Never Fly United

Hello World. I'd like you all to take a minute right now and stop what you're doing, but only if what you're doing is trying to book a flight with United Airlines, anything else is fine.

Ok, now that we have that out of the way I can write a bit about the start of our trip. We were scheduled to fly from Saskatoon this morning at 7:00, then to Chicago, then Newark, and finally Munich. That being said, here is a picture of Mel in the Toronto airport:

Now, you might be wondering, "But Ryan, Toronto wasn't one of the locations you said you were flying through. Why are you there?!"

The answer to that question is the title of this entry: Never fly United. You see, the flight we were supposed to take from Saskatoon to Chicago was canceled. We weren't told why, but I can only imagine they weren't making their quota of angry passengers this month so they just pulled one flight for good measure. More likely was that their plane was grounded since their hub is in one of the worst places in North America for a major airport. Whatever the reason, they didn't bother telling people about this in advance, instead they let everyone find out at the airport.

The best the 3 slack jawed individuals behind the ticket counter could do was get us to Munich a full day later, meaning we'd likely miss out on our chance at Oktoberfest, or at best would only get a couple hours there.

Luckily, the designated competent employee showed up, and after suggesting we were willing to drive to Regina or Edmonton she managed to get us on a flight from Regina to Munich via Toronto, departing in less time than it should legally take to drive to Regina. We took our chances. As a bonus, it was an Air Canada flight who for some reason decided we had earned a free meal on board the flight. Maybe we set the day's best time down highway 11, maybe they just thought we looked hungry.

Anyways, here we are, sitting with a beer and a netbook in Pearson International. It has been an interesting start to the trip so far, but odds are looking good that we'll make Oktoberfest.

Big thanks to Rachelle and Don for driving us to and FROM the Saskatoon airport and to Moira for getting my truck out of long term parking in Regina!

Talk to you soon, and remember, never fly United.

-RF