Our journey began with a heap of disappointment. Sonja, Kylen, and Rinoa had spent the night at our house and we left for the airport early on Saturday morning to catch our flight. As we were pulling in, one of our families, Clemons, texted and warned us that the lines were extremely long. So we made our way quickly into the terminal to find the American Airlines check in counter lined up past their section, then passed the Delta section. The Clemons were probably 20 minutes in line ahead of us, so we made our way to the back of the line and waited. I am never easy until through Security, and it was slowly dawning on us that things were moving way to slow, and we may not get to the front counter in time. As we got closer to the counter, we thought about using the self check-in kiosks, but only 1 of the 6 was working, and it had an extremely long secondary line. The Aikens and Vinsants showed up about 10 minutes behind us, and joined the line. This was my first air travel since COVID, and it was clear to see that American was understaffed for this morning. They had one person on the fastpass American Elite travelers, and one on the rest of us. At 5:15AM, we had still not made it to the counter, and our flight was at 6:10AM. The Clemons had gotten checked in, and we could see in the distance that they were in an extremely long TSA security line. And then finally to the counter at 5:30AM came the words I had been dreading when I arrived at the counter "We can not check you in at this time, and can't get you to your destination until Tuesday".
Sonja was receiving the same message, so we both left the line to tell the ones behind us and regroup for a plan for the next steps. You can see in the picture where we huddled up for our plans. You can also see that apparently this long line is ONLY for those 6 AM flights. So, at this point, the Clemons family made it thru and to the gate, but the other 11 of us were out of luck. So we began trying to figure out Plan B. Scott Vinsant, Brandon, and myself starting talking with various American Airlines call centers and our travel agent call center. We also were able to make it backup to the counter, and verify that the only available option would not get us there until Tuesday. I came back to the group, and basically told them at this time, it looked like this was not going to happen this year. I could see the disappointment in Sam and Davis, and everyone. I felt horrible that we had not just gotten here earlier, camped out at the airport if needed. We had no sleep anyway, so there was no issue getting there earlier...inside, was just a constant kicking of myself in not recognizing the need to be there so early.
Then, we learned from our travel agent that there was another flight on Delta leaving the next day, but it only had 4 seats. So thus began a fun church group battle where all seek to be first by being last. So everyone thought that someone else should be one of those seats. But it looked like there could be more, so I went to the Delta counter, where the lady, for some reason, could only check for 4 people...yes there was availability. Can you search for 5? yes, there was availability. And YES, this conversation between me and counter lady (super nice, but this was super difficult)...we went up to 6, then 7, then 8, then well, her computer would not let her search for availability over 8. YES, the delta computer would not let her do that. Serenity now. Back to the group, I reported that 8 seats were available, and we think all 11 are there....but the seats were all a flight leaving from Atlanta. Brandon then came back and said that he found 3 seats from Birmingham that met that same flight from Atlanta. And in our group, there were only 2 groups of three, with one of them that had a car to get back home. So we booked 8 in Atlanta, and 3 from Birmingham, with me and the boys getting the tickets out of Birmingham.
So now, what to do, what to do? We had 8 people that needed to get to Atlanta in the morning, but all needed their vehicles in Birmingham for the return flight. Did I mention that American had cancelled out return flights when we did not get our departure flights? Yes, lots more fun conversations with both our travel agent and american airlines were in store, but our focus at this point was just to get there. I neglected to tell Magan that we did not have a return flight back to the US when we left, but for good reason. After checking out the availability of rental cars at the airport, we found that the supply and cost were ridiculous. So when Brandon found 2 vehicles for only $100/each one way, we grabbed them up. Then Scott Vinsant and Brandon rode with me and the boys to pick up the vehicles in Inverness, to return and pick up the rest of the group still huddled in that same area at the airport. And after dropping them off at the AVIS, I started towards home when Vinsant called and said...hold up, they may not have the vehicles. What a Day! Luckily when I pulled back to the Avis, they had found the vehicles.
So while 8 of us drove over to Atlanta, me and the boys dropped by ChickfilA and drove home for what I will call a super miserable day. A day I spent kicking myself, but Magan was almost bouncing she was so happy to spend a lazy day with us. She was way to happy that we had missed the flight, but she had been super busy the days before and had not gotten to see much of the boys before we left, so it was nice to have some time with her on this slow slow day. Me and the boys had some fun playing a ping pong tournament. Ruby had some fun outside playing with her barbies in a bathtub recreational area. But now we had another flight out of Birmingham in the morning, and we were getting there 3.5 hours early to ensure NO line would stop us. As I tucked the girls into bed that night, Anabelle smiled up at me and said "Dad, I hope you guys don't miss your plane again. But if you do...I want a bacon, egg, and cheese McGriddle from McDonalds".
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