Don’t Rain On my Delay

When traveling, one simple word has the power to alter your entire travel universe: Delayed.

A delayed flight means that you will be late getting to your destination, or late returning home. You may miss that meeting, lunch date, hotel check-in, your friend’s birthday dinner, etc. all because of a force that is completely out of your control. The plane malfunctions and needs to be repaired, the inbound flight was delayed, the crew hasn’t shown up to the gate yet, the weather is making it dangerous to fly- all possibilities that are completely out of your control.

So what do you do? Do you rebook your flight? Wait it out? Leave the airport and return later if your flight is extremely delayed? Laugh it off? Cry? Storm the gate agent podium and demand action?

In these types of scenarios, perspective is everything. Your attitude about the situation at hand will determine your experience. If you get angry or cry, then you’ll only make it worse for yourself because unless you rebook another flight there is literally nothing that you can do. Having negative emotions will only make it worse. You could post your travel woes on Facebook, letting the world share in your misery, but why even do that? For attention? For remorse? C’mon man- the world is already so negative as it is, nobody needs another dose from you.

I get it. Missing something important is not a good feeling- being late sucks. But if it’s a situation that you can’t help, then your friend, colleague, mom, brother, or boss will understand. Don’t take out your frustration on other people around you; you’ll only make everybody’s experience worse.

Whether you have a short delay or an excrutiatingly long one, here are some tips to make it better.

Short Delays (30 minutes-2 hours):

• Treat yourself to a small snack. Grab that overpriced airport Starbucks coffee you wouldn’t have gotten otherwise
• Play catchup. Call the friend you’ve been meaning to call all week but just couldn’t find the time. Facetime your mom and say hi to your childhood pet. Email your grandparents. Maintain your relationships while you have a second to spare.
• Read articles that you’ve missed from the week. Read up on current world events, the stock exchange, the latest millennial trend, etc.
• Clean out your carry on or wallet. If you packed in a fury you may have just thrown some items into your bag and left and run out the door. Now is your time to get organized! Throw that gum wrapper away and put all of those ponytail holders in one place.
• Take advantage of Free Wifi/ Cellular Data while you can. You’ve been given the gift of more time to stay connected, so connect while you can! Update your Facebook status and post that super cute photo on Instagram.

Long Delays (2+ hours)

• All of the above
• Take a lap around the terminal. Check out all of the restaurants, shops, and bars. Get yourself acquainted in case your delay becomes longer or just get familiar for your next trip.
• Eat something to hold you over. A small snack may not be enough- check out those food options!
• Trust me, it helps.
• Stretch it out. Find a corner and stretch out your legs/body. You will be sitting for a long time when your plane eventually leaves, so let your body take up space while it can. Maybe even do a little yoga to feel centered and balanced.
• Talk to another person in the same boat. Start a conversation with the person sitting next to you at the gate. Not only could it make the time pass quickly, but you could also end up impacting someone else’s day in a good way.
• Read a book. If you didn’t bring one, pick one up at the newsstand. It’s always so nice to get lost in a good book!
• Play a game. Break out the deck of cards you brought with you on your vacation. The vacation’s not over yet! Create a little space for you and your friends and start playing. Or, if you’re traveling solo, download a gaming app to your phone! Solitaire can actually be a really fun way to pass the time if you let it be.
• Plan out your week. Write notes, jot down your thoughts in your phone, make the calls and take the names. Get ahead on some of your impending work; use your present stress to get rid of some of your future stress!
• Keep a positive attitude. Smile.

 

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I’ve had some pretty crazy delays in my time. Once when I was 10 I was traveling back home after my sister’s 16^th birthday party in Florida. My mom, sister, and 5 of her teenage friends and I were delayed in the Ft. Lauderdale airport for 6 hours. Our flight was originally supposed to take off at 5pm and we didn’t end up pushing back from the gate until 11:30 pm. Bless my poor mother. What do you do with a 10 year-old and 6 angsty teens? You break out the beach towels and create a fun patchwork surface to play cards on and take digital camera pics. You play charades. You make a crappy situation into a fun memory. When we finally pulled into our driveway in Atlanta at 2am that night- it was the latest I had ever stayed up at that point- I remember thinking I’d just had one of the best days ever.

My most recent delay happened a week ago. I was traveling out of LAX to JFK for a week of filming in NY. I got to the gate and saw that we had been delayed 30 minutes. No sweat. I boarded the plane along with the other 250 passengers and sat listening to my Spotify playlist waiting for the taxiing to begin. It never did. 30 more minutes passed and before I knew it, all of us were deplaning and told to wait in the gatehouse for further information. Our flight was then delayed an extra 7 hours.

Normally when I fly, I always pack in a carry-on suitcase in case of emergencies like this. If I’d had my carry-on, I would have canceled my reservation on the flight and switched over to the next one to New York, easy peasy. Except this time, because I was flying to The City for work, I had checked a bag. And that bag was currently in the belly of the plane that was delayed for 7 hours. I was trapped.

I could have easily gone back to my apartment in LA. But then that would have required two Uber trips, an expensive getaway, for what? Aimlessly walking around my apartment for a couple hours? No thanks.

So, I decided to stick it out at good ole Terminal 2. I Facetimed some friends. Read a book. Posted on my Instagram story and made a poll. Sent in an audition that I’d had the day before. I even found a corner and stretched, doing yoga poses (I nailed that half-pigeon).

My original scheduled arrival time into New York was 10:45 pm on Sunday night. By the time I landed at JFK, it was 6am Monday morning. An involuntary red-eye. I posted a picture to my story saying, “Finally made it” with a time-stamp. The texts started rolling in, “Kell, I’m so sorry you had to go through that!” and “What a bummer man”.

But honestly? It wasn’t the end of the world and wasn’t something anyone would need to apologize to me for. There was literally nothing I could have done in the situation, so why get so wrapped up in the negativity? My flight was delayed 7 hours and I missed a quality night of sleep. Ok, fine. That’s what life decided to throw my way that day. Maybe I avoided a creepy commute home at night, or maybe I was supposed to meet the Lyft driver I rode with that morning and make an impact on him in some way- I mean who knows what the purpose behind my delay was, but all I know is that that’s what my cards had dealt that day.

Instead of churning thoughts of negativity into your brain, try spinning them positively next time. Whether it’s a delay on a plane, train, or automobile, or a delay in getting what you want right away, train your brain to make the most of the situation. Because honestly, at the end of the day, negativity literally won’t do anything for you at all except make your situation 100 times more unpleasant.

It’s just like what Barabara Streissand once sang:

Don’t Rain on my Delay

(That’s what she said, isn’t it?)

-The Fly Girl

 

In All Kinds of Weather

Severe weather is out of the airline’s control. If you ever have a flight that is delayed or cancelled to due weather, don’t blame the airline. Blame the air traffic controllers or Mother Nature, but trust me when I say that the airline isn’t out to get you. In fact, they have your best interest at heart, even though it seems like they are trying to ruin your day.

Want to guarantee yourself a crazy travel day? Try to travel during severe weather circumstances. Want to add a cherry on top? Try to travel in severe weather as a Non-Rev.

Picture this: airport terminals filling up with passengers as more flights are cancelled. Passengers running from gate to gate trying to jump on an earlier flight because theirs is delayed. Luggage everywhere. People sleeping on the ground. Disheartened spirits.

If you’ve ever attempted to fly in extreme weather, you know that it’s absolute mayhem. If you’ve ever attempted to fly in extreme weather as a Stand-By, you know it’s 99% useless.

But that 1% chance of getting on a plane is still there, flickering it’s little light. So you go for it, because miracles happen, right?

Right, if you know how to play the game.

Thankfully, I do (and so does my mom).

In all of my years of flying, I’ve pretty much flown in all of the weather circumstances you can think of. I’ve been on a small connection flight during a severe thunderstorm- the flight attendant literally announced that she thought they were going to crash on the previous flight due to the lightening (this wasn’t my normal airline, mind you). I’ve been on the last flight able to land in New York during a snowstorm- the plane slid on the runway upon landing and almost hit the fence lining The Hudson River. I’ve flown in extreme wind scenarios, where the turbulence was constant and the plane felt like a rollercoaster- I remember spilling my Coke on the man sitting next to me on the way to Phoenix, Arizona when I was 7. Whoops.

But this past week I checked off another extreme weather flight- I flew from Atlanta to Chicago during a tornado. Not only was it a miracle that the plane left Atlanta, but it was a miracle that I was on it.

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Let me give you the backstory:

It was already a crazy travel week to begin with for this Fly Girl. Moving across the country, a screening of a movie, and a premiere all in one week.

On Saturday, I had moved out of my house in LA across the country to Atlanta, all of my belongings on the airplane. (Blog post about moving across the country using only carry-ons and checked bags to follow) My mom had flown into LA to help me, and we landed in Atlanta with 5 suitcases and a trunk at 1:30 in the morning on Sunday. On our way home, us tired little pups that we were after working, my mom exclaims “OH MY GOSH” as I was drifting off to sleep in the passenger seat.

“ WE FORGOT YOUR COAT IN THE COAT CLOSET” she yells.

My prized possession. The pink designer coat that I purchased in December using the Christmas money my parents gave me. A coat that is so dear to me, I refuse to pack it because I don’t want it to get messed up. But I also refuse to wear it onboard, for fear of it getting dirty. The solution? Bring it in a hanging bag and ask the flight attendant to hang it in the coat closet.

But then you have to remember to go get the coat.

In my defense, we landed so late and we had been running around like crazy all day… but really it was my fault.

We get off the interstate at the first exit we see and speed back around to the airport. Game plan: go to the lost and found and give them details about the coat: size, color, detailing, color of the hanging bag, name and phone number on the bag…

Except I had no form of identification labeled on the bag. Nothing, nada, zippo. Just a gray bag that says “Club Monaco”. A target for a cleaning crew member to easily be able to snatch up and never look back.

The only thing I had going for me was that we were the last flight of the night- that airplane was done for the day and was to stay at that gate until the new leg the next morning.

I gave all of my information to the lost and found women. Filled out another form online. My mom even found a Facebook group for Atlanta travel and asked if anyone had seen it. We got back a response from a gate agent who worked the gate we flew into it. She said she went down to the plane and the coat closet was empty.

It was hopeless. The cleaning crew had sold my coat on eBay by now.

Sunday afternoon my dad flew in from Florida and decided to stop by Lost and Found to check it out.

And there was my coat in its Gray Club Monaco hanging bag. A miracle.

What does this have to do with tornadoes? Nothing. This event just occurred in the craziest travel week of my life, so I’d thought I’d include it for effect.

OK so moving on- Tuesday rolls around and I am invited to attend a screening of a movie I am in, Rounding Third, in Nashville. It was a plus one invitation, so I invited my mom to come with me. She went back to LA on Monday with my dad to visit my sister, so on Tuesday she would fly straight from LA to Nashville.

Tuesday morning I was packing up for the airport, and the flight loads suddenly worsened. There were thunderstorms in the Atlanta area, so many flights were getting delayed and things were a little bumpy at the airport. I knew I had to be in Nashville by 6pm, and I didn’t want to risk it, so I hopped in the car and drove. Thankfully Nashville is close enough to Georgia that the drive is doable- it took me 4 hours. This was my first road trip ever as the driver (again, thank you flight benefits), and honestly it was a beautiful drive. My mom made it to Nashville as well, we were on time to the screening, and I watched myself on a giant silver screen for the first time. It was such a cool experience.

That night in our hotel room, my mom and I made our plans for the return drive to Atlanta. We wanted to leave on the earlier side because we had some errands to run before leaving on Thursday for Chicago. We were headed to the premiere of another movie I am in, The Case For Christ, but since we had been so busy prior we needed to use Wednesday to shop for jewelry, get our nails done, etc.

As we were falling asleep in Nashville, my mom checked the weather for the next day. “TORNADO WARNING” flashed across her computer screen- EFFECTIVE WEDNESDAY 10A.M.- 3 P.M.

Great. Looks like we needed to leave even earlier.

That next morning we hopped out of bed at 7 a.m. and jumped in the car. We were going to beat this thing. We began the drive back to Atlanta, and my dad calls us saying the tornado warning started earlier and he was currently in the basement taking cover.

We knew we had to get back, but now we had to be extremely careful.

Thankfully for the first 2 hours we were in Tennessee and North GA, where the tornadoes weren’t present. But once we hit the middle of Georgia, the drive became difficult. Pounding rain, flash floods, fog, oh my! My mom, the trooper that she is, drove the whole way. We made it back to our house in one piece, just a little wet.

After four hours of driving in scary circumstances, to say we were tired and hungry was an understatement. We enjoyed a nice lunch with my dad, and soon after my mom brought over her laptop. “Let’s check the loads for tomorrow,” she said, “I just want to know what’s been going on at the airport due to these tornadoes”.

She opened her laptop. Signed into the portal. Looked at all the flights from Atlanta to Chicago for Wednesday to see what had been going on so far. And every flight had been delayed, some cancelled. The Non-Rev lists were never ending; so many passengers were trying to jump onto earlier flights since theirs was delayed.

It didn’t look good. With cancelled flights, that means hundreds of passengers would have to be rebooked for the next day, Thursday, meaning they would take any empty seat that was available for us to take as a non-rev.

Which means it would be impossible for my mom and I to get to Chicago on Thursday for the premiere.

We hadn’t even been home for more than 45 minutes. Our suitcases were still in the foyer, chilling out waiting to be unpacked. And my mom exclaims, “We have to go to the airport ASAP.”

She was right.

I ran upstairs, unpacked, repacked for Chicago, ran a mile, and took a shower all within an hour.

We hopped in the car and sped towards the airport, in hopes of making it on one of the only On Time flights to Chicago that day.

After sprinting through the airport to make it on time, we arrived at the gate to find out that our flight had actually been delayed. This meant that passengers from other delayed flights would now try to hop on ours because it would still leave sooner than their delayed one. And for some reason, our names weren’t listed on the screen? We were not on the Stand-By list. We went up to the gate agent and she assured us that they had us on their list, but the screens were just glitching.

But that made us nervous. Sometimes we rely too much on technology and not enough on other people.

We wanted a Plan B. There was another delayed flight that was going to end up leaving around the same time as ours, and it had a couple seats on it. It was a tight one though- and the gate was in a whole different terminal than ours.

I was sweaty. I was tired. I was worried. I wanted to jump ship and try for the other, more promising flight. But my mom said, let’s just stick around here for 15 more minutes. We are finally boarding.

They began the boarding process. At least 40 paying passengers from other flights came up to our gate and tried to hop on our flight. I gave my mom a knowing look, communicating that we were probably not going to get on. Everyone had boarded and the gate agents looked frantic. The screen showed 10 seats, but our names were still not there and no other names had appeared. They kept announcing to the gatehouse that all Stand-Bys needed to be present at the gate. But they weren’t boarding any of us. It seemed like a trick.

Time was running out and they still had not cleared any revenue or non-revenue standby. But you know the rules by now- paying stand-by passengers would get a seat before any non-revenue passenger. That’s the first rule in the book.

Except suddenly the gate agent calls our names. We run up, and she gives us boarding passes. She has to manually enter us into the system, which we thought was odd. But we were on. And we got on that plane, somehow.

When we got onboard there were still 6 seats empty. We assumed they would clear more people, obviously, since there were empty seats and many people who wanted to occupy them. But 5 minutes later the boarding door closed. Which was weird, because nobody else had come on board after my mom and I.

Our plane took off in the calm of the storm. The ride to Chicago was definitely not calm though- the turbulence was heavy and I almost threw up from motion sickness. But we landed safely, dodging the tornadoes and making it to Chicago a day in advance.

We didn’t even have a place to stay. My mom had made that decision so fast that we didn’t even have time to book a hotel, so right after we deplaned we took a seat in the gatehouse, logged on to the Midway International Airport free Wi-Fi, and booked a hotel through Hotels.com

We also decided to take a look at the Atlanta to Chicago loads, just to see what ended up happening.

And what we found was astounding. We were the only flight that took off to Chicago that day. All other flights that had been delayed eventually cancelled. We also found out that the computer systems began to crash, and that is why no other Stand-By passengers got on our flight. That’s also how two non-revs got on- because the gate agents literally were not able to enter those 40 other paying passengers onto the Stand-By list.

If we had jumped ship to the other flight like I had wanted, we would not have gotten on the plane. If we had waited until Thursday morning to go to Chicago, we also would not have gotten on the plane. I would have missed my first red carpet and my first premiere.

But we made it. It was truly a miracle. Since we had an extra night in Chicago, my mom and I were able to run all of our pre-premiere errands in The Windy City. I arrived to the red carpet with freshly painted nails, new jewelry gifted to me by Kendra Scott, and my hair blown out by Dry Bar. The premiere was everything I had dreamed of and more, and I am so thankful I was able to be there to be apart of it.

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Sometimes you are meant to be somewhere, and God will get you there no matter what. Sometimes we follow his path but then get scared and want to jump ship at the last minute. But He knows what’s best for us and He will get you where you need to go.

The peace I felt was overwhelming- I knew that God was looking out for me. That He wanted me at that premiere so He orchestrated a miracle for me to get there.

But it also takes teamwork and flexibility. Fast decisions on the fly. I am so thankful that my mom had been intuitive enough to check those flights when we got back from Nashville. She was on top of her game the entire travel experience, and I am so grateful for her.

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There’s camaraderie within the Non-Revenue world. When I meet other Stand-By passengers, there’s this knowing smile that I always crack at them. Because they get it. We understand what we go through. The crazy stories we have to tell. Like I mentioned earlier, there’s even a Facebook group for Non-Revs, and everyone on that page is so willing to help each other out. It truly is a community. And communities stick together.

In All Kinds of Weather, we all stick together.

-The Fly Girl

 

 

On The Fly

One of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned from Stand-By travel is how to be ready for anything at any moment. Spontaneity has become a part of who I am, which I am so thankful for. I never thought I would have the ability, let alone desire to be spontaneous.

But spontaneity and flexibility are requirements for any Stand-By passenger. If you are a stickler for a regimented schedule, then I’m sorry but Non-Revving is not for you.

I think God brought me into a family with traveling benefits for a reason. He knew my purpose on Earth is to act, a profession that requires spontaneity and flexibility. He also knew that my personality is a Type-A makeup, someone who is not really ok with being flexible or spontaneous. So to help guide me in becoming an easy-going person, God gave me the benefit of flying for free all the time. He knew that I would learn so much from travel that would morph my personality and give me experiences I can treasure forever.

My life has turned into one spontaneous adventure. I’m eager and ready for anything that is thrown my way, which is so freeing. I know that at the end of the day, every event and moment in time is orchestrated into a beautiful symphony, and God is the only one with the Play Bill; only he knows what’s coming up next and what this new song will be titled.

I wish everyone looked at life this way. And I wish everyone looked at travel this way. Because things go awry so frequently and the world would be a much better place if we could all just take a breath and be OK with the way things turn out.

But I understand- sometimes it’s hard to keep your cool when you have a plan set in motion but nothing is working out the way you intended.

Last week, I went to visit my brother in Tampa, Florida. It was my first time really ever spending any time in Tampa, and I was so excited to see him! Our plan was to attend a music festival all weekend long, and I was to arrive in Tampa on Saturday morning just in time for the first day of the festival.

But of course, nothing went as planned.

On Friday night, my mom (AKA my travel agent, best friend, and biggest aid in my travel experiences- seriously, get yourself a mom like mine) checked the flights for me and they looked horrendous. There were negative seats available on all of the flights to Atlanta (which I had intended on connecting through), and she told me my best bet would be to try the first flight in the morning from LAX to ATL, then connect from ATL to Tampa.

This was already a blow, because now I would miss the first half of the first day of the festival. I would now land in Tampa around 4 pm, which would mean I would have to meet my brother at the festival. Thankfully he knew I was flying Stand-By (and obviously he understood because he used to have benefits as well), but I was still upset that my plan had been ruined.

I spent the night at my sister’s house in Hermosa Beach, which is close to the airport. My new plan was to wake up at 4:30 am for a 6:30 am flight to ATL. My alarm went BRRRRINGG! And I woke up with texts from my mom saying, “Maybe you should try for the next flight. The first flight is getting crunched.”

Ok, another hour setback, but at that point there wasn’t anything I could do.

Another text from mom: “Oh, by the way, I actually checked the loads from last night and you would have gotten on the flight after all.”

UGHHHH. Ok so you’re telling me I would have been in Tampa on time, before the festival, like I had originally intended all along?

I wish my mom hadn’t texted me that.

I slept an extra hour, texted her frequently, and then realized I needed to get to the airport ASAP. I called an Uber and I was to arrive at the airport right on time for my now 7:30 am flight to ATL. All was right with the world.

Except nothing was right with the world. Because my Uber driver ran 2 stop signs and was pulled over by the cops, causing me to miss my flight.

That’s when I lost it. I called my sister at 6 am, crying, asking her to come pick me up. The remaining flights to ATL that day were all full and it didn’t make sense to even try. I would now go back to Lauren’s house and sleep, and then try for a 1:30 pm flight to Tampa that arrived at 8:40 pm.

I missed the whole first day of the festival.

I was belligerent and defeated, but I made it to Tampa eventually, as I knew deep down I would.

And that’s the funny thing about traveling, and about life in general: you WILL get to your destination at some point. It may not be when you intend it, but don’t fret because it will happen in its time.

We waste so much of our brain cells trying to plan our life out and rewire God’s plan for us. Think about it from a traveling perspective: delays happen. Flights are cancelled. The overhead bin space runs out. And our responses are always angry and controlling, as if we have the right to determine how things will go in our life.

Ha! How we know so little.

It’s probably a blessing that my Uber driver was pulled over by the cops, because who knows? He could have gotten us into a car accident with his unsafe driving.

And maybe I avoided an undesirable situation at the music festival on the first day. Maybe I was never intended to go for some reason I’ll never know.

But I got there eventually, didn’t I? And I still had the best weekend.

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What I’m trying to say is, life is better when you have an easy-going, positive perspective. Yes, bad things will happen, and that really can get you down. But don’t let it! Everything truly happens for a reason. Even your Uber driver getting pulled over by the cops.

Isn’t life so much more exciting when you are excited about life? When you have no clue what’s going to happen tomorrow but you are excited to find out? When you have no idea how you’ll get there, but you know you will eventually?

That’s what life is like when you’re spontaneous, flexible, and positive.

That’s what life is like

On The Fly

-The Fly Girl