I like to think that I’m something of an “ideal” airline passenger. I mean, except for having to ask someone to put my carry-on bag into the overhead bins, and take it back out again (I’m 4’6” tall; I can’t reach the overhead compartments), I don’t cause any problems. I stay in my own space, I don’t leave anything in the seat pocket in front of me, I know what snack and drink I want before the flight attendants get up to me, I do what the FAs ask me to do, you name it.
But I have to admit that the other day, I was THAT passenger. The one who asked for something special. And I felt badly about it because really, asking for special treatment is SO. NOT. ME. But desperate times called for desperate measures.
Storytime
If you’ve been reading our blog for a while, you probably know that I’ve been involved in JetBlue’s 25 For 25 promotion. I had reached 20 airports after we flew from Tampa to LaGuardia and back last week, for a long weekend in NYC. But then I had a 2-day “JetBlue Junket” on the books that would add 3 more airports to my “dance card.”
My schedule for the first day included 4 flights:
- MCO to BOS
- BOS to PHL
- PHL back to BOS (those are my favorite – same plane, same crew LOL!)
- BOS to SYR
PHL and SYR would be 2 of my 3 “new” airports and the BOS to SYR route was to be my last one of the day, with a stay at the Holiday Inn & Suites that night.
I have to admit that I’ve been pretty lucky with all these flights of mine. I’m on a couple of forums with other people who’ve been doing the 25 for 25 promotion, and I’ve heard stories of cancelled flights, missing flights because of delays, sleeping in airports, etc. I’ve had no cancelled flights at all, and very few delayed flights. And even when we were delayed, it was for small amounts of time that didn’t really affect much, I still had enough time to get to my plane with time to spare (once was with just 10 minutes to spare, but I still made it!).
My luck was about to change
I had gotten notification from JetBlue that due to ongoing construction on one of BOS’s runways, my PHL to BOS flight was going to be delayed. Instead of taking off at 3:31pm, we’d be taking off at 4:33pm.
My flight from BOS to SYR was scheduled to leave at 6:40pm. So that gave me about an hour and a half between planes. It’d be tighter than I’d typically like, but still doable.
But we weren’t done.
We were all loaded onto the plane and the pilot comes onto the PA and says we’ve now been moved to a 5:03pm departure.
Ew. A now-90 minute delay was going to make things very iffy in terms of making my flight to Syracuse.
As we were leaving the gate at PHL, the pilot said we might be able to leave closer to on time; he’d let us know. 30 long minutes later, he said no, BOS faked us out, and we weren’t going to leave until 5:03pm after all.
Awesomesauce.
I texted my husband, because he was the one who had been making all of my plane and hotel reservations, figuring out which lounge I had access to, etc. (I’m perfectly capable of doing it; I’m just lazy and he keeps track of our points, miles and credit cards in the house). I told him he maaaaay have to reroute me, or get me a hotel room in Boston for the night…but I would do my best to make the plane.
What I did
The first thing I did was talk to the flight attendants. I already had a good rapport with them because I had flown with them earlier in the day, going from Boston to Philly. They knew I was doing the 25 for 25, the whole deal.
I explained the situation—we were scheduled to land roughly 10 minutes before my flight to SYR was set to start boarding. But we had to taxi, unload, etc. And it’s not like the two gates were anywhere near each other – I was landing at C31 and taking off from C16.
At Boston. If you’ve been to BOS, you understand – that airport is HUGE.
So I asked the FAs if there was anything they could do to help me with my situation.
Anyway, here’s how I explained it on a Facebook post (cuz it isn’t official if it isn’t FB Official):
Well that was fun. Talked to the flight attendants and they moved me from row 16 to row 5.
Someone helped me get my bag from the overhead and everyone in rows 4 and 3, who had seen the FA move me to the 5th row, let me pass cuz my plane was “loading in 1 minute” (no lie).
A couple in row 2 was flying to Shannon, Ireland for a wedding and THEIR plane had already begun loading. So I let them ahead of me. Row 1 let the 3 of us get off first
We has taxied to Gate 31 at BOS; the couple going to Ireland had to go to Gate 20; I had to go to 16. We wished each other luck and off we went.
I hope they made it. I did. I was the last one to board and was labeled a “runner from Philadelphia” on their walkie talkies.
Like I said, I made it. I was still about 300 feet away from Gate 16 when they announced “final call” for my flight. I really was THE LAST person to board.
But I made it.
And I asked for special favors to make it happen.
I have no regrets.
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