Getting There

So, the first leg of our trip was getting from Philly to France (Marseilles was our airport). I'll preface this by explaining why we were on US Airways to begin with. Typically, we have taken European airlines to fly to France, usually either Lufthansa or Air France. When I first began to check ticket prices, everyone was about the same, which meant we'd do L or AF (since European airlines give far better service, more inclusive in the price). However, due to economic factors, my husband couldn't confirm his time off for Christmas right away. In fact, even when I did finally buy the tickets (because seriously, we had waited far to long, imo) he still hadn't confirmed his time off, but I told him that fine, we'd visit his family without him. He did finally kinda-sorta get the time off (at least no one complained). By the time I finally bought the tickets, the European airline prices had gone up and US Airways had gone down. By buying with US Airways, I saved nearly $1,000 over 4 tickets, so that was a no brainer.

We've never had problems flying to Europe. Its long and sometimes the flights are a little slow, but we've always had these long layovers in Europe (4-5 hours), so its never been a problem. Weather has also always been good, Philly usually has cold, but clear weather through the holidays, not getting snow until January, or even February. Unfortunately this year, was the exception. On the day of our flight, Saturday th 19th, the predicted 2-4 inch snow fall turned into a 22 inch snow blizzard.

Our flight to Amsterdam wasn't until 9:15 pm that night. All day long, we're checking the internet and despite so many other flights canceled, nearly all the night flights to Europe were listed as "on time." I called once in the morning, and was told the flight was going out. I tried again later in the afternoon, but was put on hold for more than 3 hours and never got through before it was time to leave for the airport. The computer still said the flight was leaving "on time."

So we pack up the car, the kids and get our neighbor (who was going to drive our minivan back home and pick us up in two weeks) and head out. We drive to the airport in a nice little snow storm. For the most part, it wasn't too bad, enough traffic on the roads to help keep them clear. When we got to the airport off-ramp, it was clear that hardly anyone was coming to the airport, the road was full of snow. Somehow we made it through to the terminal. I jump out of the minivan, go inside and ask a US Airways rep if the 9:15 Amsterdam flight was still going out. I was told yes, along with many other flights to Europe that night. So we unload the car and send our neighbor on his way.

We check in, get our boarding passes and go eat dinner. We then get to the gate and by 8:00 it still says we're going out "out time." We're supposed to start boarding at 8:30 and when nothing happens, I get worried. I walk up to the gate counter and sure enough, as I get there, they make the announcement that the flight has been canceled. Apparently, they had "hoped" the weather would improve, but it didn't. Now I'm pissed. All day long, the weather has been terrible and they've been canceling flights. Did they seriously think that the weather would improve at night? It never improves at night. I was seriously mad that they could have reasonably believed the flight was going out.

We have no choice but to rebook the flight. Of course, by this time, so many other people who had previously canceled flights had already rebooked, so there was very little left. In fact, the CSR initially told us that there was nothing before Christmas Eve, 5 days later. No way were we flying on Christmas Eve. I push, I bring my two young kids up, the CSR says well, I think I can do something earlier, but I "don't have the rights codes. I have to get a supervisor." Excuse me, there's a serious possibility of flight cancellations and no supervisor is around? He calls and calls and finally gets one. The supervisor rebooks us for the next day, a flight to Munich at 6:30 pm. that will have 'plenty of open seats' because the originating flight from Chicago earlier in the day is already canceled.

From Munich, we can then secure a 2 hour layover and a new flight to Marseilles, landing around 12:30 p.m. local time on Monday. We have to call the next day to get this Munich to Marseilles flight because its actually with a different airline than we had originally booked with (I can't recall if we originally were flying Air France to Marseilles or Lufthansa). At the moment, the CRS could only book us on the 7:30 p.m. Munich to Marseilles flight, which is with our original airline, but that's an 11 hour layover, so clearly we wanted the earlier flight.

So we're set for the new flight, but its now after 10:00 p.m. and there's no way I can call up my neighbor to come pick us up. It was hard enough driving with some daylight earlier in the snow storm, I can't ask him to drive at night in the snow storm. Naturally there's no help with hotel or food, no vouchers from the airline or the airport, despite their telling us, assuring us, we'd fly out that night. If we didn't have kids, hubby and I could have slept on the floor of the airport, but with the two kids, we thought it best to get a hotel room. So I get a list and start calling. I have to be careful, I can't call a super cheap hotel because we have no transportation to the hotel. Generally, only the more expensive hotels provide airport shuttle. I try some of the less expensive hotels, but they are all booked up. The only place I find is the Hilton at $200 a night.

We get to the hotel and sleep, well sortof at least. We have no jammies, the airline kept our bags, promising that they'd be rerouted to our new flight. So we sleep in our clothes. I did pack a change of clothes for the kids, in case they spilled something in the airplane, so they can change the next day. I also had a change of underwear, but nothing else. We get up the next day and head to the airport, having to check out by noon. So back at the airport to wait around another five hours and eat expensive airport food. Good thing I went to the bank before the flight (we already had Euros from hubby's parents' prior visits - which saved us exchange fees).

I called the airline about the Munich to Marseilles flight while still at the hotel. The CRS on the phone is all confused because he keeps saying our Philly to Munich flight was canceled. I keep having to tell him, no the Chicago to Philly originating flight is canceled, not the Philly to Munich extension (hubby is confirming this on his pda). Oh yes, he says, I see that now. It took several times to get him to figure that out. Finally he clears that up and works to rebook our Munich to Marseilles flight. Again there's there issue of a different airline being involved, so he has to ring off to work that out and call us back. Eventually that does work out, we're on the 10:30 am Munich to Marseilles flight.

We get to our gate and wait and wait and wait. Another flight is scheduled for our gate for 4:00 (it had already been delayed for 2 hours). That flight gets canceled because not enough flight crew showed up. Good sign there, those passengers are pissed. A flight to Miami gets scheduled for that gate, for 6:00 pm. I head up to the gate counter. How can our flight to Munich go out at 6:30 when there's a flight to Miami heading out at 6:00? Do we have a new gate or are we delayed? Sure enough, I'm told that we're still scheduled to go out on time at this gate. How can this be, can you check? No, there's no one I can call and check, I just go by what the computer says. Really, there's no one you can call? Nope. Great communication.

Sure enough, by 6:00 when the Miami flight leaves, we're suddenly told our flight is delayed to 8:30. They have to get our plane out of the hanger, to the gate, loaded up and then we can go. Our flight crew is already there (hooray!). I head up to the gate to say we're going to miss our connection. We get rebooked on the much later Munich to Marseilles flight (yes, we're looking at sitting around in the Munich airport for 8 hours if we actually land at 10:30). Any food vouchers for this delay? Of course not, because "its weather related." I don't believe this, because our plane is supposedly already at the airport, has been there all day. They could have gotten it out of the hanger and ready earlier. That's not weather delay, that's incompetency delay, which should be reimbursed.

Our flight continues to get delayed, now to 9:30 p.m. We're board crazy in the airport and still no offer of food vouchers. We spent 3 meals in the airport for 4 people, that's a lot of money. The kids are driving us nuts because they're board and tired (I packed a few extra toys for them, but one can only do so much with sitting around for 8 hours) Finally we board the plane at 9:30 and the pilot informs us that the reason we were delayed is because snow plowed off the runways was put in front of the hanger and so they had to dig out the hanger. So yeah, incompetency yet again. And does US Airways provide any sort of apology or compensation? Nope. Not even free headphones (pay up $5). We passed, since by this time, we're all tired and cranky, so we just sleep on the plane. The kids didn't even eat dinner, they sacked out almost immediately.

We finally land in Munich around noon local time, so we have 6-7 hours before our flight to Marseilles. At least Munich has a nice airport, they had a pretty Christmas village in their courtyard, some good German food places to eat and shops. We had to buy diapers because I was running out, even though I packed extra in the carry-on. We take our time eating and doing a little bit of shopping (the kids got some pretty music boxes). We get our new boarding passes and are told again that our bags are in Munich and going with us to Marseilles. We board on time, thankfully, and head out.

Our plane lands in Marseilles near 10:00 p.m. We get to the baggage claim area, and guess what? Of course, no bags. Yup, our bags went to Amsterdam from Philly on their earlier flight. They'll ship our bags down to Marseilles and deliver them to us over the next two days. So another two days with the same clothes. At least we're staying at the in-laws, so we can get them washed. We get there by midnight, have a super late dinner and head to bed.

One bag was delivered the next day, but the other two took another day. At least everything arrived, only one item was broken, but it was easily fixable with glue. Needless to say, US Airways did not make a good starting impression.