Side note: Even without the delay, we had to go to the counter anyway because the night prior the American Airlines iOS app had checked us all in and gave us boarding passes for myself and my 13yo daughter. But for "unknown error, see a representative at check in" reasons refused to spit out a Boarding Pass for my wife. 🙄

3/

We were there a good bit earlier than the recommended 3-hours (around 10:15am). The representative looked into our connecting flight and confirmed what we knew. We weren't going to make it. The incoming flight was delayed and was probably going to be delayed further. She looked for alternatives...

Now, we live in Maine. Flying to Maine is hard. If you live here or have tried to visit here by plane, you know. Our return trip home was no simple, direct flight.

4/

The trip home went like this: Costa Rica > Miami > DCA (Reagan). Land at midnight-ish in DC and a reserved hotel right nearby. Maybe some very quick tourism the next morning, and then the next afternoon, DCA > Portland, Maine (PWM). Land at 5:30pm-ish and drive 3 1/2 hours back home from there. We had booked the flight about 6 months in advance. It wasn't ungodly expensive, but it wasn't cheap either.

5/

At first, the rep offered a flight instead on JetBlue that was leaving that same day at roughly the time as our original flight, but it was going to JFK instead. Then, she said, we could still catch our flight home from DC to Portland, Maine the next day.

I was confused. I heard her say JFK. But we were going to DC. DC also has Dulles, and I was a disoriented American tourist in Costa Rica, so I thought she meant it was going to "the other airport in DC", and cautiously agreed.

6/

But then it dawned on me and I said "Wait. JFK is in New York, right?" We couldn't get from NYC to DC by noon the next day with nothing planned. A family with a 13yo girl from Maine? At midnight.

We should have just taken this. Turns out Amtrak DOES have something. It was far from ideal and would have cost us $500 for coach on the train (or we could have rented a car). But I was a confused tourist in another country, and didn't expect the coming hilarity.

7/

Then she said "Wait, there's something new." And, after a silent period of screen-peering and intermittent typing she said that they are just now adding a new flight from Miami to DC for Sunday morning. We could take our original American 594 flight that day (whenever it eventually arrives and takes back off), stay in Miami overnight, and then fly Sunday from Miami to DCA on this new one, and use our original flight back to PWM Sunday afternoon.

8/

So, we lose our (of course) non-refundable hotel night in DC, the hopes to see cherry blossom trees or a monument maybe, and have to pay for another hotel in Miami at last-minute prices. But we get home. Sold. Print boarding passes. Go through security. And you can probably guess what comes next...

9/

The flight was delayed again like clockwork every ~30min for many consecutive hours. Then, at about 6pm came the announcement overhead. Passengers on American Flight 594 should go to Gate 3 for information about their flight and connections.

I happened to be nearby and went straight to the gate, but my wife and daughter were back in a restaurant, with our boarding passes and passports. No one is there at the desk. No signage. A vague line slowly starts forming.

10/

I tried to text her, and then call her, but... The Liberia Airport in Costa Rica is nice, but quite small. I don't know if last weekend was typical or not, but it was several orders of magnitude busier than other airports of the size I've been through.

Cell service was poor. Sometimes it would work fine, and other times you'd have signal but no one was home at the tower. Messages went undelivered, web pages wouldn't load, calls went straight to voicemail or failed.

11/

So I dashed to get them, and we dashed back, and found a line stretched across the whole area, of course. Waited. And, you know, waited. And then our turn and we showed our stuff and tried to be pleasant. It isn't the reps' fault, of course.

12/

Flight is canceled (we know, the app and signage eventually updated while we waited). He said, we have a flight tomorrow morning at 9am to Miami. Ok. Our connections are complicated. How do we get to Maine? Tap, tap, peer.

He says there are flights. We have you going to DC by late afternoon, and then to Portland by midnight-ish. A long day, but we can get you there. But, you're on your own for hotels in Costa Rica because weather.

13/

Ok. Print me an itinerary. No, he can't, and doesn't have time to give out all the flight numbers and stuff (gestures to the line). Ask at the counter in Miami about your connections. To get that now, you need to go to the check-in counter after you leave security. Ok? Next?

14/

So we wander a bit towards the way we came into the airport to begin with. But, of course, that's to the "back side" of security. You can't go out that way. Just dudes with guns down there. They wouldn't be keen on us walking through that way. So we asked some nearby reps from Alaska Airlines: So, how do we leave?

They say "Oh, you're from American 594? You have to go to Gate 3." Yeah, we were there. He said we have to go to the front counter, but we don't know how to do that.

15/

Nope, you have to go to Gate 3. They have to get you out there. There's no other way out. OK. Back to the line again I guess. He didn't explain any of this.

Of course, in retrospect this makes sense. We'd gone through the customs police and security. As far as Costa Rica was concerned, we were marked as gone. We'd have had to go through the "arrivals" corridors back to immigration.

16/

So we march back and find the guy again. This time he says to wait over there by the wall and we'll lead you out, but there have to be 10 of you.

While I stood there at the wall I booked a nearby hotel on my phone, looking at all the other passengers in that big line, all getting similar news, and thinking about hotel capacity in Liberia, Costa Rica. Phew. It went through. I have a confirmation number. The hotel has a shuttle and doesn't look bad. The price wasn't obscene.

17/

We wait against the wall for a long while. Pretty much the whole line from Gate 3 lines up behind us. We collectively wonder about what they meant by "we need 10 people" because there were way more of us than 10 in the new line. We chit-chat about our new arrangements. Everyone was on the 9am flight. No one has details.

18/

We tell some of them that he told us to go to the check-in counter to get an itinerary, and others are headed there too. We get led (in groups of 10, and now it makes sense) by an airport employee through the "arrivals" side and then waved past the immigration police and baggage scan on THAT side. They turn us loose in the baggage claim area and we make our way back to the check-in area in a somewhat dispersed clump.

19/

Thankfully, and I'm not sure how since we were decidedly NOT first in line upstairs, we were amongst the first to arrive at the check-in counter. We step up and she's helping the rep next to her finish with the couple next to us for a moment and sends them off presumably with some good news on their flight. Our turn. After looking us up, she says, "Unfortunately, I don't have good news for you." She can't get us to DC, she says.

20/

What about the flights the guy upstairs described? No. They're full, she says.

Ok. We don't care about DC. We just need to get back to Portland, Maine at some point, somehow. Preferably tomorrow but we're reasonable people so... She looks at her terminal and there's occasional typing and squinting.

21/

No, she says. I can't get you there at all. Not three of you. Is there another airport I can try?

I mean, our car is there at PWM, but... I guess check Manchester, NH. Typing. LONG silent pauses. We offer: No other days next week from somewhere to Portland? Maybe Tuesday? Wednesday? We don't care where the connections go through.

22/

No. Nothing. And nothing to MHT either. Longshot but we ask: Bangor, Maine? No. OK. I guess to Logan in Boston. We can rent a car and drive. That's only ~2-3 hours to Portland, depending on the time of day, and then another 3 1/2 or so home. Bad, but what can you do?

23/

Lots more typing and silent staring at each other and waiting, which is how it always goes at these counters. The corrals behind us are now overflowing. There's a lady on our left who skipped past everyone in line and went up the preferred aisle who is yelling at the next-over rep angrily in spanish.

We're trying to be polite. My daughter is crying. It is getting late.

24/

No. Nothing to BOS. What? Really? Can you just check all the surrounding airports? No. She doesn't have anything for three. Maybe she could send you one by one on different days (the 13yo girl weeping and sitting on the floor), but she can't find three on American or any airline to anywhere. More long periods of silence. She's trying, I think. There's typing occasionally and texting on Whatsapp anyway.

25/

I remember the JetBlue offer from this morning. Ok, I suggest, what about JFK? We could rent a car and drive from there. My wife protests. That's a 5 hour drive just to get to Portland, right? And then 3 1/2 more hours or so home from there. She's right, of course.

26/

Yes, the rep says. She has a JetBlue flight tomorrow direct to JFK that has three seats. Departs Sunday at 3:16pm, and arrives just before 11pm. She has no way to get us out of JFK, even the next day or day after, though maybe we can ask at JFK when we arrive. The family has a quick chat. Maybe we can get a train from NYC? But that won't be till sometime Monday, I'm sure. Our daughter is missing school. We're supposed to work Monday. Maybe we just rent a car?

So we agree. Ok. Book it.

27/

Lots more typing and long, silent periods. Really long this time. We wonder what is going on now. Is the JetBlue flight no longer available? I see that she is occasionally texting someone on Whatsapp. I can't really see the name, but it is "something MGR". Ahh, I surmise, she's waiting for approval from her manager to move us to JetBlue.

28/

It takes a LONG time. The argument next to us seems to be heating up, and our rep has frequently been distracted helping her co-worker.

Then a new employee arrives to deal with the irate customer, and I see her name tag has the same first name as the "something" on the Whatsapp thread I saw. So, she's the manager. Lots of arguing on that side and silent waiting on ours.

29/

We ask our rep if we should look again at the 9am to Miami. The guy upstairs said there were flights to DC and then DC to Portland. Maybe another day?

No, she says. I think you're better off with the JetBlue flight. She thinks it is possible the same thing could happen with the 9am tomorrow, and there's nothing else available "probably for a week or two, maybe more" to get us to PWM. Just wait.

30/

Incidentally: This was refreshing honesty from our rep, who WAS trying to be helpful, and really pretty much saved it from being much worse. The 9am flight #americanairlines was offering everyone from our original flight was fictional, as we'll come to in a bit.

31/

Finally the angry person stops talking or is threatened with security or something. I don't know, but the manager has a brief moment and our rep cuts in and asks her something, and then things are moving. We have our flight. Just have to wait for confirmation and she'll print us an itinerary.

More intermittent typing and long, silent periods. But then print-outs are handed over. They aren't boarding passes, but they have a ticket number. They're with JetBlue. We're done.

32/

Outside it is a mob scene. One of those scammy "helpers" hanging about grabs my daughter's suitcase and runs to "assist" us getting the free hotel shuttle I can clearly see coming up the terminal road. He picked the wrong marks for his light-con. We're in NO MOOD. I yell "Nope!" as we pull away in the shuttle as he complains about his tip.

(This is really the only sketchy interaction we had with anyone the whole time we were in Costa Rica. It is a lovely country. You should go there.)

33/

At the hotel is another line out the front door of people trying to check in. Many of them we recognize. I ask one couple what they flights ended up on. The 9am tomorrow morning, they say, but the reps couldn't give them a flight number or itinerary or anything. Someone else in the line yells "Oh, you mean the fictional one?"

We get through and they do have our room. Phew.

34/

In the morning, we go down around 9am for breakfast. I see the couple from the lines, and ask them what happened to the 9am flight? (Since they're still there.) They say they arrived as instructed at 6am for the 9am flight. The American check-in counter was closed. There was no one around, and no 9am flight. Eventually somehow, they got put on a flight on Monday evening to Miami (originally a direct for them) via LAX, they said. Allegedly.

We dodged that catastrophe anyway, I guess.

35/

The next day, our JetBlue experience was decidedly different. I mean, it was still flying. We had three separate middle seats assigned at the very back of the plane, but they were able to switch it so our daughter could sit next to one of us without too much trouble.

36/

The airport is still a madhouse. We still had to arrive 3+ hours early and go through customs and security again. We sat on the floor against a wall with a pile of our stuff and ate bad airport food.

I was an overweight, middle-aged man in sweaty, re-worn clothes jammed in a middle seat. They ran out of sandwiches and ginger ale. But we got to JFK. Early even. And JetBlue does have better legroom, though the free wifi never worked, even over land in the US.

37/

We rented the car one-way for too much money (the employees at Enterprise at JFK were all gems, even at midnight - props to Sky and Neil). We stopped at McDonalds at midnight on the edge of Connecticut and it was terrible and $32ish dollars and there were kids hanging out in there loudly making fun of the hispanic employee's accent when she called out order numbers. The bathrooms were dreadful.

38/

I drove all night. My wife and daughter tried to sleep. We got to PWM at 4:30am, got some breakfast at an IHOP in Augusta (do not recommend), and limped in at home around 11am on Monday (give or take, I was pretty burnt out by then). We hugged the cats and dog and were not stranded in Central America.

39/

The next evening my wife spent a bunch of time tracking down how to submit a complaint to #americanairlines and sent in a polite message (for which there was a web form with a 1200 character limit and an absurd number of boxes to fill in but no email address, of course).

40/

We didn't expect anything extravagant. I'm well aware of how it is. But if nothing else, our $1700 flight home got substituted for a flight that JetBlue sells for $160-220ea if you book them ahead of time. Not even to mention the car rental and the hotels and missing out on a day of our planned vacation in DC and the extra night paid for the pet sitter while we did our midnight helldrive home.

We wanted, at the very least, some kind of apology and a fig leaf offer of compensation.

41/

And so after that long saga, I present to you, the sum-total of #americanairlines response to stranding my family in a foreign country, lying to us (and many other passengers) about a fictional replacement flight, and when their clever ruse failed because of our particular destination and insistence on having a paper with flight numbers on it printed, providing no remotely-reasonable way to get us closer than 500 miles from home.

42/