Airplane Customer Service Tips - Ask and You Shall Receive!

I'm putting this post under marriage, because working together is a GREAT aspect of marriage, and it worked out in our favor in this situation! 

As I’m writing this, I am currently on an airplane on the way to Charlotte and then to Memphis.  We got to the airport around 8:45, our flight was delayed an hour, we got on the plane, were informed there was a groundstay, and then sat on the tarmac for around 2 hours.  They told us it didn’t look good, that our flight might get cancelled, and that they were looking into alternate routes for all of us.  We figured this couldn’t be possible, so we decided to take matters into our own hands.  

I used the Kayak app on my iPhone to search for flights from Norfolk to Memphis and sorted them by leaving soonest.  There were many that would get us in to Memphis around 10 or 11 pm (original arrival time: 3 pm), but ONE that got in at 6:17 pm.  Kayak told me there were 5 seats on the first flight and 9 on the second, so Brent and I sprang into action.  He called United and, bless his heart, sat on the phone with them for over half an hour!  He told them about our situation and exactly what we wanted (the flight numbers I found).  They booked the flights for us, told us a confirmation number, and we were on our way, to the disbelief of the crew of the flight we were currently on.  They seemed very confused as to why/how we changed our flight.  We were not willing to go to Newark where there was a previous ground stay because any flight we would have planned to be on would be delayed at least another hour and a half! 

We successfully left security, got new boarding passes, went back through security, and are now on our (on-time) flight.  God is so good at coordinating schedules and being involved in every detail of our day, especially the stressful ones!  The moral of this story is that if you want something and there is a way to talk to people in order to get it, and it doesn’t harm anyone else, by all means: DO IT! You’re not hurting anyone’s feelings, being an annoyance, or embarrassing anyone, you’re just getting something more functional and sensible accomplished.  Talk to people, work out problems, we were meant for human interaction! If we had done nothing about it, we would be on the other flight going to Newark, scheduled for a flight at 5 (it’s 3 right now), which is already delayed 1 hour and 45 minutes, and who knows when we would have gotten to Memphis (no earlier than 8:30).  This way, we still get to eat dinner at the recommended Rendezvous in Memphis, PLUS, we get 2 shorter flights because we don’t have to go north to go southwest.

Our new tickets (United => USAir)

"Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves.  A cord of three strands is not quickly broken." Ecclesiastes 4:12