This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Morgane Richardson. It has been edited for length and clarity
My family was already in the air flying from Puerto Rico to Orlando, en route back to our home in Albany, New York, when we found out about the ground stop. I had a work conference there, so I decided to bring my wife and three kids, twin 3-year-olds and an 8-year-old, with me.
Luckily, we were able to land, but the pilot told us all connections had been canceled. Now it’s going to take us three additional days to get home, and it’s going to cost us thousands of dollars.
We were at the Orlando airport until 3 a.m.
When we landed in Orlando at 7 p.m., everything was chaotic, with long lines of people trying to get help. My wife and I got our kids settled at one of the gates, and then I waited in line for about an hour. The customer service agent told me our connecting flight would depart at 1 a.m., so we decided to stay at the airport.
Our kids were definitely troopers, but were exhausted. We were able to get one of the little ones to fall asleep in their stroller, but the other two didn’t fall asleep until about 10 p.m., way past their bedtime. The whole time we were there, the airline didn’t offer us anything, not even a snack or a blanket. The kids were definitely uncomfortable on the floor and cold.
One of our kids goes to bed every night with a warm cup of milk, but all of the vendors were closed, so she couldn’t have it, which led to some big tears. We were able to get everyone dinner before things closed, though.
The first available flight isn’t until Sunday night
After waiting nearly six hours at the airport, we found out at close to 1 a.m. that our flight had been canceled. By that point, we were having trouble finding a hotel with availability, and we didn’t have our bags with us.
With only one change of clothes in our carry-on, we really needed our bags. They were effectively lost in a sea of luggage at the airport. A Southwest agent yelled at me when I asked if we could get our bags, and just shrugged when I asked what families who need a change of clothes, diapers, or formula should do. Thank goodness a bag handler took pity on us and spent an hour finding our bags.
We finally found a hotel with availability that would let us check in at 4 a.m. We’re currently scheduled for a flight at 9 p.m. on Sunday night with a seven-hour layover in Baltimore. That means we won’t get home until close to midnight on Monday, almost three full days later than we originally planned.
Driving wasn’t really an option for us. There weren’t any rental cars left by the time we found out our flight was canceled, and it would have been an 18-hour drive to get home. Our kids wouldn’t have been able to handle that, so figuring out another flight was really the only choice.
The financial impact will be thousands of dollars
Our hotel room is $300 a night, and we’ll need to pay for food for three extra days, too. We will probably let our kids rest and swim in the hotel pool, but if we decide to do any activities with them, those will cost money as well.
On top of that, my wife is an acupuncturist and missed a few days of work because of the ground stop. The clinic she works in already slows down over the holidays, so her not being able to work is really going to affect us financially, too.
Hopefully we’ll be able to get on an earlier flight. We keep calling Southwest in hopes there’s something else we can get on, but with so many passengers in a similar situation to ours, it’s really unclear what might happen.
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