This is a story that may make you never want to travel again. Unfortunately, it was probably replayed tens of thousands of times over the weekend of July 19 when the CrowdStrike security glitch canceled flights throughout the United States and Europe.
My friend Catherine (not her real name) and her husband had just enjoyed an idyllic family reunion in the Ozarks and were due to fly back to San Diego at 6 a.m. Saturday, July 20, from Springfield, Mo., on Delta Airlines. The saga of their three-day effort to get home would fill five times the space I’m allotted for this column.
As soon as they were alerted that Friday night that their Delta flights were canceled, they tried to rebook on Delta’s website, to no avail. So Catherine’s husband queued up on Delta’s help chat app while Catherine waited on hold on Delta’s customer service line, hoping to double their chances of connecting with the required human.
Dismayingly, every 20 minutes, the help chat line would refresh with wait times that got longer rather than shorter. At one point, they were notified that “the estimated wait time to message with our next available specialists is 663 minutes.” For those with limited math skills, that’s 11 hours.
When they did finally reach a Delta representative many hours later, the best the rep could offer them was a flight out of St. Louis, a three-hour drive away, on Sunday night. They took it.
In true irony, as soon as the call ended, a message from Delta popped up on Catherine’s phone asking her to rate her experience with Delta on a scale of 1 to 5. Unfortunately, minus 400 wasn’t an option.
One (they thought minor) hitch with the St. Louis flights was that they had a rental car — an electric vehicle — that was supposed to be turned in at the Springfield airport. They called the rental car company to see what it might cost to turn it in at St. Louis instead. One rep told them $300, another $495, and yet another a deal-breaking $1,500. And they had to get permission from a manager who didn’t reply to any of the multiple messages they left him.
Ultimately, they decided to just drive the EV to the Springfield airport to see what could be worked out. Maybe swap it for a gas-fueled car that they could take to St. Louis.
They knew they didn’t have enough charge on the car to get to the Springfield airport, but fortunately, they had a map of locations of charging stations. So they got to the first one, but to their dismay, none of the four chargers worked. They were told by the gas station attendant: “Oh, they haven’t worked in years. Nobody around here [rural Missouri] drives them things anyway.”
Fortunately, the next place, a used-car dealership 23 miles down the road, did have a working (albeit decrepit) charger. While waiting for the charge — which was absolutely glacial — they ed the time test-driving used vehicles on the lot. The sales guy told them they could buy a used car for cheap and drive it home to San Diego and probably get there faster. It was seriously tempting. And ironically, he was right! But they still needed to turn in the EV in Springfield.
Condensing the next part of the saga, the rental car company folks would not let them drop off a car — any car, EV or not — in St. Louis. So Catherine and hubby found themselves back at the Delta counter begging for a flight from Springfield since they couldn’t get to St. Louis.
There were plenty of flights on other airlines, but Delta claimed they “only have a ticketing agreement with them for certain booking codes” that can’t be overridden. The best Delta could offer was a flight out on Tuesday.
But ultimately, Delta was persuaded (Catherine can be very persuasive when pushed several orders of magnitude beyond her last nerve) to book them on an American Airlines flight with a connection through Dallas for Sunday night. They took it.
Alas, when they got to the airport Sunday night, the American flight was leaving an hour late. They might not make their Dallas connection.
But they are deeply religious people. They decided to pray that the connection in Dallas would be delayed as well. Even though the end game is eternal salvation, would it be too much to ask that some divine intervention come their way while they’re still on Earth?
As Catherine later noted, “We prayed too hard.” When they got to Dallas, their connection was delayed three hours — scheduled to leave for San Diego at 1:40 a.m. But they noticed there were two other (much-delayed) flights to San Diego, one leaving slightly earlier. So they got in yet another line and were able to get two seats on the one leaving at 1:04 a.m. (originally scheduled for 4:55 p.m.).
The American agent confided that the two other flights had timed-out crews and she thought both were likely to be canceled. And yup, they were!
With luck sort of finally finding them, they were on the one flight that actually left — at 2:20 a.m., delayed by cleanup after a presumably excessively partying enger on the incoming flight from Las Vegas had created what is euphemistically called a “biohazard” on the plane.
They finally arrived in San Diego. But were any of their four bags there, too? Nope!
Standing in yet another line, having been up all night, they were informed by the baggage office that their bags would be delivered to them if or when they were ever found. They were reunited with them at 7 p.m. Monday.
By the way, Delta was making no promises about reimbursements for the extra hotel and rental car costs they incurred. Catherine was advised to send her hotel and car receipts to delta.com — and pray.
So what are the takeaways here, besides that one should never rent an EV in Missouri?
Like most people, I had never even heard of CrowdStrike. It is frankly terrifying that a security (!) software glitch could have had this level of disruption, not only to air travel but also hospitals, emergency services, banks and retail stores around the world. Like pilot strikes, storms, overbooking and IT glitches aren’t enough? Like we world-class worriers don’t have enough to torment ourselves about already?
Travel is starting to feel like a giant game of roulette. And one thing is clear: You are totally on your own when things go awry. Airlines can apologize for “any inconvenience it might have caused you” (a phrase that should be outlawed) all they want, but in the end, this kind of saga is becoming all too common. (Southwest two Christmases ago, anyone?)
It’s too bad the “beam me up” technology is in its infancy. Elon Musk, are you listening?
Inga’s lighthearted looks at life appear regularly in the La Jolla Light. Reach her at [email protected]. ♦
