Gouda's Cheesewheel

Why not to fly Standby

(Originally composed Wednesday, December 03, 2008 11:28 AM Hawaii Time)

The reason I was able to finish so much blogging on Tuesday was that we were stuck in the Honolulu Airport from 6 AM till 3:30 PM, and so decided to invest in a 24 hour wireless internet subscription. That subscription has run out, and so I’m composing this in Microsoft Word at the moment.

The reason we were stuck in the airport for 9 hours was that because of the nature of our tickets (Employee Buddy Passes) we have to fly standby. When we decided to take the deal, the employee (Brent’s coworker Mark) who obtained them gauged from his experience that we would be able to fly without much hassle. This was true of the flight coming from Denver, on which we were given seats rather promptly. Coming back, we anticipated more of a challenge, but after being denied 4 different flights the magnitude of that challenge exceeded even Mark’s expectations.

At any given time, 30-60 people have been standing by on the same list as us, and we don’t seem to rank high enough to have a fighting chance among them. Part of the problem is that we aren’t just gambling on the direct Denver flight (and who could blame us?) but rather all available flights to Los Angeles and San Francisco as well. Therefore we compete with people destined to all sorts of places, not just those going to Denver. The greater problem is that almost every one of these flights is booked solid, if not overbooked, so very few of our predecessors on the list are getting anywhere themselves.

It was this situation, with similar expectations for Tuesday evening’s flights, which prompted us to essentially “give up” and stay the night in a budget hotel, rather than the airport. Granted, very Spartan sleeping options existed near the airport (or very expensive ones, nothing in between) but for the same price plus $8 combined bus fare, we could stay in Waikiki again. At least this way, we figured, we’d get a more interesting dinner selection and a more pleasant night’s sleep. As it turned out, the hotel we chose for its proximity to our bus line also had a pool and a hot tub, which were much needed since it wasn’t close enough to the beach to make that practical.

Up at 4:20 this morning, and we’ve started it all over again. This time we have some insight from Mark on the possibility of flying out of Maui. We would have to buy the tickets to get to Maui, but they only run about $70 apiece with taxes, and $140 is a small price to pay when you consider the cost (monetary and mental) of sitting around for another day. While we didn’t get on either of this morning’s flights, there is a vague possibility of getting on one of the afternoon flights, even if only one of us makes it. If neither of us does, and there isn’t a clearly strong chance for the evening either, Maui is definitely in the cards. Granted it wouldn’t be a trip TO Maui, really, just a transfer at the airport. Still, the flights there are not nearly as full, so it would almost guarantee us getting to Denver by tomorrow morning (Hurray!) At this point we’ve nearly decided to DRIVE home if we can only make it to the mainland.

posted by Greta @ 12:30 PM