You’ve likely read about, heard, or experienced some recent horror stories about airlines worldwide dropping the ball. Cancelled flights, lost baggage, and insanely long lines to get through security or customs have somehow become the norm. It sucks the joy out of travelling and can cause some anxiety.
This is part 1 of a 3-part series. 2 and 3 to come soon.
This all kicked off right after I booked flights to surprise my dad for his 60th birthday.
It was hard to find flights in the first place, and I was becoming concerned after listening to too many CBC interviews and scrolling too many Narcity posts on Insta. But my flights from New Zealand home to Canada went off without a hitch. I arrived at YYZ on time and well-rested. My checked bag was first off the carousel and in perfect condition. Life was good. I thought the internet was just being dramatic.
Surprising my dad was a big success (though for a moment I thought I’d given him a heart attack, he looked like this) and I enjoyed 3 weeks at home with my family.
*Shifting to present tense for dramatic effect.*
I’m now on my way back to Auckland. I’m not a nervous flyer by any means, I’m more of a show-up-and-see-what-happens kinda gal, but the constant news stories from around the world are getting to me. I was flying back with Air Canada and Air New Zealand through the US. Doing everything I can to limit my journeys to one stopover max is how I like to live my life.
Before I even check in at the Toronto airport, the info boards are showing my plane is delayed by 2 hours. With a 3-hour layover in LA, this does not seem promising. I’m mentally preparing to sprint through LAX, but on the bright side, I don’t have to collect my bags! They’re going straight through to Auckland.
Ah. Nevermind.
As soon as I get through security I check the board for updates. My flight has been delayed by 3 hours. It’s now due to arrive at the exact same time my flight from LA is leaving. Love that for me. At this point, all I can really do is hope the Air NZ flight is delayed, too.
There’s an Air Canada customer service desk in my terminal so I go investigate. I want to know if there’s anything they can do on this end to help smooth things over when I get to LAX. They say I have to wait to speak to the Air Canada booking agent when I land in the US so they can put me on the next flight. Nothing Air Canada can do.
There’s only one direct flight from LAX to AKL per day, and it was hard enough to get a ticket over a month ago. So I’m not expecting anything to be open and waiting for me… but ok.
Everyone at my gate is on edge. I hear one woman tell her child she will “literally punch [him] in the face” after he tries to pull her phone out of her purse. Lol, but also disturbing.
The flight finally leaves, only 3 hours delayed. and I'm on the way.
Arriving at LAX is hectic from the get-go. There are very few signs, and I only find my way to the Air Canada luggage service desk by asking various airport staff to point me in the right direction. I want to check out the luggage situation first before getting a replacement flight. I’m not sure if I have to pick up my bags before I get on a new plane, or if they’ll just automatically follow me.
I want to make sure I’ve got them safe and sound because this is one of the consistent issues I keep hearing about. And it turns out to be true. The outside of the baggage office is completely surrounded by miscellaneous baggage. Hundreds of bags. Horrible sign.
But the baggage guy is an angel.
He sets it up so my bags will follow me and arrive in Auckland when I do. Sweet! He also says he can book me a new flight which is a relief. However, there aren’t any Air NZ flights. This doesn’t come as a huge surprise, but it’s such a good airline I’d prefer to take a flight at the value of what I paid for. I even suggest staying in LA for a few days on my own dollar (I work remotely after all) but he says there’s nothing for the foreseeable future.
My other options are a Jetstar flight through French Polynesia, or a Qantas flight through Sydney. If I could hang out in French Polynesia for a few days, maybe! But two long Jetstar flights? Absolutely not. I pick the Qantas option leaving tomorrow morning.
He gives me this... ticket?
Then my helpful pal tells me how to get up to the Air Canada check-in desk where they can hook me up with a hotel voucher and I can get some rest. Bless him.
I find my way to the desk.
It’s 10pm in LA, and I guess no other Air Canada flights are departing or arriving tonight because this whole end of the terminal is completely empty. It’s just one guy behind a desk. I explain my situation and can tell he doesn’t really know what to do. He seems scared of me but I swear I’m being nothing but friendly and patient. I know these delays aren’t the customer service team’s fault. He must be new, so I give him some space to figure it out. He says the voucher will take 10 minutes.
He also hands me two very generous $10 “meal” vouchers for the airport. So I can probably go buy one cup of airport-priced tea now, thanks.
The guy encourages me to go sit somewhere rather than hover at the desk. There’s no one even here, but fine.
While I’m waiting, a girl who can’t be older than 19 or 20 comes to the desk, eyes puffy and red from crying, looking confused, and hoping for help. She was on the same Air Canada flight as me and missed her connection to Melbourne, so we’re in the same boat.
The AC representative says he’ll call and ask for another voucher, and as I haven’t gotten mine yet, I’m hoping this will speed up the process a little. The clock is ticking on how much sleep I’ll actually be able to get at this point because my new flight is in the morning.
I even pull the epilepsy card to create some urgency.
To no avail. What’s the point of having a life-threatening illness if it won’t get you stuff?
We wait and wait and wait. I check in with him a few times and he acts like I’m being completely unreasonable, even though it’s been an hour and he told me 10 minutes. Cannot understand how it can take any time to get a hotel voucher, let alone this much time. I’m trying to be patient but I have no confidence in this person and I get the vibe he’s being dishonest and just wants me to disappear.
The crying girl goes to sit down across the room and he promises to call her up as soon as we have vouchers.
I stick around the desk this time, in part to dodge the guy freestyle rapping and talking to himself at the far end of the terminal, and another guy who is frantically walking around and loudly on the phone with his aunt.
This is a side story.
The lost passport guy
He’s on speakerphone, full-volume, trying to get as much attention as he can in this desolate, empty terminal.
He tells me, unprovoked, that his passport was stolen in LA, and he’s shocked that he wasn’t able to get on a plane back to Canada. I suggest he take a bus, because, fun fact for Canadians: you can always return home from the US by land with just a regular ID like a driver’s licence. You don’t need your passport! But you do (I think pretty obviously) need it to fly internationally. Giving him the advice may have been a mistake because now he thinks we’re best friends and is trying to get me involved in his drama. And maybe wants some money? He showed me a crisp 50 “someone else gave him” and is standing really close to me.
I feel for the guy, but he’s giving me weird vibes. He’s also going on about how he’s an actor and a model. I did not ask. I’m dealing with my own stuff right now so I find a way to escape the conversation by going back to check on my hotel voucher…
No progress. I ask if I can just book my own hotel because I need to get to sleep ASAP – emphasizing the epilepsy once again. He either doesn’t care or doesn’t know what that is. I give him my best acting to demonstrate a full-body shake to support what I’m telling him, but it seems to fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?). He lights up at my self-booking suggestion and says it’s definitely possible. He gives me the customer service contact info and says if I keep my receipts and “document everything” (lol like I’m not already doing that) I can request reimbursement from Air Canada.
So here I am trying to book my own hotel room online just to get the heck out of here, but the LAX wi-fi isn’t strong enough for anything more than text-based stuff like Messenger. I have international calling minutes though!
As I’m going through the automated selections to reach a booking agent at a nearby hotel, an Aussie couple arrives at the desk, delayed by the same Air Canada flight and looking for a place to sleep. It’s been at least an hour since I got to the desk, so I have no idea how they got here so much later than me. But this airport is confusing af, and maybe they had more drama with the baggage people than I did or something. I don’t ask.
Out of nowhere, a new AC crew member appears and is there to help. He’s able to materialize some vouchers for this couple within a matter of minutes, and because I’m hanging around the desk, the guy who’s been “helping” me to this point asks his friend to get a voucher for me too. Relieved, I pop over to the sitting area to let the younger girl who was crying know they’ve finally figured it out and we have a place to sleep.
But for whatever reason, they won't give her a voucher.
I’m shocked. She’s alone, barely an adult, and *in tears*. It’s also their literal obligation to give you a place to sleep when they delay flights. So I have no idea what’s going on.
I’m not trying to get the Aussie couple bumped out but I’m also like… they just got here? I point out that the other girl is upset, travelling alone, and has been waiting almost as long as I have, and the Air Canada guys basically shrug their shoulders.
It’s clear to me that the inexperienced employee who’s been trying to help has completely forgotten about the girl. I’m not even sure he put in a request for any vouchers in the first place because the other guy made it happen so quickly.
No idea what his deal is, but he’s not making shit happen and I don’t have time for this.
I ask the more competent AC agent if we can get another voucher for this girl. He just says the hotel only has two rooms, then whatever this means, “Sometimes it takes 2 minutes, sometimes it takes 2 hours.” He quickly disappears again, back to whatever desk the Aussie couple found him at, I guess.
How can it take 2 hours? The hotel has rooms tonight, or it doesn’t.
At this point, we've been standing here for an hour and a half.
I technically have my freedom as I have a voucher with my name on it… but I don’t feel like I can leave this girl here in this weird, empty terminal in a foreign country. The Aussie couple is the same, so we’re sort of all in this together. The guy we’ve been communicating with is literally turning off the lights and shutting down the baggage conveyor belt while reassuring me he’s not going anywhere. I thought it impossible, but the mood in here is now even more grim.
I call the Hyatt Regency, the hotel they’ve given me a voucher for, to ask if there’s any way they can squeeze in another person. The guy on the other end of the phone seems confused because they have plenty of rooms available.
I could riot.
Instead. we just focus on getting out of this hellhole.
There’s a shuttle from the airport to the hotel which takes us a while to find because, again, this airport is severely lacking signage for such a central transfer hub.
It’s now after midnight. We landed at 9:45pm.
The guy who lost his passport follows us out. He’s still on speaker with his aunt, trying to get to the Travelodge and telling me about it as if I know how to get there. I look at the price of an Uber to the Hyatt so we can get just outta here faster and get to sleep, but it’s an astounding $50 USD for a 5-minute drive. No thanks.
Are Americans ok???? How do you guys afford stuff?
The shuttle finally rolls up, and the young girl seems much more at ease, chatting to us about her Wiggles coin collection on the way to the hotel. She’s travelling by herself for the first time and only came without her family so she could get back to university on time. None of us could have predicted this mess, but I think she was especially overwhelmed.
As we exit the shuttle, the driver gives us all shit for not tipping.
None of us have cash in any currency, let alone USD, because none of us planned on being here. None of us want to be here. I can’t imagine many people who stay at an airport hotel are prepared to tip unless they’re American and flying domestic. Anyway, that was the last thing any of us needed and it was rude as hell.
I explain the situation at the hotel.
They have rooms, but the cheapest one is $300 USD. Insane.
The younger girl starts sheepishly looking through her bag, crying again. I just think about how I would have handled this when I was 18, travelling alone for the first time. It would have been overwhelming, even as someone actively looking for some adventure and challenges to overcome on my own out in the world. She just wants to get back to school.
I pay for her room with every intention of using the contact details the front desk guy gave me previously to have it reimbursed by the airline. There’s absolutely no reason she should have been without a place to sleep tonight. The two bullshit $10 meal vouchers don’t cut it.
I thought about offering to let her sleep in my room but it’s probably not good practice to encourage young travellers to sleep in stranger’s hotel rooms.
My flight leaves early tomorrow, but the Australian couple and solo traveller are all leaving later in the day. They arrange to meet her in the hotel lobby so they can all head back to the airport together.
It’s past 1:30am when I get to sleep, with an alarm set for 6am so I can get back to the airport on time for my flight.
I wish the story stopped here, but it doesn't.
Go get your popcorn and come back when you’re ready.
Another side story
The shuttle to the airport is easier to catch this time, but it’s packed full, with one guy carrying a whole bicycle in a case. The driver seems to be a big fan of country music and is playing it too loud for any time of day in my opinion, but especially this early in the morning.
Here’s a clip of the song (don’t worry I wouldn’t make you listen to the whole thing):
You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy dirt
I catch the eye of another guy on the shuttle and we both burst out laughing. Everyone else looks over at us, confused, but I don’t know how anyone could hear this song and not want to throw up. We chat for a minute and it turns out he’s a Kiwi and on the same flight as me, which gives me some comfort.
When I get to the Qantas desk, they ask me if I'm aware that I have a standby ticket.
No…. I did not know that. The Air Canada booking agent conveniently forgot to mention it. He was not so helpful after all. It didn’t mention it anywhere on the ridiculous “ticket” he gave me either. Imagine that.
So, I don’t have an allocated seat, I just have to hope someone doesn’t show up. What’s more, is that I’ll only find out once I’m through security and at the gate, and if there’s no space for me, I’ll have to go back out and deal with Air Canada again, not Qantas.
The idea of going back to that desolate purgatory, mixed with my severe lack of sleep, brings out a few tears.
When the guy who rebooked my flight gave me the:
1. Jetstar through French Polynesia, or
2. Qantas through Sydney
options, I asked if I could stick with Air New Zealand.
I told him I didn’t mind staying a few extra days to fly directly with the airline I had originally booked. He said they were all full for weeks. At the time, I didn’t think I had a reason to question that.
But while I’m waiting at the Qantas gate and brainstorming alternative solutions if I can’t get on this flight, I check the Air New Zealand app and find there’s space today, tomorrow, and the day after.
I can understand if they don’t want to give me the $10k business class seat available today. But why the hell couldn’t they just book me an economy ticket for tomorrow? Why so shady?
It feels like a true miracle when my name is called at the gate, and I’m given two new boarding passes that contain real seat numbers instead of SBY (Standby). They’ve even treated me to the first row in the economy section, where I have extra legroom! I’ve never been happier with a middle seat. Just glad to be here!
Over the past 10 years of frequent travel, I can honestly say I've never had a flight experience nearly this bad.
I know the travel industry seems to be up in flames right now, but the way Air Canada handled all of this was insane. And I’m not out of the woods yet. Stay tuned to see if they lose my luggage or refuse to reimburse me for the room.
(Spoiler alert: my bags don’t make it to Auckland when I do. They show up days later.)
Some questions:
- Why weren’t vouchers considered/ready in advance for passengers who were obviously going to miss their connecting flights? In hindsight, they could have organized one of those for me at the customer service desk in Toronto.
- Why was someone so new and/or incompetent working alone? The main guy I dealt with had truly no idea what was going on. He was clearly hoping in his heart of hearts that we’d just go away.
- Why weren’t they able to communicate with the hotel about vouchers?
- Where was the compassion for this young solo female traveller? I feel confident in saying they would have left her there overnight.
- Why was I booked on a standby flight without being told?