BIG First World Problems

 Day 11

Flight Cancellation

This was our day (Friday) to start the long trek home - Zimbabwe to Johannesburg to Newark to Indy - arriving at 2:30pm Saturday. However, our day started with an early morning notification from United Airlines that our flight from Johannesburg to Newark was cancelled since the plane had mechanical issues and was being taken out of service. Let the scramble begin.

With about 300 passengers now trying to find their way back to the US on a very limited number of flights, suffice to say that Adam and I were tag-teaming our approach to getting new flights. We spent several hours on the phone with United (lots and lots of hold time) as well as scouring other airlines for flights. United rebooked us on flights that would get us to Indy late Sunday night - like 11pm. So, we at least had something in place while we explored other options - and explore we did. We had to leave Victoria Town, Zimbabwe and we agreed that when we got to Johannesburg we would get to a United ticket counter and speak to a person. If for no other reason than we needed vouchers for hotel and food.

[Side Note: I was so tired of doing text messaging with a chat-bot on my phone or PC ... so tired of voice prompts from interactive voice systems and long holds ... that I just wanted to talk to a real person and see what they could do. Bottom line - anyone who thinks artificial intelligence is going to take over the world anytime soon is likely to be disappointed. These AI systems cannot even replace a moderately competent gate agent for booking flights, let alone (and here is my pet-peeve) tell us how to diagnose disease, treat patients or discover new treatments.]

When we got to Johannesburg we did get to a United agent after a 20 minute wait. We went through two gate agents - the first one worked very hard to help us but turned us over to the head agent at the desk - Lauren Celestino. She tried getting us routes from Johannesburg or Cape Town through (are you ready?) Frankfurt, London, Dublin, Doha Dubai (!), Addis Ababa Ethiopia (!!) using connections through Newark, New York, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and  Chicago. This was going on like a roller coaster for 2 hours - "OK, I got you to London, ... but I cannot get you from NY to Indy." or "OK, I got you from Johannesburg to Frankfurt and Chicago, ... but I cannot get you from Chicago to Indy." Each time high hopes dashed - again and again. Alas, there were never a series of flights that could accommodate 5 people.

Now, all this time, Maria was with the Elise and Connor trying to keep herself and the kids from going stir crazy while Adam and I are double-teaming the United counter agents and continuing to explore flights - me dealing with the agents; Adam trolling the internet for flights and possibilities. Maria held it together and was exceedingly patient through the whole ordeal. this kids did very well given the circumstances. We told Lauren we were happy to go to nearby cities and drive if need be - Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati. The deal is that we got tickets (a contract) for United to deliver us to Indy, and so they had to get us to Indy or a city within 50 miles of Indy. Ultimately, Lauren bypassed the rules somehow and got us to Cincinnati on Sunday morning, thereby saving us about 14 hours of time. 

So, final itinerary: Johannesburg to Cape Town to Newark to Cincinnati.

I am writing this from a room in an airport hotel in Johannesburg. The room, dinner, and breakfast are on United. Small consolations. All told we spent probably 6-7 hours hassling through all of this. But it is a first world problem. We had a good buffet dinner at the hotel and some yummy desserts. We are going to sleep in warm beds in a nice room. No one is shooting at us. No one is censoring what I write here. We should be so lucky!

Our journey restarts tomorrow.