Traveling always involves elements of unpredictability, but this unpredictability goes to a whole new level when you travel with your kids. This has happened to us recently, but you may not be thinking about it.
Let me tell you about our flight from Toronto to Zurich earlier this month.
The route we took was a flight from Toronto to Montreal Airways. We were on the way for about 3 hours, when we boarded Swiss Airlines flight from Montreal to Zurich. It was a business class flight, so we looked forward to spending a lot of lounges in the airport lounge and then relaxing in a lying seat across the pond.
My first clue is that something happened when I tried to board the plane online. An error occurred, but none of the descriptive errors, such as “It’s not the time to sign in.” Instead, the error message is a random gibberish string read “system.4006.error.title.description”.
Um. That’s not very good.
I immediately called Air Canada’s helpline and asked them what this error meant. They don’t know. Can a customer service representative check us out? No, it must be done at the airport. And since they don’t know what the problem is, their only advice is to get to the airport early and give us more time to solve the problem, whatever it is.
So we had a lot of time to get to the airport and then went to the counter. The lady checked us to start typing our information, but then something popped up on her screen, causing her to pause.
Again: Yes.
The tickets booked by Air Canada for Montreal are good and they can check me out. However, the next ticket for Zurich needs to be printed out on the Swiss counter in Montreal. Now, we both have done a lot of codeshare flights before, which means that on different airlines, we are always able to get all the tickets at the original airport, so this is definitely not normal.
We really had no choice though, so we got off and headed to the lounge.
“I have a bad feeling about it,” Firecracker said ominously.
“When we’re going to board the plane, please don’t say it.”
The flight to Montreal was smooth and when we landed we were around our waists and headed to the Swiss Airlines counter. We will find out what hell is meant by “system.4006.Error.title.Description”.
We arrived at the ticket counter and asked for check-in. Again, the agent digs a bite on the computer, just something pops up on his screen makes him stop.
“Well…you need to go to the customer service counter. My colleagues will help you.”
g
At Swiss Airlines’ customer service counter, this colleague is a man, I call it a grumpy bastard. You will find out why in one minute.
The grumpy asshole studied the ticket for a few minutes and concluded, “Your kid didn’t have a reservation.”
…What? ! ?
I had original bookings for all three of us there. I provided tickets for all three of us who we printed in Toronto. Oh, yes, all three of us are flying here!
The irritable bastard was unmoved. “You need to fix this.”
“Me?!? I don’t even know what the problem is! How should I solve this problem?”
“You need to talk to Air Canada and have them fix it at their end.”
“But…but…”
“You have to hurry up. Your flight will leave soon.”
I looked at the watch. Until our flight left for 2 hours. Mother. Fool.
Air Canada Desk was spread throughout the entire length of the airport on the other side of the departure hall, so we pushed everything over there and desperately tried to explain our situation to the customer service representative, who initially told us to call Air Canada’s help line. I know Air Canada’s helpline. I often spend over an hour online with Air Canada help. If we have to use Air Canada’s helpline, we missed the flight.
At this time, the firecracker decided to pull out the “mom card”.
She began to complain: “Please help. Our kid is hungry, he hasn’t changed, we will be trapped. I don’t know what to do…”
Thank God for firecrackers here for taking the initiative, because I never even thought about doing this. Later, she told me that she deliberately found another woman who seemed to be suitable for her, who could be moms, and she managed to get some fake tears. She wants to thank the college…
Anyway, this works very well. Not only did they stop offering us a campaign, but they also opened up a new check-in counter for us. But when she checked in to our reservation, she was confused. All three of us were on Air Canada tickets. She even prepared the tickets. We can check with Swiss Airlines to see if they can see these ticket numbers on their end?
By the way, the Little Match Stick acted like a champion throughout the process. He was playing with his toys, sitting in a stroller, giggling happily as his parents melted. We are really lucky that we have such a happy kid because if he were a screaming MC-Screamer-Pants babe, we might still be in Montreal now.
Anyway, when I returned to the Swiss Air counter, we decided to leave the firecrackers and LMS all over the airport and instead decided to leave the firecrackers and LMS with Air Canada. So I left and sprinted at full speed throughout the airport. I looked at the watch. 1:30 left.
Back at the Swiss counter, the grumpy asshole is waiting. Fortunately, I don’t seem to be in the state I’m in, so I’m the only one in line. I explained the situation, gave Air Canada ticket numbers and asked him to look them up on his own system. After a few o’clock in the faucet, he shook his head. Still nothing.
At this point, I thought we were screwed up. Every airline blames another problem, no one is responsible for solving it.
“You need to have Air Canada fix this,” the grumpy asshole reminded me rudely.
“They told me that things were good, you told me that you couldn’t see the tickets. I don’t know what to do. Please help.”
At this point, I have to give credit with the amount I deserve. While Air Canada people are much better, they have no idea how to solve this problem. On the other hand, the grumpy asshole actually tries to come up with a solution, and I’m very grateful. He talked to another colleague for a few minutes and then came back to me, “Can you ask Air Canada to reissue tickets from scratch? Maybe it can be resolved.”
I can do it.
So I rushed past the airport again.
In hindsight, I saw the other people muttering themselves under the breath and the people muttering themselves in the sworn words, but I had no choice. I’m on the clock.
Back to Air Canada, I told Rep the advice of the grumpy fool. She nodded, tapped on the computer, and… something new popped up on the screen. damn it.
“I can’t reissue tickets,” she said.
“why not?”
“Two tickets have been signed in. After signing in, I can’t reissue these tickets.”
“What…but…can we cancel the check of tickets after checking in?”
“Yes, but Swiss Airlines has to do that.”
I’m going again. This is mine fourth Sprint across airports. Less than an hour left.
“Okay, Air Canada says they can reissued tickets, but you have to cancel the check of our tickets.”
The grumpy bastard thought for a second, then nodded. “Yes, we can do it.”
Click Click Click Click.
“complete.”
Sprint #5.
At this point, I’m Soaked In sweat, irritated like an asthma smoker, to have a heart attack, but I have to keep going.
Back at Air Canada, I told them that the tickets had not been checked and tried to reissue again. Tap Tap Tap Tap, tickets are reissued. Now see if Swiss Airlines can see them.
When I almost met a grumpy bastard, I turned around for the 6th sprint. At this point, I should probably change his name to a grumpy but helpful asshole because he pity me and crossed Air Canada’s desk to help me solve this problem. He called his colleagues and asked them to find the tickets and confirmed that the reissuance of tickets had solved the problem and now they can see all of us on the booking. Now we can board the plane in 45 minutes.
So now, we brought everything back to the Swiss air counter at a normal, non-breaking speed and printed the tickets.
I thank the newly named grumpy but helpful asshole because he is actually the one who gets us out of the way. We took the tickets and headed to safety, …that’s when we noticed that they misspelled their son’s name on the tickets.
At this point, I just need to laugh. Of course, there are other issues to go wrong. Of course, why not.
So we turned around and returned to the Swiss Airlines counter and showed them the misspelled ticket. They checked and concluded that Air Canada made a typo, but that should be OK, because the airport rules state that a letter is OK, but the two letters mistakenly believe it is wrong and we need to reissue the invoice again. Only one letter was wrong, so they assured us.
I was a little nervous about their promise, but we passed by safety and found our gates and boarded our flight. Then I continued to shine on the business class champagne on our remaining planes.
in conclusion
While we want to think we are in control, travel days like this do wonders that sometimes random computer glitches can mess up the most well-organized plans. The silver lining of this experience is not as stressful as the situation we face in Vietnam, where we can hardly board our flights leaving the country, but we cannot stay in Vietnam as our visas are about to expire on the day.
This is a great reminder to keep the itinerary as simple as possible when you travel, especially with young children. Our plan is to spend a week in Zurich to recover from jet lag and continue to travel to Spain because a) we need all the time to deal with jet lag and b) b) b) the worst case scenario is that we would have been forced to spend some time in Montreal and how we would last fly to Zurich and rejoin our trip. Not ideal, especially when dragging babies, but at least there is no option for Vietnamese immigration lockdown, what is this.
Travel safely for everyone!
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