This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

With this paragraph, the Washington Post summarized the status of air travel as a major winter storm made its way from West to East:

“More than 5,500 flights were canceled Monday as weather continues to trip up holiday travel while passengers attempt to make their way back home after Christmas.”

This means something “special” to me.  Consider me to be a victim.  Here’s why:

At about 5 p.m. on December 23, we received word from Alaska Airlines that our planned flight from Portland, Oregon, to Palm Springs, California, the next morning had been cancelled. 

Here’s the way Alaska put the bad news for us:

“We sincerely apologize that your upcoming flight has been canceled. Unfortunately, the disruption from the freezing rain in Portland today continues to impact our operations and has forced cancellations and delays.  Due to limited availability, our automated system was unable to find you a new flight departing in the next couple of days or from surrounding airports.”

How’s that for service?  You are on your own, we were told.

So, my resident tour guide, wife Nancy, got busy on-line and booked two seats on the “first available” flight on December 28.

Except one detail remained unresolved.  Could our dog, Callaway, fly with us?  We weren’t sure because airlines have animal limits on flights; on initial flight, Callaway, of course, was with us.  But, on the new flight?

There was essentially no way to find out. 

We could have called Alaska, but the wait time on-line was eight hours.  Yes, eight hours!

If we had placed the call, by the time someone would have answered, we could have driven halfway to Palm Springs.

So, that’s what we did.  We got in our car and made the 15-hour drive south over the next two days.

Foresight predicted it would be the right decision.  Hindsight confirmed it.

The challenge for airlines in a major storm like the one that is still hammering the East Coast is hard to imagine.  Flights have to be cancelled.  Planes, pilots, and other staff are not in the right place.  A group of staff have to be deployed to handle cancellations and re-bookings, including those pour souls on the phone who have to deal with anguished callers who wait for hours.

Ticket-holders like us are left as just that – ticket-holders with nowhere to go.  Except to make do.

For now, since I am Palm Springs as I write this – the temperatures here are in the mid-70s and the sky is clear – I am willing to consider this just to be something unfortunate rather than to claim status as a victim.  I choose not to blame anyone.

Based on my wife’s great work and decision-making, we got out of Oregon and into California in good shape.

I hope something similar can be said for the folks who were dislocated by the 5,000 flight cancellations, including those stranded by Southwest (see below).

And, speaking of my wife, she made another great point:  In a situation like this, you have two choices – get angry, or make the best of a bad situation.  As usual, she is right – and we made the best of a bad situation, looking on our experience as a “great adventure.”

It was!

**********

Two footnotes:

#1:  Southwest Airlines has told those stranded in airports that it will not take any replacement reservations until January.  So, the point is that at least one airline is facing worse challenges than Alaska.

#1:  If you want to have a few belly laughs read Dave Barry’s “2022 Year in Review” in the Washington Post.  He is a great writer and solid humorist.  His take on 2022, with all of its travails – including his hilarious comments on air travel – are worth reading.