Get Stuck in Paris at Christmastime or Get Stuck in a Tower of Giraffes?
The not-so-glamorous airline employee lifestyle
TRAVEL WRITING PROMPT RESPONSE
The not-so-glamorous airline employee lifestyle
Story #1
Having worked in the Airline Industry I can definitely say there are a lot of #unplannedadventures. That’s because of the nature on how an airline employee gets a seat on a plane. It depends on a number of factors. It’s not always simple.
Because of the riskiness, an employee may get stranded somewhere and have to wait many days for the next flight to become available. This has happened to me several times in the course of many years flying as a “non-rev”. [Non-rev is airline lingo for non-revenue, it designates an employee traveling on standby status]
Stranded at the Paris Airport on the Busiest Holiday of the Year
I remember the time we got stuck in Paris during Christmastime for 2 extra unplanned days.
We came over to visit our daughter who was attending University. The plan was to return back home with her to enjoy a family Christmas together. We carefully monitored the passenger flight loads watching for the flight that would be the easiest for us to get 3 seats.
But as often happens, something unexpected gets in the way of smooth travel. There could be an aircraft maintenance issue, or passengers get delayed from another flight and pile on last minute, or people use their points last minute to confirm a seat. The reasons are many for why a flight can suddenly fill up within the hour before its departure, leaving no empty seats available for the airline employee.
Airline employees will deliberately choose a holiday time to travel because in general, paying passengers don’t buy tickets to fly on a holiday. They usually fly before or after but not so much on the actual date of the holiday.
Our return flight from Paris to Dallas had some open seats left 48 hours prior to departure. But there were 30 airline employees listed for the flight. That’s a lot and means someone is going to get “bumped”. (Airline terminology for when a passenger is told they can’t get on a flight)
It turned out that 20 of us got bumped from the flight and the next flight out the following morning was going to be full too.
After the last call was made, the gate shut. Several non-revs were already trying to figure out their next move on where to stay for the night or try to catch a flight on another carrier.
Since we had this happen to us before, we knew what our plan would be. It was to hop on the free bus over to the quaint little town of Roissy-en-France only a couple of kilometers away from the Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport.
There were several airline employees around us discussing what to do. Even a pilot was stranded with us. He decided to get a room in the hotel at the airport. He couldn’t risk being late for tomorrow’s flight where he had a better chance than the rest of us to get a seat.
20 airline employees and/or their dependents had never heard of the option we described but followed us out to find the bus. My husband and I were like the Pied Pipers saying “Follow Us!” We made new friends that day and shared travel stories of being stranded. The not-so-glamorous “non-rev” lifestyle!
Choosing a Hotel in Roissy-en-France
Roissy-en-France has several hotels as well as a few restaurants. It’s a cute little walking town.
As the bus stopped at each hotel, airline employees were making their last-minute choice of which hotel to stay at. The 20 of us dwindled down to about 5 at the last stop where we got off to try and get a room. One of the hotels was fully booked while the last one available had rooms but not at a discount.
One young woman in our group panicked because she didn’t have enough room on her credit card to book a 200 euro room at the last minute. So she hopped back on the bus to find a cheaper alternative.
Meanwhile, we felt we lucked out and got a suite for the 3 of us. It’s always hard to find a room in Europe that fits 3 adults and while 220 euro is not cheap, it suited our needs. Thus we spent Christmas Eve at Roissy-en-France. Everything was closed except one generic restaurant, so we didn’t have much choice but to be thankful that we at least got a room and would be home soon enough, fingers crossed.
The Christmas day flights were filled up, kind of unusual why so many French would want to be flying to Dallas on Christmas day we couldn’t understand but it was how things could go last minute.
The day after Christmas we managed to make the flight home. Another #unplannedadventure finished as we celebrated back home post-Christmas opening gifts, and grateful we were together.
Story #2
Running through a Tower of Giraffes is Not Something You Plan to Do, but We Did it Anyway
I’ve had other unplanned adventures that didn’t involve flying. Like the time we took a road trip to Boulder, Colorado, and got stuck in a snowstorm on the highway for 17 hours! That’s not so bad compared to the following story.
There was the time we took a road trip to the Fossil Rim Wildlife drive-through park and almost got stomped by Giraffes!
That was quite an #unplannedadventure. The cars were moving slowly on the dirt road in the Giraffe area. People were oohing and ahhing how close this herd (actually called a Tower) of 15-foot tall Giraffes were to us little humans especially because they had their babies out! That was a rare sight to see.
Out of nowhere, we watched in horror as one of the cars ahead of us drove off the 10-foot dirt embankment and rolled over in slow motion. What!!?
They had their windows open so we could hear screaming and crying. “Quick!”, I said to my husband, “we got to go help them!”
So we jumped out of our car and ran through the field that had about 8 Mother Giraffes in it. The Giraffes and their babies had moved off to one side and were watching the event unfold.
We got to the overturned car and so did several other people. Fortunately, no one was hurt but they had a handicapped person strapped in the back who was hanging upside down.
We couldn’t help him and others were trying to frantically figure out a way to carefully release him. We turned around to head back to our car just as a couple of the park rangers drove up.
A park ranger jumped out of his car and started shouting to us to stay far away from the Giraffes. We pointed to our car and shouted but it’s over on the other side of the field! He came over to us and said he would accompany us back to our car. He was concerned and told us that Mother Giraffes are fiercely protective of their young and could charge us. It could be very dangerous, he said. Our eyes grew wide at not knowing this so we followed his instructions and got safely back in our car.
What would you have done?
The take away from any #unplannedadventure is to learn how to be resilient and resourceful.
In the case of flights being full, we always had backup plans just in case we couldn’t make a flight. Plans that could cover several days if necessary. Always be prepared for the extra expenditure when traveling.
But as for the Giraffe event at Fossil Rim, that was a tough call. Stay in the car while you hear people screaming for help, or take a chance and run through a tower of wild Giraffes?
It’s a learning experience that you add to your arsenal of knowledge on how to be better prepared for your next #unplannedadventure.
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