Double-Header Of Bad Luck
I don’t remember the date, but it was maybe June 2006, the day a chain of thunderstorms hit all of the Ohio Valley, East Coast and parts of the Mid West. It was also the ‘first day’ of the new passenger scheduling program implemented by about 3/4 of the airlines, and IT DID NOT WORK!
I was first in line at the ticket counter to make sure I got my ticket changed to a later flight, as my scheduled flight was grounded due to bad weather (it could not leave ATL to fly to Dulles).
I picked a flight sufficiently later for the storm to have passed, and they gave me some lip service, using the STORM, as an excuse, that they couldn’t rebook my ticket, which I knew wasn’t true.
I also figured out, it was a problem with their software (been in the computer industry & read about the switch date), so I asked for a supervisor, to get a bigger lie told to me, same story,
SO, I became that guy everybody hates, and told them I refused to move aside for the next customer, cause if the software came back online, and the storm passed, I wanted the first available seat, which, I knew I would lose the second I moved from that spot.
This brought groans from the people in the line behind me, so I asked the supervisor to guarantee me a seat, even a jets ‘pilot jump sheet’, or I would tell everyone in line what the real problems was.
He fretted around for a few minutes, and finally gave me a boarding pass of some sort, and I went down to the leaving gate for about 2 hours. Only people with pre printed boarding passes, and e tickets were able to make that flight, which was the first one out of Dulles.
With fewer people on board, and that jump seat pass, I moved to first class… I have always thought the supervisor might have given me a bogus boarding pass, but it was legit.
I only made such a big stink because I was going to my older brothers wedding in Minnesota, and I never take time off from work, so it was a double header in terms of unfairness to get bumped off a plane that day. Story credit: Reddit / (StatOne)