We wanted to be at the airport by 4:30am, Thursday. Both of our phone alarms sounded together at 3:45am. This is a plus for travelers. The Klamath Falls airport has free parking, for a month. That should do us.

The two United  agents served two queues, one for PDX, and one for SFO. After an awfully lot of one-finger keyboard pecking, Anne had boarding passes for the Portland and Chicago legs. I had a pass for the Portland leg. At PDX, I needed to get my boarding pass for the Chicago leg. When we arrived in Chicago, we would both then need to front up to an American Airlines counter to pick up passes for the last leg of the trip to Fort Wayne. This was working ok. I had a window seat in 23F, and Anne was found in 27D for the long flight to Chicago.

At ORD, in Chicago, we had nearly two hours to hike the three terminals to the American Airlines gate our flight to Fort Wayne was to depart from. We both had very achy legs by the time we found the gate. We presented the United schedule stubs for the flight to the American agent. After a period of keyboard pecking, the agent conferred with his desk mate. They had found the passenger entry that had been made by the United agent in Medford two days ago, but our seating hadn't been confirmed. We were told there were no remaining seats on the plane. They couldn't rebook us, because it was United's responsibility. We needed to walk back one terminal until we found a United counter, and agent.

Luck was with us, we came upon a United customer service desk. There were no flights remaining from Chicago to Fort Wayne. "Where would we like to fly to instead?" After much cajoling we called Matt to ask which of the choices we had for Indiana cities was closer to drive to for him to pick us up. Indianapolis was the pick. That flight left in less than an hour, and we were booked.

The United agent recommended we take the shuttle to the C terminal, to save us from the long trek. The shuttle line was just across the corridor, but the wait may be as much as 15 minutes. I asked the shuttle attendant how long it would take us to walk the distance. He told us it was a 20 minute walk. So, we waited. The shuttle got us to the correct terminal and we hustled to the gate. We were late, but the doors were still open. The gate agent tried to scan our new boarding passes, but they wouldn't read. With his right hand, he just waved us through the doors. Apparently, this man had been through a bad day, too.

We were assigned seats 24C&D. The last seats, in the last row, but we aboard for the 35 minute puddle jump to Indianapolis. Matt was on the road, and he would meet us in a little under two hours.

Thursday had been a long day, but it wasn't over yet. We needed to stop at the Fort Wayne airport to pick up the bags which flew unattended on American from Chicago. It is against FAA regulations to have bags on a flight which are unassigned to a passenger, but that hadn't come up in any conversations with agents.

Fort Wayne International Airport baggage claim doesn't have an office which holds unclaimed baggage. We were told we had to go to the airline's ticket counter, where they could help us. The ticketing was just around the next corner.

There was Delta. There was United and Allegheny, but there was no American. I asked the agent at the Delta counter where we might find the bags which had come in on American. He asked us, "What was the name?" I thought the question odd, but I told him. "I think I saw a couple back there", he said. Within two minutes the agent was dragging our bags through his rear door.

It never would have dawned on me to inquire at the Delta desk for bags which came on an American flight, that had been non-booked by a United agent, whose planes weren't flying out of Medford two days earlier. We were happy to be reunited, and Anne was pleased I hadn't tried to explain to the Delta man how he had ended up with our luggage. As rigid as airport security is, I was surprised we weren't asked to show our claim tickets. I take that back. After the "cluster €£¥%" this trip had been, nothing about flying today surprises me.

Man, it was great to see Matt, and the family, and to be in the comfort and security of their wonderful home. This was going to be a joyful Christmas, after all.