Inga: A Saga That Might Make You Never Want To Fly Again

This is a story that will make you never want to travel again. Unfortunately, it was probably replayed tens of thousands of times over the weekend of July 19 when the CrowdStrike security glitch cancelled planes throughout the U.S. and Europe.

My friend, “Catherine” and her husband had just enjoyed an idyllic family reunion in the Ozarks and were due to fly back to San Diego at 6 a.m. on Saturday, June 20 from Springfield, MO to San Diego on Delta. The saga of their three-day effort to get home would fill five times the space I’m allotted for this column.

As soon as they were alerted on Friday night that their Delta flights were cancelled, they tried to rebook, to no avail, on Delta’s website. So Catherine’s husband queued up on Delta’s help chat app while Catherine waited on hold on Delta’s customer service line, hoping to double their chances of connecting with the required human.

Dismayingly, every 20 minutes, the help chat line would refresh with wait times that got longer rather than shorter. At one point, they were notified that “The estimated wait time to message with our next available specialists [sic] is 663 minutes.” For those with limited math skills, that’s eleven hours.

When they did finally reach a Delta representative, many hours later, the best the Delta rep could offer them was a flight out of St. Louis, a three-hour drive away, on Sunday night. They took it.

In true irony, as soon as the call ended, a message from Delta popped up on Catherine’s phone asking her to rate her experience with Delta on a scale of 1 to 5. Unfortunately, minus 400 wasn’t an option.

One (they thought minor) hitch with the St. Louis flights was that they had a rental car – an electric vehicle (EV) – that was supposed to be turned in at the Springfield airport. They called the rental car company to see what it might cost to turn it in in St. Louis instead. One rep told them $300, another $495, and yet another a deal-breaking $1,500. And you also had to get permission from a manager who didn’t reply to any of the multiple messages they left him.

Ultimately, they decided to just drive the EV to the Springfield airport to see what could be worked out. Maybe swap it for a gas-fueled car they could take to St. Louis.

They knew they didn’t have enough charge on the car to get to the Springfield Airport but fortunately, they had a map of locations of charging stations. So they get to the first one but to their dismay, none of the four chargers are working. They’re told by the gas station attendant, “Oh, they’ve haven’t worked in years. Nobody around here [rural Missouri] drives them things anyway.”

Fortunately, the next place, a used car dealership 23 miles down the road, did indeed have a working (albeit decrepit) charger. While waiting for an absolutely glacial charge, they passed the time test driving used vehicles on the lot. The sales guy told them that they could buy a used car for cheap and drive it home to San Diego and probably get there faster. It was seriously tempting. And, ironically, he was right! But they still needed to turn in the EV in Springfield.

Condensing the next part of this saga, the rental car company folks will not let them drop off a car – any car, EV or not - in St. Louis. So Catherine and hubby find themselves back at the Delta counter begging for a flight from Springfield since they can’t get to St. Louis.

There are plenty of flights on other airlines but Delta claims they “only have a ticketing agreement with them for certain booking codes” which can’t be overridden. Best that Delta can offer is a flight out on Tuesday. But ultimately, Delta is persuaded (Catherine can be very persuasive when pushed several orders of magnitude beyond her last nerve) to book them on an American flight with a connection through Dallas for Sunday night. They take it.

Alas, when they get to the airport Sunday night, the American flight is leaving an hour late. They might not make their Dallas connection.

But they are deeply religious people. They decided to pray that the connection in Dallas would be delayed as well. Even though the end game is eternal salvation, would it be too much to ask that some divine intervention might come their way while they’re still on earth?

As Catherine later noted, “We prayed too hard.” When they got to Dallas, their connection there was delayed three hours, now scheduled to leave at 1:40 a.m. for San Diego. But they notice that there were two other (much delayed) flights to San Diego, one leaving slightly earlier. So they get in yet another line, and are able to get two seats on the one that leaves at 1:04 a.m. (originally scheduled for 4:55 p.m..)

The American agent confides that the other two flights have timed-out crews. She thinks both are likely to be cancelled. And yup! They are!

But ultimately, luck sort of finally finding them, they are on the one flight that actually leaves – at 2:20 a.m., delayed by cleanup after a presumably excessively-partying (or vindictive?) passenger on the incoming flight from Las Vegas had created what I think is now euphemistically called a “biohazard” on the plane.

They arrive in San Diego at 4:30 a.m. But are any of their four bags there too? Nope!

Standing in yet another line, having been up all night, they are informed by the baggage office that their bags will be delivered to them if or when they are ever found. They were finally repatriated with them at 7 p.m. Monday night.

By the way: Delta was making no promises about reimbursements for the extra hotel and rental car costs they incurred. Catherine was advised to send her hotel and car receipts to Delta.com - and pray.

So what are the take-aways here, beside one should never rent an EV in Missouri? Like most people, I had never even heard of CrowdStrike. It is frankly terrifying that a security (!) software glitch could have had this level of disruption not only to air travel, but hospitals, emergency services, banks, retail stores around the world. Like pilot strikes, storms, overbooking, and IT glitches aren’t enough? Like we world-class worriers don’t have enough to torment ourselves about already?

Travel is starting to feel like a giant game of roulette. And one thing is clear: you are totally on your own when things go awry. Airlines can apologize for “any inconvenience it might have caused you” (a phrase that should be outlawed) all they want, but in the end, this kind of saga is becoming all too common. (Southwest two Christmases ago, anyone?)

It’s too bad the “beam me up” technology is in its infancy. Elon Musk: are you listening?

Wait times for Delta human just keep getting longer rather than shorter:

8:34 p.m.: 537 minutes estimated wait time