The Airport Story… one year later

Randy and I have told some of you The Airport Story but probably not in depth and probably not from the angle of my sometimes crippling anxiety. This story spans over many hours and 3 airports.

It all started in SEATAC at the Delta counter. I think we got the new guy which was not good at all since we were transferring to a different airline in Amsterdam and we were traveling with our 2 cats. It took him probably 15 minutes to look up our reservations, check our passports and look at our vaccination cards. It took him another 10 minutes to check with other co-workers to see if we needed to also have negative Covid tests to fly. Of course, being the little planner I am, I had already checked the regulations in the US, Amsterdam, and Riga to make sure that we didn’t need a test. But no one listens to the customer. Once he confirms that I am right, then we can check in the cats. He has to look at each of them and we have to put a special tag on their carriers. Ok, fine. Now we have to pay the fee for them. Can’t we wait and pay for the cats and all the baggage at the same time? Of course not! Ok, fine. Finally, we get the bags weighed, tagged and taken. The Delta guy gives us our tickets, but only for the first leg of the flight from Seattle to Amsterdam. He says he can’t give us the next tickets since it is with another airline. At first this seems to make sense but then as I’m thinking about it later, it didn’t make sense. We’ve done this flight before and always gotten our connecting flight tickets. They don’t always have a seat number or gate assigned but they are tickets showing we are on that flight. Since it took that long (almost an hour) to get checked in, we head to security.

Cats in security… I have only traveled by airplane with a cat once before. That time when we went through security, they just had me put the whole bag with the cat through the x-ray machine and it was easy. I guess regulations might have changed. This time I had to take the cat out of the bag, send the bag through the x-ray, walk through the metal detector holding the cat, then they swabbed my hands for testing, WHILE STILL HOLDING THE CAT who was freaked out and squirming so much I could barely hold on to her. Finally I asked if I could put the cat back in her bag while they finished swabbing and testing my hands. My husband had to do the same thing with the other cat and we both ended up with some nice scratches from our frightened kitties. We thought that would probably be the most difficult part of the trip. Boy were we wrong!!!

Almost time to board…. I started thinking more about not having connecting flight tickets. I really started to think about past trips and remembered that we always got some kind of boarding pass for the second flight that we would show when going through border control and customs. There was nothing I could do in the air so now I had the whole flight from Seattle to Amsterdam to be anxious.

We arrive in Amsterdam and have a very short window to make our connecting flight to Rīga. Somehow we get out of the regular path of people and accidently exit out of the security area. I saw a sign and didn’t think we should go out but Randy thought that we had exited and had to go back in before. We explained to one of the people working in there that we had accidently exited, that we needed to get back into the secure area fast, and that if we didn’t do it very quickly we would miss our connecting flight. She said she would get a security person to come take us back but we would have to wait until someone was available.

At this point I started having a full anxiety attack. I was crying. I couldn’t breathe. I thought my chest was going to explode. I was gasping. My husband kept trying to get me to calm down but there was no way that was happening. 

Finally the security guy came and took us back upstairs to the international terminal. What we didn’t realize is that we still had to go back through security again. I was left wondering why we had to wait for this security guy… Anyway, now we had to go through security AGAIN, with the cats. The Amsterdam airport was a little better as they took me into a small room with the cats after I had cleared security and then left me in there while they ran the bags through security. Then I was able to put the cats back in go on our way. The cats were still freaked out but at least I didn’t have to try to hold them. 

Then we had to make a mad dash to the gate for our flight. We each had a full backpack. We each had a cat. And Randy had his guitar. We tried to run but the backpack was heavy and so were the cats. I found one of those luggage carts and loaded everything on it. Randy ran ahead to see if he could get to the flight on-time and I ran as fast I could behind him, pushing the cart. We got to the gate before the flight left but the attendants at the gate said they didn’t have record of tickets for us so we couldn’t get on. We would have to find a ticketing agent to help us. The flight left. The next one was in 8 hours!  I sat there at the empty gate, crying, sweating, and feeling so bad for our kitties who would now be stuck in these bags for at least 10 more hours. Poor babies! 

Randy went in search of a ticketing agent who could help. We couldn’t find any human who worked for Delta (who had caused this whole mess) or for AirBaltic (our connecting airline). Finally, a very nice gentleman from KLM was able to help. He said the Delta agent in Seattle had accidentally cancelled our tickets for AirBaltic. He said this kind of thing happens frequently to Delta customers. UGH! This nice man even sent a message to the baggage handlers identifying our bags and asking them to pull them and put them in a certain office so we could find them later. The only hitch was that he couldn’t get into the AirBaltic system and make actual electronic tickets. He wrote out a handwritten (old school) ticket and put what he could electronically into the AirBaltic system. This made us VERY nervous but at least it was something.

Another thing to explain… At this point Latvia was in lockdown due to Covid. People were not allowed out past 8 pm unless they had a very good reason or they could be ticketed. Well, our new flight was putting us in after 8 pm. Not a problem for us because we have a good reason to be out, but my relative picking us up from the airport had to find out whether or not she was allowed to come get us. And they have another rule that no more than 2 people from separate households can travel in a car together. So one of us will have to take a taxi anyway. Kind of a pain but certainly not the worst thing that has or will happen.

We decided to go back out of security to (hopefully) collect our bags and try to get something to eat while we waited until we could check in again. This whole time we were still nervous about hand written tickets. Thankfully, Randy found our bags pretty easily. We found a restaurant and I had a few mini bottles of wine to try to stop my anxiety from consuming me.

We waited until an hour before our new flight when the ticketing window opened so we could get our new tickets and check our bags. Problems! Of course! Why would anything go as planned?! And of course the women working the ticket window don’t actually work for AirBaltic. They work for some other company that hires them to work the window so they can’t really help with ticketing issues. At this point Randy and I are wondering if we will ever get out of this airport. Should we just rent a car and drive from Amsterdam to Riga? We had to keep running back and forth across the airport between the KLM desk and the AirBaltic desk with 3 suitcases, a guitar, 2 cats and 2 backpacks. We had to get specifics on the ticket the KLM guy wrote and go back to the AirBaltic desk with that information. It is beyond me why the AirBaltic people couldn’t call the KLM people themselves! At this point I’m in total panic mode again and can’t stop crying. Although I think in the end the tears may have persuaded the AirBaltic women to try to help a little more. So anyway, 3 calls to supervisors later and we finally get issued the real boarding passes. Now we have to get the bags checked AGAIN, go through security AGAIN with the cats, and run like hell because now we are in danger of missing the flight again! 

We run all the way to the gate from security and get there 5 minutes before boarding. We both look at each other wondering if we will really get on plane this time. 

Success! Finally! We are on the plane. We are seated in different rows but we don’t care since we are finally on our way. We arrive in Rīga and have to fill out papers about why we are out late. Then my relative is there to pick up me, the cats and the luggage. She calls a taxi for Randy and we make our way to the AirBnb that we will call home for the next month. Finally…

Time the journey started in Seattle was 11 am 2 Nov. Time arrived in Riga was 10:30 pm 3 Nov. Riga was 9 hours ahead so that would be like 1:30pm back home. 26 ½ hours of traveling WITH CATS!

The whole thing was a nightmare! I don’t think it would have been so traumatic if we hadn’t had the cats. I felt so bad for them! They seemed to recover quickly but they REALLY don’t like being put in their cat carriers anymore.

As I finish writing this story, it is Nov 1, 2022. Almost one year later. I kept feeling so much anxiety when writing that I would have to stop and put it away for a while. Hopefully now, one year later, I can let it go and just try to laugh. You know what they say, “tragedy + time = comedy”.