Murphys Law


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North America » United States » Michigan » Detroit
June 24th 2014
Published: June 24th 2014
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Today we explore the relevance of the old adage "Murhys Law" if it can go wrong it will, at the worst possible time"....and it did. How can something go wrong already? All we did so far is get up, drive to the airport and check in.Well, check in was a huge issue. Let me explain. We arrived without incident to the airort, North Terminal, to check in at Air Canada. Air Canada has a code share with United. Yesterday, I tried to get my boarding pass on line as I always do, but was unsuccessful. I called Air Canada directly and was on hold for 1 hour only to be told that this flight was airport checkin only. Nice to know, so I just assumed that I woud check in at the airport. Arrived at 8:30 for a 10:40 flight, Plenty of time right? Nice assumption. We got in line for United check in and were asked to move to the head of the line as we had Air Canada check in and they only check in with an agent. Our agent, Lynn, asked for our passports, we happily complied. Everything went downhill from there.She hit some computer keys and found our reservation. She asked the computer for the boarding pass and all hell broke loose. It seemed that our reservation had been changed by the Air Canada gods and they reseceduled our flight from 10:30 AM to 11:20 AM. No big deal, right? Wrong! It seems that the United computer ony had the origional schedule and, as such, they could not check me into the flight with the new schedule. Lynn called on her supervisor, Kim, who reviewed the reservation and stated calmly...."Humm, I have been here 10 years and have NEVER seen that error message before!" So Lynn called the Air Canada help desk and waited for 30 minutes on hold. Finally a Canadian answered the phone, and American Lynn explained the problem. Our Canadian savior put Lynn on hold another 10 minutes and promptly told Lynn "I can't help you" and promptly hung up! Agast, Lynn calls the United help desk, who calls the Air Canada help desk and we are on hold again. Frustrated, Lynn calls upon Kim again who calls her supervisor from the back room. Together, all three are banging on the computer keys with absolutely no result. Lynn, after 90 minutes was now do for lunch, so she hands off the problem to the lovely Kim. She is at a loss however. Kim now calls both the Air Canada Help desk and the United Help Desk and has her suervisor working with HIS supervisor...yes we had 5 people tied up just to get a boarding pass. Finally after another half hour, someone finally figured out the poroblem. It seems that Air Canada had 5 schedule changes on our return flight so the ticket and the flight segments did not line up. So Air Canada cancels my reservations, rebooks them and Voila...nothing. The United computer will still not give us a bording pass. Kim's supervisor decides to give us paper tickets so we can get on the plane to Toronto. Kim, not one to admit defeat, keeps punching the computer keys and suddenly the system says OK here are your boarding passes. YAY problem solved. It only took 2 hours and 6 people in two countries to allow us on the flight. With boarding passes in hand, we headed off to breakfast.

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