They Must Know What They Are Doing

 January 1^st, 2022 was to be the day we boarded our plane for a multi-leg journey to Costa Rica – by “we” I refer to myself, my students, and teaching colleague meeting up at Minneapolis St Paul Airport (MSP) two hours early for a rather leisurely 11:30ish departure for Chicago, then direct to San Jose, Costa Rica.

We all finally arrived – separately – at nearly 4:00pm on January 3^rd – some 54 hours later, and not all with their luggage, scattered at the various points of deposit along our tortured path.

The long-laid plans of our return post-COVID two years hence to San Ramon for our winter-break Study Abroad started to become unraveled when our Whatsapp group message board ignited on December 31 with the somewhat unbelievable message that our leisurely flight to Chicago was delayed nearly 23hours.  This was perhaps a mixed blessing because this gave us all an extra day at home – New Year’s Day – spent in my case of many hours re-booking a flight path that was now entirely and completely busted.  Extra time to pack, chill or shovel snow, for it was also this day that the Midwest – and Chicago particularly – experienced snowy weather as well.  We hunkered, and with the new flight plan logged in, we would meet at 8:30 on January 2^nd at the airport for this long-delayed flight, and then finish the trip from Chicago to Houston, and then to San Jose.  And additional leg.

Somehow, we all managed to meet at the check-in counter where we were checked in as a group.  Relatively smooth sailing, though our bags were tagged with handwritten tags and a small bar code, rather than the traditional bar code sticky strip favored by all major airlines.  They must know what they are doing.

Anxious to go, we await our departure

Smooth guidance through security brought us all to Gate E5, where we waited for departure.  The plane was there. Gate agents there.  Pilots there.  And two flights of the same number were leaving from this gate – one originally scheduled for January 1^st, and the other scheduled for January 2^nd.  Seems odd, and they made continuous announcements that our flight would load first. They must know what they are doing.

Except it didn’t load.  The flight was missing one crew member so it could not fly. It was canceled, plane ready at the gate.  Meanwhile, people were frantically shifting to empty seats on this second flight, which now looked like it was boarding.  In the meantime, I am working with the gate agent, Zak, who said our best bet was to fly on this other flight, and he issued us 15 boarding passes – on standby – and to proceed down the concourse 2 gates to E7.  I approached that gate agent to confirm that there were available seats, and she said “I only have 4 seats available.”  Damn.  It seemed that in this evolving vortex we were inexorably getting drawn into meant we needed to split the group – just go, whoever can, and make progress one leg at a time was my thinking.  My colleague Yvonne, led this breakaway group and got on board this second flight with 5 seats. 

The rest of us returned to Gate 5, now mostly empty except for Zak still studying his computer.  We waited there while I worked with Zak for over an hour as he tried to find a way to get the rest of our group of ten re-booked.  We were still at MSP airport, seeing that plane still at the gate, all quiet, its luggage since offloaded.  In the meantime, we were getting messages from our breakaway group that their plane was now delayed, first for a frozen door that required maintenance to free (it was damn cold that morning), and then, having backed away and starting to leave, it returned to the gate because it was slightly overweight and someone and their stuff was necessary to offload.  Luckily, not one of us, but a jump-seated employee.  This drama continued as the time for our breakaway group to actually make their connection in Chicago to Houston was now in serious doubt. But as mentioned, they must know what they are doing.   

Meanwhile, Zak worked some kind of magic.  He rebooked us on a previously unscheduled flight – presumably, a clean-up flight for all the stranded for around 7:00pm, gave us a few meal vouchers, and told us we would stay over in Chicago with a hotel voucher and regain our flight path with a 6:00 AM flight on January 3^rd.  OK, we can do that, let’s join our breakaways, perhaps in Chicago if they missed their connection.  I thanked Zak generously with a fist bump

We spent all of January 2^nd at MSP airport – seems implausible really, stranded in your hometown!  All we could really do was hang around, absorbing the waning sun, and hear the tale of our breakaway group running ferociously for their next gate after landing in Chicago, and making it in the nick of time!  They were on their way to Houston while we ate airport food at MSP, compliments of United.

Almost magically, it seemed, we boarded our plane for Chicago, with a crew, and arrived an hour later.   But we had a nagging feeling that in the pell-mell rush of the schedule delays and quick changes, our luggage would become the victim.  We were advised by Zak to locate our luggage in Chicago and check-in anew in the morning.  So, we proceeded to wait about an hour (we were experienced “waiters” by now!) and finally the lost baggage claim agent, Lauren, began to source our 10 pieces of luggage. I was concerned as he peered through his thick glasses, mumbling, sorting, studying, and really not saying too much, that bad news was pending.  However, he did manage to locate the luggage “in the system” and “not to worry, it was already checked through to our final destination and will be there when we arrive”.  They must know what they are doing.  And he gave us our hotel vouchers.  We thanked him generously.

So then one of our students stepped up and arranged the hotel reservation for us, and we had to wait perhaps another hour before we finally caught the shuttle to the hotel some 30 minutes away from the airport.  We could get about 4 hours of napping at the hotel for a 3:00 AM wake-up call to catch our 6:00 AM flight.

The wake-up call was quite early, but we were all ready and anxious to knock off another leg – at least get closer, after all, we were only in Chicago for all the time it has taken!  O’Hare is a quieter place but still bustling with security at 4:00am when we arrived.  We managed the long walk to our gate with ease, and a few even managed to snag some McDonalds as the only vendor open on our concourse at that time.  And we waited – and watched.  Gate agents – check.  Flight attendants – check.  On-time departure posted on the board, but soon followed by an announcement that the flight would be delayed 45 minutes for lack of a pilot (though he was on his way somewhere).  Now our Houston to San Jose flight connection was in serious jeopardy, as that delay would give us but 2 minutes to make the trek to E concourse, the international wing.  With all confidence, they boarded us anyway.  They must know what they are doing.

Now this tale is getting a bit long, with an extraordinary measure of redundancy. So let’s cut quickly to the finish line.

The missing pilot?  Showed up with only about a 35-minute delay, and stepped on the gas, apparently flying above the filed intention, and pulled off landing 7 minutes early.  We easily made our connection to the Costa Rican flight, with crew, with a pilot, and best of all – WITH US!

The breakway crew arrived in San Jose, with no luggage, and had to file lost luggage claims, and arrived at our hostel around 2:00 AM, an hour before the rest of us got up.  We arrived on time, managed immigration in Costa Rica with only minor health-pass hiccups, and then hoped that our luggage would actually be there.  Eight of ten pieces made it. Nuts!

We met up with Dustin Dresser, our host, who made his second run to the airport, and we all joined up at Hostel Sabana for pizza by 4:00.  The last of the lost luggage arrived at 5:30am, January 4^th.

PERSPECTIVE

We found ourselves in the eye of a perfect storm – unprecedented challenges for the airline industry.  The St. Paul Pioneer Press reported on January 4^th that:

·       Airlines canceled 8,000 flights between January 1^st and January 3^rd, roughly 10% of all flights

·       The reasons were weather, staffing shortages and late calls in sick due to the Omicron strain

·       There are 9% fewer employees than were employed at this same time in 2019

·       And for our flight, 171 ground personnel did not show up for work the date of our departure.

While there are critics out there that would argue the airlines bear considerable responsibility for this mess, I am not inclined to go along with that sentiment.  These are unprecedented, even historic times.  I am not sure that there are many people who could step into this challenging situation and effect a better result than a 10% reduction in flights, much less get our baggage to us, in an environment marred by toxic idiots punching passengers and crew because they can’t be patient.  It is sad.

They do know what they are doing.  Zak and Lauren, and all the crewmates they work with at United enabled our arrival.  They worked hard, and deserve every bit of our appreciation.