The Non-Rev Charter Flight

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I blame this whole trip on a mixture of Covid 19 and one of the AA Cargo Directors. Despite working for American Airlines for 3 years already, Alex and I have done limited international travel despite that being what we were both most excited to use or flight benefits for. COVID resulted in our London-Ireland trip being cancelled in April 2020 as well as our Japan trip in April 2021. Needless to say, the itch to travel was very real by this June so I kept one ear open for a chance to go ANYWHERE international. Then luck would have it, two weeks before the 4th of July weekend I heard from a voice passing by my desk at work that Amsterdam was on the "Best Bets" list. The country would be opening up to US citizens starting June 18th so little summer travelers had made the connection that it was a worthy pathway for a summer trip. While the booking window this summer was definitely shorter than the past, two weeks was too short after the opening announcement to fill the plane. A text inquiry to Alex on his interest on going to Amsterdam over the 4th quickly kicked us into planning mode.

I booked our flights to and from Amsterdam on our once a day AA flight with over 200 open seats on the wide body 787-900 we fly over there. Alex got permission for taking off from work which led to an opportunity to add even more to our trip by hopping over to Copenhagen, Denmark for an few days as well which would give him the chance to meet one of his colleagues at Eleventh Hour Games. I found out that KLM was sending regular flights there each day so it should be easy enough to standby on them over. A few Kayak.com searches later and we had hotels both places as well.

Now for the challenging part - finding a place for Beckett for the weekend. Due to plans for the holidays, our normal options were unavailable so we reserved her a spot to be boarded at Daycare. Then she got sick Tuesday morning the week of our trip. Beckett started coughing and it got to a point Tuesday night where she ( which means me too) was up every 2 hours with a 5 minute coughing fit where she could barely breathe. Avet visit the next day had her diagnosed with Kennel Cough, on meds, and restricted from being around other dogs. Now we were in a pickle. Beckett couldn't go to daycare and most of our friends have dogs of their own. Luckily Alex had recently reconnected with friends of ours for dinner and games each week. And while they were dog people, didn't yet have one of their own. They were more than happy to babysit for the weekend. That squared away at the last minute, our trip was still on.

Friday morning we both tried to wrap up work to leave for the airport by noon due to most international flights, including ours, requiring passengers to see an agent to verify their travel documents for COVID before they could be issued a boarding pass. Unfortunately, earlier in the week business travel had me scrambling to get stuff done and Alex was onboarding a new team member. In addition, Alex officially started full time with the company so needed me to fill out paperwork for him verifying his identity. All in all we ended up leaving 45 minutes past our goal. Luckily Alex still had Gold status with the airline so our line wasn't too bad and we were able to find a restaurant near the departure gate for a late lunch before our 10 hour flight.

Thanks to the ever watching eyes of airline employees, others noticed the great opportunity to easily make it to Europe on the Amsterdam flight. Despite us using our D1 passes and me checking us in right on the dot, we were 44th on the standby list which meant no business class for us. We did manage to get in Main Cabin Extra in a row for just the 2 of us. So extra legroom and seat space to spread out and attempt to sleep. Ironically, the standby list grew to just over 130 people. That meant there were more than double non rev standbys flying than paid passengers making it basically a charter flights to AMS for AA employees family and friends. It was a jovial spirit at the gate and on the flight as many people were saying hello to each other. It meant a happier more experienced flying population which put the flight attendants in a good mood too. While it was still a 10 hour flight with not great space for sleeping, it was relatively positive and uneventful.

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