This weekend my mother and I decided to take a spontaneous little vacation and try out our flight benefits for the first time. My cousins were staying down in Florida and suggested that we come stay for the weekend. My mom was considering it since we hadn't had a vacation in a long time, even if it was just for 3 days. So I decided I wanted to impress her... why would we spend 5 hours in a car to drive down there, when we can just get a on 35 min flight and fly down there!? We could be there by the end of the night!
Done deal. My mom was home from work and packed within 15 minutes. Seriously, 15 minutes. We hopped in the car and drove to the airport where I had booked the next flight on standby. Well considering my seniority is well, nothing, at my airline I was super nervous about getting on the flight. But honestly, who flies to Panama City International Airport? Really?! No one does that, so I thought for sure we could get on.
I was secretly a nervous wreck checking the flight loads over and over making sure we would get on. I would be so disappointed if we were to get all excited for nothing. My mom kept asking me questions about the flight and if we were going to get on.. and I kept answering as confidently as I could, in reality I had no idea what I was talking about. It seemed like we sat there for ever waiting for that cleared standby list. There were 9 spots open on the flight... and my mom and I were numbers 8 and 9. We made it by the skins of our teeth!!
So there we were, on our way down to Destin for vacation. How impressive were we? We had made the trip down to Panama City/Destin a million times since I was a kid. It was the typical summer vacation for us. But now this time was different.... Now we weren''t just two girls from Powder Springs headed down to the beach... we were on a plane flying there last minute... just beacuse we could. La Te Dah!!! We had made it big time now. Check us out! Who cares if we were on the last row of an MD-88 with the engines blaring in our ears. By God we were flying to Panama City! By the way, the Panama City Airport is a brand new airport that may win the award for the smallest airport in the United States that is considered "international." Tinest. Airport. Ever.
The trip went great. We rented a car once we got down there and had a nice relaxing 3 days at the beach. But now it was time to go home, which meant booking another standby flight. No big deal, right? Cause remember... who honestly flies in and out of Panama City International Airport? Right? Wrong!! The flights were completely full!! Apparently people love flying to Atlanta from Panama City. There was no way we could get on those flights with my seniority, and it didn't help that they were regional jets leaving the airport. AKA Small ass planes. There were flights starting at 5:30am all the way until that night full of people trying to get into Atlanta. There were 10-15 people on the standby list for almost every flight with maybe 5 seats open and we were way down at the bottom. Impossible. By that time my boyfriend, who also works for the same airline, had joined us at the beach. All he could say was "I told you so!" He had been flying standby basically his entire life and knew that's what was going to happen. Rookie mistake.
So instead of just hopping back on a plane and beating my cousins home with our 35 minute flight home, while they sat miserable in their truck for 5 hours, we were headed back to the aiport to return our rental car, just to pick up another one-way rental to Atlanta. Now we would be sitting in a car that wasn't ours for 5 hours. On the way to the airport to pick up my car. That's about the time my seniority slapped me in the face.
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