My Cousin's O'Hare Airport Story

[Ruth, Gun's Mom]

My cousin who is a minister was flying last week from Akron to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, through Chicago. Her brother is Dick who is mentioned in this. There's a part where she writes about people giving seats to the military so they can get home!

My trip was quite eventful getting out there. I'm surprised you hadn't heard, as Dick was having lots of fun! I made it to O'Hare with no difficulties, but my flight from there to CR was cancelled. No crew showed up (or not enough, at least) to fly it. How does that happen during the Christmas rush????? So they put me--and all the others who were originally on that flight--on a confirmed flight for Sunday. Or we could try to get out going stand-by. The next flight had seating for 56 but could only take 42 b/c of weight restrictions. ????? So 14 of us who were ready and willing to get on their with our stand-by tickets couldn't. But not to worry...once you're "bumped" stand-by they put you on the wait list for the next flight. There were still 2 more flights to CR at that point so I wasn't too concerned. And by golly, they put me on the very next one! And then came on board and took me off because I weighed too much. !!!!!! (This is the part Dick is enjoying.) I guess they didn't actually say I weighed too much but they said they had weight restrictions on it as well and I'd have to get off. Made me mad, as I was not the last one on stand-by to get off. They eventually took 3 of us off, but not the family of 3 that had gotten on after us. Course, at the same time, that family of 3 was really a family of 4 but they only had 3 seats so dad stayed behind to try and get on another flight. By this time I was pretty upset, but maintained my cool. I'd watched enough other idiot passengers throughout the day make utter fools of themselves; I was NOT going to be talked about like they were!

At this point I decided to see if I could get into CR, Des Moines, Moline, Waterloo...basically any place in IA! The first ticket counter told me they'd be more than happy to change my city of destination. I'd just need to pay the increase in fare and the change in destination fee. No thanks; there's still one more flight to CR and I'll take my chances. But then I decided to go to the counter where the Des Moines passengers were actually boarding. In talking with the gal, I told her I'd been on one flight and removed for weighing too much and also told her how impressed I'd been with all the United people and how cool, calm and collected they'd remained when faced with these irate idiots. She not only did not charge me to fly to DM, but confirmed my flight and moved me to the head of the list. And then told her co-workers what she was doing because "this lady has made my day!" So I guess it paid to be nice.

I'll definitely remember these moms. [I asked her to pray for some special situations.] O'Hare was crawling with soldiers! At one point, they let an army guy get on first with a stand-by ticket and I went to the counter later and thanked the gal at the ticket counter for doing that. I'd have gladly given up my seat for one of those men or women to make it home for the holidays! However, I've gotta say...they sure make them boys young these days!