Flying Standby Through the CrowdStrike Outage
46 hours in airports, and stocked up on airline snacks for weeks.
You read that right- 46 total hours in airports. Almost longer than the time we spent at our destination. That’s what my family of 5 dealt with two weekends ago as we arrived at DIA around 10 at night on Thursday July 18, just as the outages were beginning to affect flights.
Context: Why fly standby? A cousin passed away and a memorial+reunion was scheduled on Saturday in Maine- my brother is a United employee and was able to facilitate all of us traveling the 2000+ miles to attend. We would not have been able to afford paid flights to do so otherwise. Even though we would’ve arrived home quicker, we saved dollars in the thousands. When there is no space on a flight for standby passengers, they roll over and become space available for the next flight to the same destination.
* * *
Our red-eye to Boston at 11:59 PM Thursday was a slow crawl of a boarding process as gate attendants had to manually enter each ticket+reference number. It was already a miracle that there was space for all five of us to be on board. After boarding, we sat at the gate for an hour and I make friends with the 5 year old cutie next to me nicknamed Bobcat. Poor girl is fully asleep by 12:30 AM when we’re told we have to deplane.
“We apologize. Your flight now departs at 1:40 a.m.”
“…now departs at 2:45 a.m.”
“…now departs at 3:15 a.m.”
“… now departs at 4:30 a.m.”
Eventually the flight is cancelled.
Our 8 a.m. rental car reservation at Boston Logan was already kiboshed… So began our first overnight stay in the airport with hopes of jumping on the 6, 8:30, or 11:15 AM flight to Boston, OR the 11:50 AM to Portland, ME.
As we’re settling into an empty gate overnight, United is kind enough to leave flight-snack carts scattered around the airport for passengers to pillage. My brother and I jump from cart to cart gathering goodies and taking them back to Mom and Dad and the older passengers camping around us. It felt like we were in an RPG.
Filter used to mildly protect the identities of my family members.
We’re chasing flights around DIA the next morning, Friday: a B gate, then an A gate, then a B gate again... American and Southwest are slowly getting planes into the air, but United flights are at a standstill and backed up with passengers who had flights cancelled. We are at the bottom of the food chain.
We don’t make it on any of the Boston flights, but by another miracle, make it onto the 11:50 to Portland (which was delayed by a mere four hours, which was our saving grace).
Pilot brother’s long-distance girlfriend picks us up from the airport, runs us to a dinner spot, to Wal-Mart, and then 30 more minutes to our Air BnB 30 mins south of Portland. All seemed well.
* * *
The next morning, Saturday, she picks up my mother and brother to drive the 2 hours down to Boston and retrieve the one checked bag that had all my parents’ clothing and beer from their brewery to bring to the memorial at 3.
They arrive at the airport at 11, miraculously find their luggage in a sea of random bags, wait in line for an hour and a half to SIGN PAPERWORK to obtain a rental car, wait another hour and a half to actually drive the car, and arrived back at the Air BnB to pick us all up and get to the memorial two hours late.
I won’t spend too much time on this part- the memorial also happened to be scheduled on my birthday. The evening with my aunts and cousins and the accompanying bonfire and sunset hangs were amazing, the piano bar afterward was amazing, spending the next day (Sunday) with my future sister-in-law’s family was amazing. I made the decision that I would probably end up moving here. Some photo highlights!
New Berwick, Maine
Kennebunk Beach, Maine
Happy 34th birthday to me!
A big ol’ plate of lobsters, Maine
* * *
Monday comes around and it’s time to head back to Denver. We leave the apartment at 6:45 AM in Wells to head to Boston Logan, hoping that things are not as backed up as they were on Friday and that we might make it onto the 9:30… but, as things go, there was no hope.
The planes are leaving, but again, bottom of the totem pole.
9:45 AM? no space. Bumped.
11:15 AM? no space. Bumped.
“Why don’t we try to get to Houston or Chicago since they’re hub cities with way more chances?”
No space on the Houston flight at 11:45- bumped. No space on the 12:00 Chicago flight- bumped. 1:15 to Denver. Bumped. 1:45 to Denver- bumped.
About this time, the family is sitting in a cube space next to a bar and we take turns watching bags while the other four drink.
You know those metal “Does your bag fit?” structures they have at every gate? Two employees had a pair of those on a rolly cart, and one of them falls off the dolly and directly on top of me where I’m sitting. There’s nothing to do but laugh hysterically as the day grows more ridiculous! The poor worker felt so bad that she brought me a case of water bottles and… more snacks!
One representative of each type of snack!
3:20 PM to Denver… 5:47 to Denver.. 6:30 to Denver.. 8:20 to Denver. All bumped.
Chicago and Houston? All full.
Round 2 of spending the night in airports, this time Boston Logan, begins.
We commandeer an empty gate with sectional couches and make friends with two little mice. (I made friends.)
Mouse friend!
Everything is closed. Half the TV screens are airport programming, and the other half remain the blue screen of death. We find out that around 3 AM each morning, state troopers walk the airport and force all stuck overnight passengers to exit the secure area, wait in the unsecured area until 4 AM when TSA starts their shift, and re-go through security. This practice, while understandable, is totally effed, in my opinion.
I see the troopers (eyes cracked, pretending to be asleep) walking past us, inspecting, but they did not wake us up. I suppose they took pity on us, specifically. Other people, I overheard, had to get up and go.
Filtered, once again, to mildly protect the identities of my family members
About 4:30 AM passengers start creeping into the gate we’d hijacked- whoops. Out of politeness we consolidate. “I don’t care you’re mad, little brother, we’re taking up eleven seats.”
Surprise! We do not make it onto the 6:00 AM to Denver, nor the 7:30. Nor the 7:35 to Houston, the 8:45 to Denver, the 9:40 to Chicago, or the 11:17 to Denver.
But somehow… Chicago at 12:10 PM had five seats available.
The gate agent says to my mother, “I’m so glad to see you guys are getting out. I’ve been seeing your name pop up for 24 hours. Good luck getting home!” Thanks for the luck, Miss, we desperately need it!
Whoever has been to Chicago O’Hare understands when I say, as soon as we stepped foot into that airport, our demeanors sank. That place is a garbage pit of bad moods and cold interactions… but the food options and vending machines were stellar. We get to eat vegetables! I’ll take the small win.
At this airport, thank God, we do not have to wait! Somehow, the 4:15 PM 777 (BIG PLANE!) to Denver has space! We are sitting scattered across the plane, but relieved.
I sit next to a kind, older gentleman named Todd and his brother, Jeff. Todd tells me about his farm in rural Pennsylvania, and also that he is the guy who physically moves the chains during every Penn State home football game. He was fascinated by my job- captioning live sports for TV. I told him I promise I’d keep an eye out for him especially if I captioned Penn State.
Finally we land in Denver and it’s a madhouse getting the bags we had no choice but to check. We were told carousel 7, but really they all came out on 8. It could’ve been worse, though; we could’ve had to wade through these:
An endless sea of luggage at DIA
A different sea of luggage at DIA
So, consider my blessings counted. The family time was quality once we chose to embrace the chaos.
I had an absolute blast.
