CHICAGO, Illinois, Sunday, August 14, 2016 - When last I posted, it was Friday afternoon and I was marooned in a motel a few miles from O'Hare Airport in Chicago. My red eye flight from Las Vegas to Chicago was delayed some two hours because of labor difficulty at O'Hare. The jet's flight originated here, flew to Las Vegas and then back to Chicago. That particular jet was then going on to Ft. Lauderdale.
We speak here of Spirit Airline.
I boarded in Vegas and was supposed to disembark in Chicago and switch planes to one heading to Baltimore. But the two hour delay cut my layover from two hours to just a few minutes, a fact further complicated by problems caused by a delay in getting the pedestrian tunnel pushed up to the jet to allow passengers to disembark the jet and enter the terminal. I literally ran from my jet to my connection and arrived five minutes before it was scheduled to leave.
But the Spirit Jet had already left, even though the captain of my flight had radioed ahead to advise airline officials that the flight to Baltimore needed to be held up a few short minutes so the many passengers on the flight from Las Vegas could make the connection. Amazingly, there was no problem with the luggage being unloaded and put on the flight to Baltimore, and all of my luggage was on the Friday morning flight to Baltimore. But I wasn't. On the other hand, my problems were only beginning.
Once it was clear I was not going to get on the scheduled Friday morning connecting flight to Baltimore, Spirit, and its agent in Chicago told me that the first flight they could put me on was Friday evening. This flight would take me from Chicago to Los Angeles, where I could make a connection back across the country to Baltimore. It was their idea that I should fly from Las Vegas to Chicago to Los Angeles to Baltimore. I wasn't happy and said so, and to the agent's credit, she did then find me a ticket - the last ones, she said - on a red eye (Friday night) flight directly from Chicago to Baltimore. I retreated to a cheap motel near the airport and waited until Friday evening. At 5 pm I checked the Spirit web page and found that the flight we still set to leave on time.
Arriving at the airport before sunset, I grabbed a meal, then went to the Spirit desk at my boarding gate to check on things.
"This flight was cancelled a long time ago," the stone-faced agent advised me. I told him I'd just checked at 5 pm.
"I don't know about that," she said, "but the flight has been cancelled." No reason was offered. I went back to the main Spirit desk and ask what they were going to do.
The lad there literally told me as he peered into his computer, "Oh, the last seats on a flight this time tomorrow have just been taken. The best I can do is Sunday morning."
I said, "you're going to help me out here, aren't you? I mean, I get a hotel and some meals, right?" Not exactly. I got a coupon that was supposed to get me a 50% reduction in the hotel bill and a break on some meals. When I checked out long before dawn this morning, it didn't seem like anything was deducted, but honestly, I was too tired and too scared of missing another flight to put up much of a fight.
O'Hare Airport in Chicago in the predawn hours of a Sunday morning in mid-August seems like the crowd around the concession stands at halftime of a Ravens game. The crowds are immense, the lines are long - at McDonalds and Starbucks, the lines are in excess of 50 yards long. The lines at the airline desks are longer. I bought coffee at a hot dog vendor.
On the one wing of O'Hare, where only Spirit and American Airlines board planes, you cannot move and you cannot hardly find a place to sit down. But I finally fight my way on board my connecting flight and got to Baltimore - guess! - almost one hour early.
I do have a few questions for Spirit. Why, when a customer gets screwed - their plane left early on Friday, keeping me and a dozen other passengers from making a connection - did they put me on a flight and then cancel it? Then I get put on a Sunday morning flight even though there were at least two other flights on Saturday. I'm sure they will say those flights were booked. But doesn't somebody in my shoes have a higher claim on seats than do those who are having an easy time of things?
Just asking.
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