Airlines don't like lap babies
Even on their birthdays
I have friends who travel with small children and make it look not only approachable but alluring. I once asked one of these girlfriends for her best airline travel tips when flying with babies. The wisdom was pretty prevailing: snacks galore, no shame in screens, bottles on takeoff and landing, tequila shots in the air (I kid, but since we’re not the pilots, maybe not!). She said her daughter would never sleep on planes, a strange reassurance given the number maddeningly endearing photos instagram serves of babies peacefully slumbering in their parents’ seat-belted laps. Despite the chaos, fatigue, delirium and quantity of rogue snack puffs ingested off the floor, she told me that travel is always worth it.
“I'm not so sure,” I told Matthew as we watched our plane roll out of the gate without us on board. We were close enough to taste victory and were instead humbled, or more accurately, shellacked by defeat in the literal eleventh hour. We have traveled internationally with a child, and most recently, children, three times now by nature of having Canadian in-laws. There are so many moving parts, literally and figuratively, involved with airline travel that I’m more surprised when things actually do go according to plan.
This time we were traveling with a lap baby, code name: my son, Winslow. Of the three times we’ve flown internationally, we’ve had an infant on two of them. Something about having a lap baby absolutely annihilates the airline software (not the plane itself but all the support systems that legally get you on the plane). Forget trying to check-in for the flight in advance like a normal person. Forget trying to check-in at all. Maybe it’s a positive thing that arose of a kidnapping one time, but if you have an infant on your ticket, every working computer capable of smoothly completing a routine check-in will short circuit.
We had gotten to the airport for our return flight three hours early. Hopeful and naïve as we were, we had diligently tried to check-in using their easy breezy app at least twenty different times during the previous twenty-four hours. Each time, the app had fought valiantly to complete the process, only to crash last minute in an infuriating display of bait and switch. The check-in line in person was longer than I’d ever seen, probably on account of their spectacularly unhelpful airline application. Did we all stand there in line and delete it off our phones with savage pleasure? What else was there to do?
Once we got to the desk it took another full hour for the representative to check us in. I exaggerate none percent. She was literally on the phone with Airline Headquarters or maybe God Himself, tapping rhythmically on her keyboard like a caged bird trying to peck its way to freedom. There were clocks everywhere and all of them seemed to be eating through time doubly fast. Forty minutes to boarding. Thirty. Twenty. Ten. And then with no premonition or warming,
“OKAY YOU’RE GOOD HERE ARE YOUR TICKETS I’VE GOT YOUR BAGS NO YOU DON’T NEED TO PAY IT’S ON US JUST RUN YOU CAN MAKE IT GO THANK YOU HAVE A SAFE FLIGHT.”
Yelling over our shoulders as we ran,
“OKAY WE WILL SINCE WE’RE IN CONTROL OF THAT AND THANKS FOR ALL YOUR HELP IN CALLING THE MINISTRY OF PLANE CHECKING IN BUREAU TO EXPLAIN WE’RE NOT TRYING TO KIDNAP OUR OWN F*&^%$ CHILD BUT YOU’RE THE BEST OKAY BYE.”
Then we got that flag at the security checkpoint that they say is random but that has happened to me every time I’ve had the nerve to travel with formula and/or breastmilk. This time I had both so you can imagine the exploding heads. Suitcases flung open. A delightfully invasive pat down for yours truly. Chemical testing on Murphy Jane’s bunny. You never know when it comes to bunnies. But alas we were clean. Off to customs and another hour-long line. If I pulled out my binoculars I could just barely make out the agent at the border, glumly scanning passports. An airport people herder walked by and Matthew thought to ask her if there was a way to just leave. By this point our flight was already boarding and we weren’t about to leave the country with no place to go. On cue, Winnie started to wail his baby face off.
The agent said, “Okay, you see the wheelchair lane with no one in it? Scoot under the ropes and go through there. Don’t try to comfort the baby. They will usually let a family through if there are crying children.” I have never been so relieved to hear his sweet sobs. Bless you, child, for an Oscar-worthy, impeccably timed performance.
We were whisked through customs and up an elevator to the gate. The flight had been delayed fifteen minutes. We made it. But somewhere in the recesses of cyberspace, a software goblin stirred. “I will exact revenge,” he cackled.
After an uneventful flight, which is the most complimentary thing you can say of a flight, from Calgary to Atlanta, we trudged through Hartsfield-Jackson in pursuit of dinner and our next gate. We didn’t have boarding passes yet for the final leg home to Raleigh because of the whole debacle back in Canada. This didn’t necessarily seem ominous in real-time.
As the boarding process began, we huddled off to the side, waiting with plastered on smiles for the gate agent to check us in. After the last few stragglers trickled onto the jet bridge, he booted up his computer and set to work. Confirmation codes were read. IDs were checked. Phone calls were made. Murmured conversations were had. Every so often his computer would spit forth a flimsy boarding pass. He would slide it across the glassy scanner, which would promptly flash red and shriek a tone of unyielding rejection. Despite having tickets in hand, some mysteriously evil software glitch somewhere was stonewalling our entry. We were later informed that whatever voodoo the representative had used back in Canada to get us on the departing flight had somehow voided our tickets for the next one. The Atlanta gate agent went trotting down the bridge to the plane. In the foolishness of dwindling hope, I assumed he was explaining the situation to the pilot who would wait patiently for all beloved passengers to safely board.
Instead, the plane pulled resolutely away from the gate in an act of finality that crushed my soul. Had Matthew and I been traveling solo it would’ve been a bizarre story at worst. With two sleep deprived toddlers melting dramatically on the dingy floor, it was maybe not my worst nightmare but certainly horror dream adjacent. I spoke only in grunted sentence fragments for the next hour.
We slogged over to the help desk, praying another flight was going out within the next, perhaps, four minutes or so. They booked us on the last plane taking off that evening, throwing in a modest dinner voucher for the heartbreak of having tickets for a flight, showing up on time and getting soundly rejected. Nice compensation but it was one millionth of the payout I thought we deserved.
As a mom, I was bouncing around rock bottom. I felt like crying but I was too dehydrated. Murphy Jane was well aware that the plane had flown away without us. I offered heartfelt condolences like, “Yup. We’re stranded.” And “It’s a bummer. We might never make it home.” My piéce de résistance being, “Why don’t you pick ME up?”
With a couple hours to kill, we set our sights on the T.G.I. Friday’s at the end of the terminal. Our table had a view of the runway and I watched dejectedly as planes zoomed in and out, vacillating between feelings of total surrender and guilt over spending the majority of Winslow’s first birthday in an airport. As far as airline travel goes, this really wasn’t that bad. We narrowly made our first flight back into the good ol’ U S of A, we weren’t having to stay overnight anywhere AND it was Winnie’s birthday for crying out loud!
Since becoming a mom, my biggest challenge and most hard-fought skill has been to remain calm and positive. I couldn’t have been further from either accolade. In fact, I had crossed over into evil tyrant menace territory without so much as a backward glance or post card to the family.
Our food arrived and we ate like castaways coming home to a Thanksgiving feast. I was suddenly struck by how charming my kids could be. The restaurant was warm and inviting. Four hundred ton flying machines were coming and going, floating on the sky like kites. Miraculous! We sang to Winnie and gorged on the generously á la moded hubcap-sized skillet brownie. Life was grand!
“Sorry, guys. I guess I was just hungry.”
My heartfelt thanks for reading!
Love, Alli
You are SUCH a good writer! Do you take notes ‘cause when I fly internationally 1-2x a yr, it all becomes a blur pretty quickly!
UGH. I'm sorry. What a stressful time. I'm glad you got some food though. Food always helps!!