COME FLY WITH ME (in the air, you don’t always get what you paid for).

After spending a rainy weekend visiting our family in LA, not to mention a couple of thousand dollars between the hotel and the flights, the day of our return broke as the first and only sunny day, which we could enjoy only from the car. We had already printed our “e-boarding passes” the evening before, and we left plenty of time to get to the airport for our morning flight with time to spare for breakfast once we checked our bags; what could go wrong?

We called for our Uber car which was only “five minutes away.” After giving the new driver directions to our hotel for the next twenty minutes, we were finally on our way to LAX. As promised, the trip to the airport only took a few minutes but was then followed by another few minutes convincing our driver that “Delta Express” was not the same as Delta. None the less, we were finally there.

We unloaded our bags from the car and got them to the check-in, only to be told that our flight from LA to Philadelphia was canceled a few hours earlier (with no warning to us) and instead of our layover in Cincinnati, we are being put on another flight to Salt Lake City with no guaranteed seats on the connecting flight to Philly. Why? Our original aircraft had been delayed leaving Columbia (yes, the cocaine haven in South America) and they weren’t sure we could make the connection to our flight home on their trunk line – “Take-A-Chance” Airways!

Fortunately, my wife is not one to take things lying down. She ran into the terminal before I even had a chance to say anything, and returned twenty minutes later with a Delta supervisor who assured is he could do nothing about our not sitting together on the first leg of our trip, and having no assigned seats on the connecting flight. “That,” we told him was unacceptable! “Listen,” he said, “you only paid to be assured seats on a plane, not which plane or which seats.” “You listen,” I retorted! “As an attorney, I can assure you that is not true.” “Moreover,” I continued, “as someone who has worked with the FAA, I will make sure you and Delta remember it.” “You have three choices,” I told him. “First, you can get us the assigned seats we paid for. Secondly, you can upgrade us to first class or, failing that, check with another airline to get us on a nonstop flight to Philadelphia.” With that, he retreated back into the terminal, returning a few minutes later with vouchers for a nonstop flight on US Airways straight to Philly.

Already tired and hungry, we plopped our bags onto a cart and proceeded to walk the half mile to US Airways ticketing counter where a very nice lady produced our new boarding passes. Moreover, although we had originally paid extra for seats with more leg room because of a knee problem, she had no such seats available, but she assured us that the flight was half empty and she was giving us a window seat and an aisle seat with an empty seat between us so we’d have leg room. Great! Unfortunately, the day wasn’t over.

After waiting an additional hour and a half for our flight with thin, $10 sandwiches and Coke our only breakfast options, we got to the terminal to find it packed. Apparently, US Airways had canceled a flight to Pittsburgh for mechanical reasons (the plane was broken) and put all the passengers on our flight to Philadelphia with a connecting flight in the opposite direction back to Pittsburgh! That took away the middle seat we were promised.

When you add the day’s events to a transcontinental (five hour) flight on the airline known to have the narrowest seats, least amount of leg room and fewest amenities, and then pack us in like the luggage we had to pay for a second time instead of passengers, you have an idea of the hours we spent in our human “sardine can.” By the time we were able to board the plane (we were in the tail, so we boarded last), there was no room in the overhead compartments, so everything had to go on the floor in front of us and between our legs (“keep your elbows in, exhale when the others inhale, try not to spill your seven dollar drink on anyone else and pray you don’t have to scratch anywhere). Getting out of the seat to the lavatory was more akin to rock climbing than standing up, and being the 15^th passenger in line for the two lavatories in our section of the plane made the trip even more excruciating.

After an interminable flight, we finally landed in Philadelphia, only to realize that the walk to Baggage Claim was even farther than the walk we had in LA, and it ended with a broken escalator forcing us to climb down the stairs, putting more stress on an already painful knee. Perhaps the only thing to go as planned was for our car to arrive on time from parking. We drove home, looked at each other, and collapsed into bed; GAME OVER!