A Terrible Easter Sunday- Courtesy of US Airways

     This last weekend we went to Georgia to visit my grandparents and the rest of the family. We had a great time. My brother from Michigan flew in so there were quite a few of us. My sister Naomi took a lot of pictures with my camera since she's good at taking pictures and I have a fancy camera. I will post those once I get them back from her. But the biggest part of the trip was the trip back. It was a nightmare. Everything and I mean everything went wrong. I wrote a long letter to US Airways so I will use part of that to tell the story and add the additional details.


        It started with our original flight on American Airlines flight #1241 scheduled to depart on Sunday April 24 –Easter -going from Atlanta, GA to Dallas, TX. Our original reservation was under 2 reservation numbers. One included passengers Vincent Martinez, Deborah C. Martinez, Teresa Masdon & David S. Masdon. The other reservation included Rebeca Masdon, David T. Masdon, and Naomi Masdon. David T. Masdon, Vincent Martinez and I were all flying with an infant in our laps. This brings the total to 10 people flying. We arrived at the airport only to find out that our flight was cancelled. Originally our plan for this inconvenience was to stay in a hotel and fly out on a non-stop AA flight the next morning. Now, I wish I had done that. From now on, I will do everything possible no matter how much I am inconvenienced to avoid US Airways. At 7:00pm almost exactly, our AA agent said that she received a call that US Airways had decided to transfer AA reservations to their flight #1780 & #373 with a final destination of DFW. This seemed terrible because of the stop but to get home that night seemed worth it. Because US Airways waited until the last possible minute to okay the transfer we were rushed. We ran down to the US Airways counter, where the agents were informed of this last minute ordeal. We were told to check in at the computers in front of the counter. I had to check 2 infant children in to 2 adults. The computer only allowed me to check 1 child to 1 adult. Since my husband and I have 2 children, I asked the guy at the counter, Courtney, what I should do. He told me I obviously did it wrong and since my brother’s reservation hadn’t been checked in yet, to check a kid in through his reservation. While I was waiting on my brother to check in, the other agent behind the counter walked from behind the counter and came over to both my brother and I. He could see all 10 people including 3 children plus luggage standing there but he still felt it necessary to say “You guys need to hurry up.” I asked him why he was telling us that instead of offering to help and he said “Well, I just want you to know that no one will be holding a plane for anyone and if you choose to be slow, you will miss your flight”. I still don’t understand why this guy even came over to us to talk. Meanwhile, my brother is going through the steps to add a child and we both confirm that 2 children can NOT be added to 2 different adults on the computer check-in. I go back to Courtney to report this information, who states that it’s not my turn. I wait while he calls someone up and helps them, then turns to me and says “Okay, what do you need?” His attitude was pitiful, at best. He added the child to my husband’s ticket and handed it back to us and called “Next”. I then stated that we were checking the stroller and car seat that were stacked on the scale right by him. He sighed and then said “Why didn’t you say anything before?” At this point it was such an awful experience that I ignored him and waited while he did it. Then the first reservation proceeded to the security checkpoint. Meanwhile, my brother David Masdon was having the hardest time with Courtney trying to add their own child Gideon to their reservation. David gave Courtney the entire adult’s ID’s: David T, Rebeca and Naomi. He stated there were 2 reservations. And Courtney did not listen and obviously didn’t care. He looked up my reservation and added Gideon to my father’s ticket, David S. It was not until Courtney printed out the boarding passes that my brother saw that he made a mistake. My brother explained it again and my brother stated that Courtney sighed and rolled his eyes. After that, Courtney took the next 35 minutes to fix my brother’s tickets. This caused them to miss the flight altogether.

While this incident was happening to my brother; my husband, mother, father and I were going through security. Since Atlanta is the 2nd largest international airport, security is crazy busy. So they have a separate line for Handicapped and Strollers. There was a large sign above it. Well while I was pushing Tristan in the stroller and had Caleb in a sling on me, I go down the aisle for strollers. There is a TSA Agent standing at the end so I ask her where she wanted us to go. She looked at me with a smirk on her face and said "Yeah, you need to go get in  line with everyone else. Who do you think you are?" I pointed at the sign above her head and said, "No this line is for the handicapped and strollers". She shook her head and said "No, it's not and you're trying to cut." She then walked over to another TSA agent, named Gay, and asked her if the line was for strollers. Gay nodded and said "Yeah, but she shouldn't be giving you attitude about it." As the other lady walked away, I said "Yeah, there's the huge sign above your head that says strollers on it. Might want to check that out before you tell someone that's it not." Right after that, Gay, yelled "You need to learn who you're talking to and when to shut your mouth. You'd better change your attitude or I will make your life a living hell." I said "Excuse me?? I wasn't even talking to you." She said "Well, that's my friend and if you keep up your attitude I'll make sure my other friends make your life hell through this security line." It was unbelievable. Of course, TSA agents can pretty much do whatever they want because they have no one supervising them nor does the government care about it since their job is to "protect". It's really sad how an $8/hour employee thinks they are on top of the world because they have a little bit of power for a few hours. I really want to say that but decided to bite my tongue and just get through security.  We went through security and basically ran to the gate. We got to the gate to see a long line of passengers lined up to board the plane. A male employee saw my son in the stroller and motioned for me to come to the front. He wrapped a tag around the stroller and disappeared down the ramp. The lady at the gate, Anita, apparently didn’t see any of this happen. She immediately yelled “What do you think you’re doing?” I stated that the gentleman told us to come to the front. She said “No he didn’t say or do anything and you can’t just cut.” I told her since she obviously couldn’t see the 2 screaming babies that I was holding that I was traveling with 2 small children and I thought I could get loaded onto the plane first. She said “Um, no because I have to check your bag. You need to wait on the side for me.” She then waited for EVERYONE in line to board the plane. While we were standing there, my father mentioned his anxiety about my brother, sister-in-law, and sister missing the plane. Anita heard him and said “Oh, we are DEFINITELY not waiting for anyone to board the plane. We will not even wait 30 seconds longer for anyone. We don’t care about American Airline passengers and whether or not their flight was canceled. That’s your problem, not ours.” After everyone loaded the plane, Anita took our tickets and scanned them. I asked her if she needed to see the bag and she said “Umm, no.” This woman made us wait for everyone to load the plane for no reason at all. Also, David T., Rebecca, and Naomi rushed to the gate to arrive at 7:57pm. My brother stated that Anita saw them, shook her head and said “Too late, we weren’t going to let our own customers suffer because AA canceled their flight.” The flight was supposed to leave at 7:59pm. The 2 minutes difference would have allowed my brother, sister-in-law, and sister time to board the plane.
   After we boarded the plane, I feel a huge and I mean huge wet spot on my shirt. Caleb's diaper had leaked all over me. Since he's small I decided to go ahead and change his diaper right there in the seats. I'm normally against these things but it had to be done. Then my mom yells at me from across the aisle that Tristan had a poop diaper that needed to be changed. I told her to wait until we got in the air. Well we had to pass him back and forth so that he would be distracted and when I grabbed him poop rubbed all over me. His diaper had leaked as well and the poop seeped through his clothes and onto mine. Awesome. But we had a long wait to take off so we asked the flight attendant if we could use the bathroom to change it and we did.
        Then when we finally landed at midnight or around there, all of us were physically and emotionally exhausted. We come out to get my checked baggage and stroller and car seat. I got the luggage and car seat. A few minutes later a woman came over to us and asked us if we were waiting on a stroller. She said the stroller had its wheel taken off, making it unusable. This made the trip to long-term parking even more miserable with cranky, heavy babies to carry.
   So, as you can see, awesome trip back. Needless to say, the trip to my brother's wedding in June will not include our kids. It will be a kid-free vacation. Thank the Lord.