LAX at last, August 4, 2018

Its like deja vu all over again!  We are sitting in the Los Angeles airport after a harrowing 24 hours.  It all began yesterday, after we downloaded our boarding passes.  JoAnn received a text message that our flight to Seattle was cancelled and we would be notified in due course about American’s revised plans for us.  Problem was that we need to be in Anchorage today, Saturday, August 4th, in order to board the Noordam tomorrow.  We are destined for a southbound, inter passage, Alaskan cruise with our son and his family.

Casey, his wife, Val and oldest son, Colin are already there and we are bringing the rest of the family, Jenna and Caden, with us.  We will, that is, if we can make new arrangements with American; and that is easier said than done.  Weather is the culprit, so they say.  Apparently flights were cancelled up and down the eastern seaboard on Friday.

JoAnn, being diligent, after suffering a near cardiac event, jumped on the phone to American to work things out; or so we thought.  After initially being told that they could probably get us booked for a departure on Sunday, a day late and a dollar short, to which I responsed that we must be in Anchorage Saturday at the latest, the representative found us a flight to Anchorage via Los Angeles.  And, here we sit, waiting to board a 7:30pm flight to our destination.

Seems simple, right?  Not so fast.  When we tried to get seats, via the representative, we were informed that we had to get them assigned at the airport.  We were able to see our reservations on the internet after we hung up from the American rep.  Everything seemed fine, but was it?  JoAnn and Jenna had seat assignments but not so for Caden and me.  It all had to be resolved at the airport.

We left more than 3 hours prior to takeoff.  Plenty of time we thought.  But upon arrival at PHL we were met with a logistical nightmare; a long, snakelike line to see what was one American representative and with all the cancellations, everyone was taking an extended length of time with that one agent.  And, Caden and I had no seats and all I could imagine was that everyone in line wanted to go to Los Angeles.  Seats were flying out of inventory left and right, or so I thought.

With all the cancellations Friday, you would have thought that American would have ample representatives working to resolve problems.  No!!!  Not so.  One rep for lots and lots of troubled, soon to be unhappy passengers.  Lots of sour looks on lots of unhappy people.  Is American that uncaring that they couldn’t call people in to work overtime to resolve these problems?  After about an hour and a half we were next in line.  Oh glory be!

Our representative, who jumped on line shortly before we were called “next,” told us that JoAnn and Jenna had seats but not so Caden and me.  We knew that and told her that was why we waited in line.  She then she began to tell us she couldn’t assign seats and that we needed to see a gate agent.  Oh hell!  This was starting to look desperate.  We have to be in Anchorage today.  People are counting on us.

Off to the gate, in search of 2 seats, with little time to spare.  We almost ran all the way from security (where we were delayed so they could, due to the fact that I was randomly selected, swab my iPhone) to the gate, C29, the furthest gate in C terminal.  Everything was stacking up against us.  Boarding was to begin at 12:30pm and it was now only moments before 12 and still no seats.

I was asked to step aside, have a seat and they would let us know what they could do.  Well, by now you know we made it or I wouldn’t be writing from LAX.  Oh, the anxiety!  Now all we have to do is make it onto our 7:30 flight to Anchorage.