If I had waited at the airport for the plane I thought he was going to be on, I may have seen his luggage circulating on the carousel. However, I had already left.
He had already called to say that he had been on stand-by with many other people and did not make the cut. He said it wasn’t looking good for the next flight either… I was more than disappointed, I was angry. It had been a long trip in a month of long trips. He was tired. I was tired. My daughter was heart broken. . .I should have known.
This particular trip was plagued by airline flight cancellations due to “safety concerns.” In fact, forty percent of his flights had been canceled on this adventure. All of the flights were owned by the same airline… Scary, don’t you think?
Things did not start off well. His first flight from the local airport was canceled. He ended up leaving the next day. (Truthfully, I was happy about this. It meant he was home for almost an entire week!) It ended up just foreshadowing his trip home.
When I heard the Skype call alert on around noon on Saturday my heart sank, I knew something was wrong. Indeed it was him calling from Europe. His flight out was canceled. They could not get him on another that day to get him home. He was calling from the hotel the airline put him up in. He would be back Sunday night instead:(
The next day, the first flight arrived at the connection point early and he sent a text with the good news. However, two hours after he should have been in the air on the second leg of his journey home, I received another text… He was still sitting on the ground in the plane. There was a fuel leak. They were going to switch planes.
The last text I received said he was finally on the other plane. It looked like they were going to actually take off.
Of course when he arrived, he had missed his connecting flight to our local airport. He apparently was just one of hundreds of travelers who missed flights because of numerous cancellations. He was placed on stand-by with many, many others. The airline went ahead and loaded his luggage on to the first stand-by flight, but there was no room for him.
He was not confirmed on a flight until Monday morning. . .
After his call telling me the current situation, I circled around the local airport and headed home. I put away my perishable groceries, got our little dog and head out to pick him up at the major airport. Thankfully, we only live two hours from where he was stuck.
We all arrived home after 2 a.m. My husband had been awake for 29 hours trying to get home. Thus, his luggage waited on him at the local airport until later that morning when he picked it up.
When you arrive at your destination before your luggage arrives, your luggage is said to be lost. The airline often knows where it is; it is just not with you.
So, when your luggage arrives at your destination before you, are you not lost? Sure, you and the airline know where you are, but not how or when you’ll get to your destination – the same as lost luggage.
