My son Tyler doesn't have the greatest luck traveling by air.  As I chronicled in Planes, Trains and Automobiles, his last trip by plane involved tornadoes and slivers in his eyeball.

Ty is currently on staff with a basketball program down in Texas and when we found out that he actually had four days off for Christmas, we bought him a ticket home.  It was a combination birthday (his was a week ago), Christmas present for him and Christmas present for me.  I want my Tyler for Christmas.  Jay got him a seat on a non stop flight this morning.

Ty's team had an away game last night.  The team returned home around 2 a.m.  He left the gym at 4 a.m., having no intention of sleeping, his plan was to grab his bag and head for the airport for his 7:30 flight.  The next thing he knows, he's waking up on his couch and it's forty minutes to departure. 

He didn't make the flight.

Then he had to call home and tell us that he slept through his Christmas present.

It hasn't been a happy day.  He did tell us that they were letting him be on standby for  a 6p.m. flight.  It was full, but you never know...

Yeah, right. Three days before Christmas I'm sure there'll be no problem getting another flight. 

I talked to Ty several times during the day.  He kept me updated on developements.  At one point, he had a boarding pass for the 6p.m.  Then they bumped him.  They bumped him and about 80 other people!!  It seems that an earlier flight had been seriously overbooked, so they took all the passengers bumped from that plane, stuck them on this one, bumped a whole lot of new people, pissed everyone off, were threatened with law suits, called United Grinchways and told they couldn't play any reindeer games.  This got the airline upset and to make everyone happy, all the passengers were given vouchers for future flights and reservations on a flight tomorrow.  Bottom line; Ty overslept, missed two days of his vacation, will be home for Christmas and has a free ticket for springbreak.

It's a wonderful life.

 

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