Apparently.

Up bright and early this morning.  Gassed and returned the rental car, checked our bags and got our boarding passes, made it through security mostly unscathed (Jee Yeun’s rice cooker in the backpack did get TSA’s attention and she got the extra screening I predicted).  At our gate and ready to go with 45 minutes to spare.

And then came the dreaded announcement that due to “mechanical issues” our plane would be delayed for an undetermined amount of time.  I only had a 1 hour 50 minute window to make my connection to Narita so I was a little more than concerned.  There were 50 people with similar concerns in line with the gate agent, so I made the decision to return to the check-in counter.  The man there seemed to be wanting to help me and seemed to realize that my connection was in jeopardy.  Assuming a re-booking was going to be necessary I sent Jee Yeun a message to come join me up front.  She was none to happy about lugging my heavy backpack (in addition to her own) all the way from our gate. Shortly after she arrived the agent said “well, it looks now like your flight from Columbia will be departing on time after all”.  Which put me in a bit of a panic since it was two minutes to departure.  You’ll recall I missed my connection to Columbia in similar fashion.

So we hustled our way through security again and rushed to our gate (fortunately, Columbia is a small airport) only to find the long line of people waiting to be re-booked by a solitary gate agent.  I realized the guy at the check-in counter had just not wanted to deal with resolving my situation so he sent me on a fool’s errand.  Well, I wasn’t going to stand in that line for hours, so I broke out the phone and called American Airlines reservations.  “Mike” on the other end of the line seemed to want to help, although his intermittently placing me on hold for lengthy periods was disconcerting.  After one of those long holds he came back and asked if there wasn’t an agent on the ground in Columbia who could assist me.  So, I gave him the facts of life.

After explaining that I didn’t have time to stand in a line that didn’t appear to be moving and the agent at check-in being worthless, I reiterated that I needed to be in Seoul and ready to work on Wednesday morning.  I said I didn’t care what airline or what airport I traveled from, I just needed to get there.  “Mike” told me he understood and put me on hold again.  When he came back he gave me the helpful news that there was a direct flight from Los Angeles to Seoul, but then unhelpfully he explained he couldn’t get me to west coast in time to catch it.  He said he had checked for flights from Chicago, Dulles, and Charlotte as well and there was just no way I was going to make it back to Seoul today.  So, I asked him about Plan B and he put me on hold.  When he returned he told me he could get me on a Columbia to Dallas, Dallas to L.A. flight.  I’d arrive at 11:00 p.m. and could catch a Korean Air flight to Incheon at 11 the next morning.  I sighed, told him to book it, and got placed back on hold.

All told, I spent 45 minutes on the phone with “Mike” (I don’t even want to think about what the roaming charge for that call is gonna cost me) but I had a new reservation in hand. So, it was back to the check-in counter to retrieve my baggage.  This time I encountered a much more helpful agent.  As she set about printing my new boarding passes she had difficulty with the Dallas-L.A. leg.  So, she got on the phone with someone to work it out and stayed on the phone for over an hour.  No shit.  The end result was I now had an entirely new itinerary–Columbia to Charlotte where I’d spend the night.  Then Charlotte to Dallas where I’d connect with an American Airlines flight direct to Seoul.  At this point I knew I was fucked either way, although I’d prefer flying Korean Air.  Whatever.  She gave me boarding passes for everything except  Dallas-Incheon, explaining I’d check-in for that flight upon arrival.  I told her nope, I needed seats, preferably exit row.  She got back on the phone for awhile and told me I had an aisle and center seat reserved.  Still no boarding pass, so I guess I’ve got to take her word for it.

Then she gave me my freebies.  Vouchers for lunch, dinner, breakfast tomorrow, and a hotel room.  Except the hotel room was in Columbia.  So she went back to fix that.  I had already decided that I’d never fly into Columbia again.  When something goes wrong, and it seems like it inevitably does, you don’t have many options.  From now on I’ll be using Charlotte.  When the agent came back with my corrected lodging voucher she told me “I never fly out of Columbia, I always use Charlotte.  You should too”.  Yep.

The daughter took time off from work to pick us up and drop us at her house.  She’ll pick us up after work and take us back to the Columbia airport for our flight to Charlotte.  Let the adventure continue!