Murphy’s Law
We were on our way to Singapore for our honeymoon. Both our parents had come to drop us at the airport. We were eagerly looking forward to this trip.
At the check-in counter, (after an excruciating 30 mins long line!) we presented our passports and ticket copies. While we were silently hoping for an upgrade, god had other plans in store.
The lady at the check-in counter said something like this – “Ms. Jain, your seat is XX & Mr. Jain your ticket is not valid.” It took me a while to realize what she was saying. “Ma’am, I think there has been some mistake, can you please check again?” I asked her. The lady took her time, checked and double-checked. Unfortunately, her findings were still the same.
I just stepped out and called my travel agent. He also could not make sense of the situation. He asked me to connect him with somebody at the airport counter of the airline. I may have beaten Usain Bolt’s record on my way to the counter. That ‘somebody’ was at the other end of the airport for some reason. Which meant another mad dash in front of an unappreciative audience.
I caught hold of said individual and my agent had a long discussion with him. Meanwhile, the check-in time was almost over and my wife was begging the check-in ladies to wait for a few more minutes. However, the conversation did not result in anything substantial and they had to let the flight go.
My parents called me after a few mins asking me whether our boarding was done. Till then I had held off on explaining the situation to them to avoid unnecessary anxiety pangs. But there was no way out now.
I was in constant touch with my agent to review alternatives. Next day was not an option, since we were supposed to board a cruise the next day and we would have missed that, ruining our entire trip.
There was another flight by a different airline in an hour, but they did not have a counter at the airport and bookings could only be done via their city office.
Murphy’s law was playing havoc with my life.
Finally, we found out that the last flight out was by Indian Airlines, which we could book at the airport. My agent confirmed that he would reimburse everything and I should book the tickets using my credit card. I did. The only advice we got at the airline booking counter was — run like Forrest Gump or else you will miss this flight as well!
We did not need telling twice. So we made it to the check-in counter on time and secured the prized and elusive boarding passes. All this action had taken up a good 4 hours of our evening and hence we were famished. Once security check was done, we found a quiet spot at the food court and ordered something to fill ourselves up.
I was sitting next to the electronic display of flight statuses. We had just unwrapped our sandwiches, when we saw “FINAL BOARDING CALL” written next to our flight. Which meant, you guessed it, another running spree towards the boarding counter.
As we came down from the food court, an airline official asked me if I am Mr. Abhay Jain. I replied in the affirmative and then he asked us to follow him as we were the only passengers who were yet to complete the boarding.
Going through the boarding gates, I thought that we would be looking at angry faces for delaying the flight. However, to our surprise, the flight was only 20% occupied. We had not even our put our seat-belts before the plane was on the runway. The good part was that we could sit wherever we wanted to and could even lie down flat and sleep.
All in all, it was an exciting way to get things going on our honeymoon. After returning, to our agent’s credit, he refunded the entire additional expense that we had to bear. The reason behind all this confusion apparently was that there was another Abhay Jain who had also been booked on the same flight by my travel agent. But the airlines thought that it was a typo and that triggered a chain reaction!
Story credit: Quora / Abhay Jain