This morning I headed for my hometown on the shore of Lake Superior. My flight was at 6am, and Dick and Kerry got me to the airport in plenty of time. It was mostly downhill from there!
I was scheduled for a multi-leg flight: Palm Springs - Phoenix - Indianapolis - Toronto - Thunder Bay, but US Airways wouldn't book me past Indianapolis. They wanted me to collect my bags and recheck there. I finally convinced them that since they were all the same big company (Star Alliance) that they should be able to check my luggage through to Canada. At that point they made the giant leap of checking them right through to Thunder Bay despite my protests that I should probably clear customs in Toronto! And they charged me for each of the bags, a total of $60. But I still only had boarding passes to Indy.
When we got to Phoenix, with a pretty quick connection, I rushed to the next terminal and gate, only to find the plane had "gone mechanical". Air transportation companies are never behind schedule—aircraft "go mechanical" or "take on a delay"! In this case, it was delayed for an hour and as I result I wouldn't make the connection in Indy to go up to TO. So, they started work on a new connection through Philly; it would get me to TO, but too late for my flight to TBay. There was still a chance my original flight would get ready to go in time to make the connection, so I waited a while longer. Then, it "took on a further delay", so I headed back to customer service. I asked them if they could reroute me with a different airline, but they said their rule was only to reroute with a different airline after a four-hour delay. I returned to my line about "all one big company", and after a bit of work on that story, they agreed to call Air Canada about the direct flight from Phoenix to TO. Yep, they had a seat available. US Airways said they would put in an order for my luggage to get moved over to that flight, and I headed to the AC desk to get my boarding cards. AC called down to the baggage area, but my bags had not arrived. They sent me back to US Airways. US Airways admitted they had not found the bags, but that they were still working on it.
I headed back to AC gate and my 1pm flight (Original departure from Phoenix was 9:35am) only to find it had "gone mechanical" as well. It didn't take too long, but we were late getting away, and late getting into TO. Fortunately, I had no luggage, so it was a quick trip through Customs & Immigration. Then I had to go back through security, and try to get to the gate for the flight to TBay. I knew I was late, but this time, the plane had "taken on a delay" for over an hour, and I made the final leg to TBay arriving here at about 11pm without luggage! Maybe it will come tomorrow, but in the meantime, I won't be able to go golfing!!
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