I wanted to to try and help the families of those who are grad and go with a charted flight. This is a new area and I guess the Navy doesn't charter flights very often. In fact the nice man at the USO said that this is the first time that he knew about. All I can do is share our experience and maybe help others to know what to expect. We expected, like other grad and go parents to be able to spend time with our sailor at the airport. That did not happen. The bus left the base and went straight to the chartered jet. The sailors did not come into the building at all. Even when the flight was delayed for lightning they simply stayed on the bus. There were a lot of families waiting to see their sailors and a lot of those families left in tears. They did end up sending someone to the USO to get the sailors belongings from the parents who were still there but you have no guarantee that they will do that. So what do you do? Do you wait and see? Do you leave your sailors stuff with someone at the airport and not know if your sailor will ever see it again? Do you even go to the airport in hopes of seeing your sailor if they are to be on a chartered flight? Only you can decide what you should do.  My advice would be to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. I will add: Say your goodbyes to your sailor when you drop him/her back off at the base because this could really be goodbye for the duration of A-school. We just dropped our sailor off with a hug and a kiss and expected that extra time at the airport to really say goodbye. No hugs, no "I love you" no "be strong, be careful" no nothing. It was completely heartbreaking. If you go into this experience knowing that you may not get to see your sailor at the airport I think it will be easier on you when you don't get that extra time and a great joy if you do. I hope this helps and I am sure some of my friends who went through this with us will add some comments and their own experiences as well. Lora (aka Lala)