On Sunday night before our red-eye, we found out that our flight was canceled. Jonathan found out via text message, one of the super awesome conveniences of modern flying. He called the airline, and they couldn't get us out on Sunday. We were rebooked on the 10 am the next day. This was a huge bummer. It cut our trip short by one whole day. Jonathan was able to get us $150 vouchers for each ticket. Considering we used miles to travel, we ended up ahead in the future travel category.
The next day we headed to the e-ticket line at the airport to check in and check our luggage. We waited about 20 minutes to get to the front of the long line. The system couldn't find our tickets, and we were sent to the back of the full service line (equally as long). Forty minutes later we finally were checked in. A long wait with two wrestling preschoolers was quite unpleasant.
Checked in we breezed through security, and made it to our gate. We were in boarding area 2, so we waited for our area to be called. The boys are old enough now, that they can board a plane with the rest of the flying population. When it was our turn to board I noticed a woman waiting her turn upfront (she was held back by the attendant because she was in seating area 4). She was traveling with six children. Two teenage girls (she'd hired to help her) and four kids under six (two were infants).
I asked her why she hadn't boarded yet? And the attendant interrupted to tell me that it wasn't her turn, but if I'm going to just stand there, she might as well go. Well going forward if I see something like that happening again, I think I will just stand there. She was able to go in front of us.
When we got on the plane she was seated in the last row with us. She had her three year old in the seat across the aisle from her, but her five year old, and both of her teen helpers were in single seats, which meant that she had a five year old traveling alone in the front of the plane. It took awhile to work things out so that they could be seated together. I thought this usually happens before boarding ... and as a single passenger I've been moved to accommodate a family before. I empathized with her, it is difficult enough travel with small children, without having to worry about your five year old sitting alone.
Okay ... so family friendly travel was scoreless.
We had oodles of delays that were not the airlines fault to add insult to injury, and the boys' luggage didn't make it to Traverse City. We did get another $150 voucher, and the luggage was delivered at 8 pm the next day ...
The return home was mostly uneventful. Although, this could just be an issue with Traverse City, but to check in it took over an hour, because all three attendants took the Premier line first. We had already printed our boarding passes, and paid for our checked in luggage (so all we were doing was dropping-off luggage), but they had no way to accommodate us.
Our airline's (in which we've accumulated hundreds of thousands of frequent flier miles) business model is predicated on status, and when you no longer have status, the experience is pretty atrocious. We probably would've had better experiences on family friendly discount airline, but traveling in the height of summer can be expensive. We expect that.
But come on. Anyone traveling with infants should be seated first ... and if you have children under 10 the airline should go out of its way to seat the family together. It is just basic service.
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