Beneath the Wraps: What Do You Mean Our Flight is Cancelled?

Wednesday, July 1, 2020

What Do You Mean Our Flight is Cancelled?

Quite recently I found this link on friend’s facebook post.

“Oh, great!” I thought. Guess which airline carrier we used? We were supposed to come back by way of Atlanta, but Delta isn’t even flying into Atlanta right now. We stopped in Detroit both coming and going.

We left the house between 3:30 and 4:00 three weeks ago on Wednesday morning. I don’t know what time we arrived at Medford. Roland dropped Jenna and I off while he went and parked. We sat down in a chair and waited as I thought he would have to be present when we checked in the luggage. Too bad. There was no line when we had initially gone in. When Roland walked through the doors a line had formed. Where had all the people come from? And why had they picked that time to get on a plane? Perhaps they hadn’t chosen that early to leave. Perhaps the airline had – which had been the case with us.

We had initially picked a later flight so that we wouldn’t have to leave the house so early. It is 90 minutes to an hour drive. We had left the house before 4:00 a.m. We were at the airport for almost as long as we had spent in the car. I took this picture of Jenna as I don’t recall ever having seen a rocking chair in any airport before.

Medford June 10

I think we spent more time in the car getting to Medford and also in the airport itself than we had on the plane to our first destination which was Seattle.

We weren’t in Seattle all too long before catching the plane to Detroit. The longest leg of the trip. Also the most cramped. It was tighter than our car! Would have loved to ride the train in Detroit, but it was not running due to COVID I am sure. There wasn’t enough air traffic that the “S” gates were needed. Apparently that is where the Detroit airport train takes passengers.

Landing at Detroit airport June 10

My favorite airport was in Buffalo. Not crowded at all. In fact it had the appearance of closing both coming and going. New York had just started phase one shortly before we arrived. The play areas and conveyor sidewalks were closed and there was blue tape across every other seat. It had kind of a ghost town feel to it.

Buffalo airport

Randy met us outside after we called him to tell him where we were. As I recall he made us move so that he could park. The next day he informed us that our return flight had been cancelled. Say what, now? I didn't know what to believe. Randy likes joking and so I didn't even know if it was real or not. I had tried calling the airline before we had even gone out, but it’s been the same routine as every other business I have called

“We are experiencing high volume due to COVID19. Please try calling back at a later time.”

I never did talk to a human. Randy left a number for them to return call back in nine hours. But they never did. I don’t know how many days we were there before a new schedule was created. We would leave Buffalo to fly to Detroit, but instead of Seattle or Atlanta (which was originally included as part of the agenda for the return) we were routed back through Salt Lake.

Salt Lake was one busy airport. Let me tell you. Randy had suggested to us that since we had to stop there anyway we ought to look into taking a later flight and stay in town for a couple of days. Roland said he couldn’t take the time because he had not brought enough medication for another couple of days. I thought that if we had made arrangements, we could leave Jenna. I could put her on a train and have my sister meet her in West Valley. But that didn’t come to pass.

Salt Lake

20-30 minutes after the plane had landed we were still waiting to disembark. The plane was waiting for its turn at the gate. We barely made the connecting flight – no time for other arrangements. Of course Jenna was upset – but it turned out to be a fortunate thing for us not have to return to Medford as there is construction between the airport and the ramp to I5. Though Medford may have other options of getting us from point A to point B, we are not familiar enough with the city – especially in the dark.