A journey
This is a bit of a personal one but a decent story, I promise.
So, recently, I went away with my lovely wife and eldest son to the Caribbean. Now since they both read this, I will try to make it as exact as possible. The situation happened due to us having Air Canada tickets right before we were to fly home.
We got proactive and decided to cancel our flights home (via Toronto) on Air Canada (as the strike was about to happen) as we had purchased the cancellation insurance. Our great travel agent, while we were cancelling those tickets, saved us seats back on American Airlines via Chicago.
We are to leave at 2 pm and have a 2-hour layover in Chicago for an 820 pm flight to land in Vancouver at 1045 pm. So, as it can happen, our first flight gets delayed (we later learn it had not been inspected beforehand, so they had to do that at the gate). And then delayed some more. It eventually leaves at 313 pm, making our connection about 45 minutes. Now, normally, maybe that is possible but in Chicago you must do the following steps – go through customs, get your bag, recheck your bag, go through security (again), then take the train from terminal 5 to terminal 3, then walk to your gate. Even without some hiccups, the walk alone is 3,000 steps (I measured).
So, good news, the first flight landed, and we were at the gate with about an hour to spare. The bad news, our travel agent informed us that someone (who we met) cancelled our tickets as he did not think we could make the second flight. So, we got to second bag check, and we had 44 minutes and the guy who cancelled our tickets gave the bag checkers the green light to proceed. The good news, he called the gate to inform us that we were coming. The bad news, we needed new tickets and seats as he cancelled us. That took ten minutes. The good news – we got TSA pre-approved to avoid most lines (we have Nexus anyways). So, next was security. No problem as we are seasoned travelers. The bad news, Shelley forgot to empty her water bottle, so she had to go back out and drink it almost full asap. She did, bladder be dammed. At this point, we are probably within five minutes of making it and it is a long walk. We see the gate, and there is still a lineup, and we get to breath for the first time in about five hours. Oh yeah, the plane left 15 minutes late and we would have always made it…
Epilogue – I told this story to the lovely Emma, a flight attendant, and she gave us free food to eat (like as if there was time to grab something before, we got to the lineup.)
