A Traveler’s Tale
This is a tale of hope, confusion, anger, and excitement – in that order. Follow along to see whether Aya makes it on a plane.
5:00am
I’m usually a night owl…why am I awake at such an ungodly hour? Thanks jet lag. But, strangely feeling quite rested. Thanks, jet lag. Packing up my things in the hotel, I get ready to leave with my dad at around 6am. We elevator down to the lobby, catch a cab to the New Taipei Industrial Park, and ride on the MRT Expressway to the Taoyuan Airport.
I’m sad to leave the beautiful city of Taipei, but full of hope for new adventures at my final destination —> Japan! I’m on my way, lovely homeland!
7:10am
We retrieve bags at the airport luggage service (we left two bags since we were only staying in Taipei for two days and didn’t need the bulk of our stuff). My dad looks at his watch and says, “Great! we’re right on schedule.”
We didn’t know that an unexpectedly large wrench would be thrown in our timeline.
7:30am
Check-in to our flight at Counter 14, ANA. Our flight was booked through United, but it’s a code share.
Counter Attendant: “You’re only confirmed one ticket, right? One’s on waiting list?”
Excuse me?
The look I gave her was most certainly not pleasant. It was a “TF are you talking about” face. I felt bad right after – since I knew it wasn’t any of these people’s doing if there was an issue – but I was not expecting her question at all. My dad booked our flights in November and we even had confirmation print outs!
8:00am
United Customer Services Counter, near aisle 5. I explain my situation to the woman (K) working at the counter. She goes to check on her office computer because the counter computer is taking too long to load, and tells me that somehow, when I made my changes to my return flight to the US (from Tokyo), my flight from Taipei to Tokyo got messed up and “waitlisted.” She was just as confused as I was as to why that would happen (since I only changed my flight to the US and didn’t touch anything on my other flights) and told me that the best thing to do was to standby on the flight I’m waitlisted for anyway.
Super kind and understanding, she walked all the way back to the ANA counter with me to speak with the counter attendants there as well (who were also very kind, but clearly didn’t know what to do since I didn’t book through them and it was just a code share). After speaking for a lengthy minute back and forth with the person in charge of the ANA counter, she told me that the best thing for me to do was to wait an hour, until 9:10, and come back to the counter. I think she was fighting for me, though, since she made sure that I was No. 1 on the waitlist (granted, Idk if anyone else was on any list). 9:10 would be the time for Judgment.
Seeing that my dad was worried and thinking about staying behind in case there was absolutely no room for me on the flight, she assured us, “I will help her” and that my dad should go ahead on the flight even in the worst case scenario. She made sure that I knew the supervisor’s name, her name and told me that if I didn’t get a flight, I should go right back to her counter and we’d go from there.
K is my superhero for the day 🙂
8:20am
Confused and angry beyond words at United, I go upstairs and sit down to wait a little bit. My dad points out a bubble tea place and that I should get a bubble tea since I hadn’t crossed that off my list yet.
I’m in Taipei, and I haven’t had tea. In Aya terms, this is a semi-tragedy.
And yet, I’m so mad that not even boba can entice me away from my predicament. I was also angry at myself because I remembered that my United account didn’t show me all of my confirmed flights – and I just thought (at the time) that it was just the United website being finicky as usual. Note to Self: always be the squeaky wheel when anything’s weird with flights…
I’m usually pretty lucky and things tend to work out, and one side of me thought: whatever will be will be. A more stubborn side of me felt more like: I will get on that damn plane whether United thinks I need to “wait” or not. But, I was also concerned that this would be my first nightmare story about United that I would recount to join all the other United mishap stories. Mainly, though, I just didn’t want to spend any more money than I had to.
8:45am
I figure I’d stalk the counter, so I got one of those luggage carts and lugged my bags near the counter, watching the clock, watching my phone, until it became 9:10.
8:55am
Check Facebook. Email my mom.
8:59am
Check Facebook. Check Instagram. Look up at counter, to see if there’s sign of any progress. There are few last stragglers checking in for the flight. I hope someone is missing their flight slash decided not to go today. At the same time, I damper my hopes since I don’t really want to wish anyone such a dire situation that they would be forced to miss their flight. Also it’s bad karma.
9:01am
Almost. Almost. Pleaaaaase let there be a space. I’m not about to pay for a separate flight!
There are no more travelers checking in. I take this to be a good/bad sign since the counter attendants are still there (so I assume this means they are still waiting on people).
There is a group of about five people that come up to the ANA information counter- I wonder if they’re also on standby. I get nervous and inch closer to the counter, trying to remind them of my presence, but also trying to be polite and wait until 9:10 (since Karen told me earlier that they actually told her to tell me to go at 9:15).
9:05am
I see a young dude. Is he the last to check in? He has glasses. He’s at the counter for kind of a long time, but I don’t think anything of it.
9:10am
Judgment time.
As the clock struck 9:10 (no, just the digital number changed), I roll my cart up to the counter and try to get Mr. L’s attention. He’s on the phone, though, so I wait.
He’s done.
I wave. “Mr. L, do you know if there’s any space?”
He tells me that the dude trying to check in has a spelling error in his name and isn’t able to check in. He tells me he’s currently in the process of calling his travel agency.
“If he can’t check in by 9:20, you can have his spot!”
HOORAH! but also, that really sucks for the dude. So I resign myself to simply waiting, seeing what the Fates decide.
9:15am
Mr. L comes over. A smile. “It’s okay, you can check in now.”
THANK YOU!!! Mr. L is also a superhero of the day. I check in my bag, a different counter attendant tells me he changed my seat so that I’m next to my dad, and he wishes me a good flight. Things seem to be looking up.
9:20am
I really want to go back to the United counter 5 to thank K, but my boarding time is 9:25. I figure I can find a way to maybe email her later.
I get to security, pass through easily.
Now there’s a passport check, and there’s quite a line. I frantically try to wave down one of the security(?) ppl and show them my boarding pass. Denied. I try to wave down another one, he looks at my boarding pass, considers it, looks at the line with a slight frown/thinking face, and tells me that I’ll be fine just to go with the line.
He was right. It went quickly.
Passport stamped. Destination: Gate D7.
9:33
But I didn’t get boba!
I can’t leave Taipei without getting boba!
So, even though it’s probably not that great, and even though boarding has already started, I make a pit stop right before my gate to get a bubble tea. Yes, the time is crunching and I still decide to stop for tea. Welcome to my life.
9:36
I get to the gate. I see my dad! HI DADDY!
I show my passport to another attendant and they wave me down toward the escalators. Another woman looks at my boarding pass, and with a look of recognition, she goes oh!! As if she noticed the (to me, unintelligible) scribbles on my boarding pass made by the ANA counter attendants, or because of my name (they might have been calling about me. or maybe I’m just famous, take your pick), she looked at me, smiled and said, “Congratulations!!”
With a heartfelt thanks, I go off on my merry way, joining a short line of other passengers who were boarding. I’m not even the last to board! Success!
10:55am
It’s now 10:55 and I’m sitting at 43A next to my dad, who’s nodding off. Outside my window is a blanket of fluffy, bright, blinding white. It was a roller coaster, folks, but in the end I’m exactly where I need to be.
And all’s well that ends well.
Happy travels! [What’s your craziest flight story?]