Air Travel Hell (But Not the MUPGT Type)

Long-time readers (remember this blog started in 2007!) will remember the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel (MUPGT). For those who are new, MUPGT is the minor deity that is responsible for all of the mishaps that take place when you travel. These can be relatively minor like flights losing your first class upgrade to relatively major like missing an important meeting or cruise sailing because of a flight being late. MUPGT's purview is the realm of last minute travel disruption. During my road warrior years, MUPGT and de-I had many a battle. As my travel moved to being pleasure oriented, I was not much of an opponent any more but we have still gone head-to-head on more than one occasion. (You can read about these by going to the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel label). This time, I must say, our issues were not of the typical MUPGT variety. For they were a product of the dysfunction the air travel system underwent trying to rebound from the pandemic lock downs. 

We have to back to the beginning of the year. Air travel was picking up. The days of discounts available just because you were a body not too scared to travel were over. Airlines were jacking the prices up to make up for the lost revenue and profit of 2020 and most of 2021. But at the same time they were having all kinds of problems getting the crews and planes they needed after the cutbacks imposed during the pandemic years. The result was super expensive fares and flight itineraries that were constantly changing - often in the most frustrating ways. 

So it was when I made the reservations for this trip. To get a reasonable fare, we had to fly out of Chicago and self-connect through another reservation from Albuquerque to Chicago. No sweat. Done that many times. The United flights to Palermo wasn't too bad but all the options coming back required an overnight stay somewhere. I opted for one where we stayed overnight in Washington, D.C. My self-connect was on American as I had some credits I wanted to use and there was an ideal flight leaving in the morning from Albuquerque to Chicago getting us there with plenty of time. 

So far so good. But no. Now come the schedule changes. They always come in the form a very polite email. "Oh so sorry to disrupt all your careful plans. But we have changed your flight so it now totally F's your planning". Actually they don't say that exactly. That's just the way I read it. So American tells us many months ago it is changing its flights from Albuquerque to Chicago. The new flight arrives just when the connection flight leaves. Going online and calling, I find the only option is a connection through Dallas-Fort Worth AND they want to almost double the cost for the privilege. Thanks.

So I cancel that flight and look on United because I know there are connections that will work there and I have preference meaning our bags won't be a problem. Great. Good connections in both directions going through Denver which minimizes the time in the air. 

But wait. There's more. Right, another 'dear beloved passenger we are going to make your life miserable' email. Our Denver option coming home is off the table. The only to do what we want is take a flight through Houston which is way longer both in total time and the time in the air. But we have no choice, so we took it.

And it turned out every bit as long and arduous as I feared. 46 hours total in transit from living our apartment in Sicily to our door in Albuquerque. 

I am making a vow. No more crazy connections like this. If I have to pay more to get civilized routing, I will do it.