The Airport Fiasco

Today’s the day! How excited are we?! Words can’t express! Ms. Velma and Auntie Terry came over to help us get out of the door. We finally left the house around 10:20am (to board a 12:40pm international flight…yeah…Diane). After Ms. Velma dropped us off at the airport we headed into the EXTREMELY crowded airport terminal. We got in line for Northwest with our bazillion bags and waited.

Having already weighed our luggage outside, we were more than confident that check-in would go smoothly. Boy were we wrong. All of our checked luggage was indeed below the 50lb. limit. The problem was the car seat.
With the remaining monies that we donated, we moseyed on down to Wal-Mart last night to purchase a baby car seat for the babies at the homes. We had received and e-mail from Mrs. Stephens (our trip leader) a few days ago that said that we could check a car seat or stroller free of charge and that they would definitely be appreciated down in Kenya. Northwest Airlines obviously was not aware of this allowance.

Some loud blabbermouth Northwest employee was at the front of the check-in line directing people to self check-in kiosks. When she saw that my mother and I were both at our checked bag allowance limit, she told us that we would have to pay to check the car seat. We told her that we had been told that we could check it in addition to our luggage, free of charge. She said “well unless you can present documentation from Northwest Airlines stating that, I’m going to have to charge you if you want to check that. Car seats are only checked free of charge if you’re traveling with a child.” The attendant behind the counter, Celina, subtly rolled her eyes at her annoying co-worker and under her breath said “put it down on the scale, I’ll take care of it,” as she placed a checked luggage tag bearing my mother’s name on it.

Blabbermouth gave me a phone and said that I could call Northwest customer service and ask. After a couple rings, I got someone, explained our situation and he sympathetically said that there was nothing that he could do. Blabbermouth told us that we could leave the car seat there at check-in provided that someone come and pick it up before the end of the day. She instructed Celina to put the car seat on the ground away from the conveyor belt.

Man was I mad! Letting that be known in an airport will get you arrested and cavity searched these days so I kept my cool…all the while my mother is still checking in (don’t ask me what took her so long). The blabbermouth employee looked my way smugly and awaited the verdict. “We have to pay,” I said. In a fake unapologetic tone, she told me that the charge would be $150 (because it’s an international flight) and that the woman behind the counter would help us sort everything out. $150?! We only paid $50 for the car seat. No way. We began to think of who we could call to pick it up.

While my mother was walking around on the phone somewhere (as usual), I tried to sort out the situation. I approached a very busy Celina and asked her if we could check the car seat under one of our traveling companion’s names. There was a family of 5 (The Ellerbes) who were flying out of Charlotte with us to Kenya. They had checked in earlier and had not hit their checked baggage allowance as a family.
Celina said she could do it, but with the blabbermouth eyeing her every move, it would require us to go find one of the Ellerbes at our gate, bring them back up to check-in to present their photo ID, and go back through security. At this point, there wasn’t enough time to do that. We left the seat at check-in and thought more about who could come pick it up.

Down at the gate I called Mrs. Stephens to tell her the dilemma. She was shocked, as they had never had this be an issue. She told us that we would indeed be traveling with children once we arrived in Kenya, transporting them from home to home. At this point it was noon, but it was worth a try.

I got into the long line at the desk to talk to the attendant. When I finally got up to her, the plane was beginning to board. I explained the situation to her. I told her that we needed to have that car seat for the safe transport of orphaned babies in East Africa. Her hand couldn’t get to the phone quick enough! She called up to check-in and was about to demand that the car seat be checked only to find out that Celina had already slipped it in with the other luggage! What a day! There are good people in the world.