a long (wrong) way home

We left Bar Harbor yesterday morning heading for the Bangor Airport. I dropped Mom & Suze there at noon expecting that their 1:30 flight home would get them into Philadelphia just after 3. As they prepared to board a plane I jumped on I-95 heading to the southwest and home.

I was enjoying a stop to visit a friend when I heard my phone. The time was 4:00... I said hello to my sister only to have her tell me that she was in Boston. Uh oh! One of the side windows in the cockpit cracked during flight so a decision was made to land in Boston. Landing a plane sporting a broken cockpit window was likely the right decision but the airline's (US Airways, who else?!?) decision to have a single person rebook everyone did not show a reasonable level of customer service. Add to that the fact that in addition to the partially flown itinerary from Bangor to Philadelphia, the airline had just cancelled two Boston to Philadelphia flights. Where there should have been three flights there were none.

That meant that there weren't any Philadelphia-bound flights to switch to. There were JetBlue flights but US Airways wasn't offering to buy tickets on a competitor's planes. (And yes, I do think they should have offered and should have paid for the flights.) Luckily Suze figured out she and Mom could get home via LaGuardia. What should have been a non-stop flight home turned into 3 flights - Bangor to Boston, Boston to LaGuardia, LaGuardia to Philadelphia. Oh yikes, the close to 10 hours it took to fly home probably matched the time it would take to drive.

At least there was a Legal Seafoods in the terminal in Boston so they could have something yummy to eat before getting on the next flight.

US Airways is one of my "I don't like" airlines. What do you think the merger with American Airlines will bring - a better combination or a bigger non-customer-focused airline? I hope it's better.

It was a good weekend; it's just a shame that there was a "wrong way home" at the end.