Any airline travel has delays, maintenance hold-ups, cancellations and reroutes and a myriad of other frustrating disappointments. Flying standby only adds to the confusion of airplane travel.
This story is part of a series of crazy standby experiences. If you have a story you’d like highlighted, please email me at flybytheseatofourpants @ gmail.com (Remove spaces)
California Dreaming
When our family lived in Arizona we had a free Saturday and wanted to spend it on a beach.
We packed light, wore our swimsuits under our clothes, and boarded a plane early Saturday morning to San Diego. We had to check our skim board, but this wasn’t a problem because we were fairly confident there were plenty of seats for us to get on.
Sure enough, we did get seats and quickly settled in for a short trip to the coast. We flew 45 minutes to San Diego and began to circle the airport due to fog.
After 25 minutes of circling the captain informed us that he would be returning to Phoenix and canceling the flight!
We were shocked. As soon as a flight cancels the seats for all other flights the rest of the day is filled with paying customers, ensuring that no non-rev passenger will get on. I wouldn’t even attempt it for a family of four!
Since we checked our skim board to San Diego we were wondering how to get it back. Plus, we were still hoping for a beach.
Back Home
When we deplaned my son started running and yelling, “Beach! Beach! Beach!” Assuming he knew from the captain’s announcement, we accidentally forgot to tell him we were back home. Once we tried to explain it, he couldn’t understand how we were gone for a couple hours and went nowhere!
We saw the crowd lining up to have their tickets refunded or rescheduled. As a standby passenger, the airlines don’t owe us a thing in a situation like this. So, we were free to go where ever we wanted.
We headed straight to the departure board and started looking at flights. There was a flight scheduled to go to Long Beach in 15 minutes. We ran with the kids toward the gate. All the passengers were already loaded when we arrived. We told the agent our situation and she found our itinerary and quickly gave us seats for the flight. We rushed on and the doors closed behind us.
Back to Cali
In the time it took the other passengers to finish deplaning the canceled flight, our family was already on our way to California. In that moment, I felt a little bad for people who were married to their ‘paid for’ itinerary. If only they could have been rerouted as quickly they’d already be on their way! But for once, it was the standby passenger who got the win and we landed 45 minutes later.
Long Beach Airport is about the size of a double-wide trailer. We deplaned right onto the tarmac which was fascinating for our children.
Getting a car with no reservations going one way was a bit pricey. However, we were able to discount the one-way fee when we mentioned our canceled flight. The rental car company was a hop, skip and a jump across the street and we were at the beach in no time.
It turns out that while San Diego had cloudy and gloomy weather all day, Long Beach was bright, warm and beautiful. We played all day at the beach. Our kids built and dug and played and splashed. It was the perfect day at the shore.
After a full day of sun and sand, we headed an hour south to pick up our skimboard at the San Diego Airport.
Conclusion
Our flight was the ONLY flight canceled coming to San Diego that day. What? Why? I wish I knew why our captain chose to return to Phoenix and everyone else was able to land! My hypothesis? He was missing his kid’s baseball game and wanted an excuse to get home.
Flying to California and flying home twice in one day wasn’t exactly the plan, but it worked out perfectly for us.
Sometimes, just sometimes, I love traveling standby!
Want more tips for flying standby? Need destination ideas when your flight fills up last minute? Don’t worry. We’ve got this!
This story is part of a series of crazy standby experiences. If you have a story you’d like highlighted, please email me at flybytheseatofourpants @ gmail.com (Remove spaces)
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