The first, most important thing you should know is that our trip home from Colorado was not a disaster. Considering that we had to leave the condo at 9:15 (which we did, almost to the minute) and we were scheduled to arrive home at 9:50 pm eastern time, it could easily have been. But despite some wrenches thrown in the works, we were able to look at it as an adventure rather than a trial. Here's how it went.
When you fly out of Montrose, CO, keep in mind that all the planes arrive at approximately the same time, and they all leave at approximately the same time. Thus everyone who is flying out of Montrose who needs to get a flight to the east coast needs to leave at 12 noon, so they all arrive at 10. When we arrived, the line for checking in to our American flight was out the door of the terminal. Our arrival was made more difficult because we had 9 (yes, nine) bags to check (including our 3 car seats, Michael's skis and the boxes we had shipped out to Colorado). Fortunately there was a sky cap ready to help us, even though he had to wait in the huge line. Also fortunately, our family had a later flight and they returned the car, kept track of kids, and were organized as we moved through the line.
Because we arrived with everyone else, just as we arrived at the check in desk there were announcements saying that everyone on the flight to Dallas should move through security. For all of you who haven't been to Montrose, the airport consists of a secure and a non-secure area. In the non-secure area you can drink, get something to eat, sit in front of a fireplace, and be more or less comfortable and free to go in and out. Once you move to the secure area you can watch the planes, get some water, coke or pepsi from a machine, and sit with the 3-4 plane loads of people who are also waiting for their planes. Following directions, we moved to the secure area instead of resting for a while with the lunch we packed.
Fortunately we were allowed to bring baby food for Luke, a sippee cup for Amanda, and our sandwiches through security. This was especially fortunate, since right when we were expecting to start boarding, the announcement came that our plane would be late. Two hours late. Since our layover in Dallas was 2 hours 20 minutes, Michael immediately jumped in line to see if we needed to change our tickets so that we would arrive home. Before our plane would arrive there was a flight to Denver and a flight to Chicago that we might have been able to get on.
We couldn't get on those flights, though, since in front of Michael were two groups, one of 26 people and one of 20 people. All of these people had to be moved together (apparently), and they couldn't get on the other flights, so no one else was able to get on them either---unless they called American reservations themselves. Finally Michael got to the front of the line about 5 minutes before we boarded the airplane. He had good conversations with 2 other instrument rated pilots, so the time was not entirely wasted. When he got to the front of the line after waiting for 2 hours, the ticket agent said "You have 20 minutes in Dallas. That should be enough for you to make your next plane." I was not impressed.
The plane for dallas actually left 2 hours 15 minutes later than scheduled. We did make up some time on the flight, but when we got to Dallas we had just a few minutes to get to the plane. We walked off the jetway, found an employee waiting at the gate, and asked how to get to our gate. They responded, "Raleigh? hop on this cart!" They had clearly been waiting for us. After a minute or two waiting for the other people on the plane who were going to Raleigh, we headed off through the airport on the cart. The girls thought it was great fun, I think. (Heck, I would have thought it was fun, except for worrying that we would not make it home that night, and I really really didn't want to go through security one more time...)
We got to the gate for the plane to Raleigh and were told by the gate agent that they had started to close the airplane door. We raced down the glass walled maze to the jetway (perhaps they were designed by the same people who work with rats?) to the airplane. Eleanor and Amanda ran, I carried Luke and the diaper bag, and Michael carried all the rest of the carryons. We then had to find seats, and the people next to us were very gracious about changing seats so that we could all sit together.
Thank goodness my mother-in-law had insisted we take the extra sandwiches and apples we had packed for lunch. The plan had been to eat in Dallas. However, we only found out the plane from Montrose would be late after it was too late to get more food, and the flights we were on were less than 3 hours long, so there was no chance to purchase more food between 11am central time and 9:50 pm eastern time. It would have been awful for the kids, except for the extra food we brought. And the fact that my kids don't eat much at the best of times...
Of course, with only a 20 minute layover in Dallas, there was no way our luggage would come with us, and it didn't. The funny thing was that of the whole trip, the thing I had been most anxious about was making it from the baggage claim to the car with our 9 checked bags (including 3 car seats) and 5 carryons, and 3 exhausted kids. Because the plane was late, we didn't have to worry about that. The airline thankfully had loaner car seats for us (we were not the first ones to lose their car seats), so we just went home and to bed without our checked bags. I wasn't even able to be temped to unpack. The luggage arrived the next morning with a few snafus (the ski tube had been driven over, but the skis had not been damaged, they didn't call us when it arrived, they almost sent it out on the truck even as we were driving to the airport...).
Like I said, we were able to turn this into an adventure rather than a disaster. But I'm really really glad that I won't be flying commercial again for a long time. (Providing that Michael gets back into the little airplane....)
When you fly out of Montrose, CO, keep in mind that all the planes arrive at approximately the same time, and they all leave at approximately the same time. Thus everyone who is flying out of Montrose who needs to get a flight to the east coast needs to leave at 12 noon, so they all arrive at 10. When we arrived, the line for checking in to our American flight was out the door of the terminal. Our arrival was made more difficult because we had 9 (yes, nine) bags to check (including our 3 car seats, Michael's skis and the boxes we had shipped out to Colorado). Fortunately there was a sky cap ready to help us, even though he had to wait in the huge line. Also fortunately, our family had a later flight and they returned the car, kept track of kids, and were organized as we moved through the line.
Because we arrived with everyone else, just as we arrived at the check in desk there were announcements saying that everyone on the flight to Dallas should move through security. For all of you who haven't been to Montrose, the airport consists of a secure and a non-secure area. In the non-secure area you can drink, get something to eat, sit in front of a fireplace, and be more or less comfortable and free to go in and out. Once you move to the secure area you can watch the planes, get some water, coke or pepsi from a machine, and sit with the 3-4 plane loads of people who are also waiting for their planes. Following directions, we moved to the secure area instead of resting for a while with the lunch we packed.
Fortunately we were allowed to bring baby food for Luke, a sippee cup for Amanda, and our sandwiches through security. This was especially fortunate, since right when we were expecting to start boarding, the announcement came that our plane would be late. Two hours late. Since our layover in Dallas was 2 hours 20 minutes, Michael immediately jumped in line to see if we needed to change our tickets so that we would arrive home. Before our plane would arrive there was a flight to Denver and a flight to Chicago that we might have been able to get on.
We couldn't get on those flights, though, since in front of Michael were two groups, one of 26 people and one of 20 people. All of these people had to be moved together (apparently), and they couldn't get on the other flights, so no one else was able to get on them either---unless they called American reservations themselves. Finally Michael got to the front of the line about 5 minutes before we boarded the airplane. He had good conversations with 2 other instrument rated pilots, so the time was not entirely wasted. When he got to the front of the line after waiting for 2 hours, the ticket agent said "You have 20 minutes in Dallas. That should be enough for you to make your next plane." I was not impressed.
The plane for dallas actually left 2 hours 15 minutes later than scheduled. We did make up some time on the flight, but when we got to Dallas we had just a few minutes to get to the plane. We walked off the jetway, found an employee waiting at the gate, and asked how to get to our gate. They responded, "Raleigh? hop on this cart!" They had clearly been waiting for us. After a minute or two waiting for the other people on the plane who were going to Raleigh, we headed off through the airport on the cart. The girls thought it was great fun, I think. (Heck, I would have thought it was fun, except for worrying that we would not make it home that night, and I really really didn't want to go through security one more time...)
We got to the gate for the plane to Raleigh and were told by the gate agent that they had started to close the airplane door. We raced down the glass walled maze to the jetway (perhaps they were designed by the same people who work with rats?) to the airplane. Eleanor and Amanda ran, I carried Luke and the diaper bag, and Michael carried all the rest of the carryons. We then had to find seats, and the people next to us were very gracious about changing seats so that we could all sit together.
Thank goodness my mother-in-law had insisted we take the extra sandwiches and apples we had packed for lunch. The plan had been to eat in Dallas. However, we only found out the plane from Montrose would be late after it was too late to get more food, and the flights we were on were less than 3 hours long, so there was no chance to purchase more food between 11am central time and 9:50 pm eastern time. It would have been awful for the kids, except for the extra food we brought. And the fact that my kids don't eat much at the best of times...
Of course, with only a 20 minute layover in Dallas, there was no way our luggage would come with us, and it didn't. The funny thing was that of the whole trip, the thing I had been most anxious about was making it from the baggage claim to the car with our 9 checked bags (including 3 car seats) and 5 carryons, and 3 exhausted kids. Because the plane was late, we didn't have to worry about that. The airline thankfully had loaner car seats for us (we were not the first ones to lose their car seats), so we just went home and to bed without our checked bags. I wasn't even able to be temped to unpack. The luggage arrived the next morning with a few snafus (the ski tube had been driven over, but the skis had not been damaged, they didn't call us when it arrived, they almost sent it out on the truck even as we were driving to the airport...).
Like I said, we were able to turn this into an adventure rather than a disaster. But I'm really really glad that I won't be flying commercial again for a long time. (Providing that Michael gets back into the little airplane....)
Comments