We were in Manila for the weekend to accompany the daughter to take a Japanese Language Proficiency Test at the De La Salle University testing site, which became a trip down memory lane to see our college stomping grounds, where my wife and I met. We didn’t get to go in, as we never felt the need to get alumni cards since graduating, but even just from the outside, so much has changed, but at the same time, so many things stayed the same, even after almost two decades.
It was also one of the few times that we were in the big city just as the famed Pinoy Christmas season is peaking, so we got the full traffic experience, when almost every car trip ended up being stuck in horrendous traffic at some point or another. I don’t think I’d want to come back there during this time of the year. Based on our experience visiting in-laws for the holidays, the congestion problem is not as bad later in the month, after Christmas Day. Probably because all the money has already been spent by then.
However, the highlight of our trip was our weekend adventure was at the airport, where we started the weekend with a delayed flight on Friday and a canceled one on Sunday.
The Friday delay wasn’t so bad, as the flight got moved from 18:55 to 20:10, and we were informed of the change early so we just stayed home and got some work done while waiting. We even got a complimentary dinner from the airline when we got to the pre-departure area, and in the end, the aircraft left Bacolod more or less according to the delayed schedule.
The return trip, however, was a doozy. It started when we got a text message informing us our flight was delayed, from 21:10 to 23:05, which didn’t really worry us since delays are normal. However, as the day progressed and we just dropped off our daughter to her JLPT exam in Taft Avenue, we got another message saying the trip had now changed flight number and was going to be departing at 2:20am the following day. The new flight number, from 2137 to 4137, meant that our December 1 flight had essentially been canceled.
That update started to worry my wife, who had a 6am flight back to Manila on the following day, for a week-long work trip, and she had not fully packed her bags for it. Granted that there was no further delay, she would get in Silay at 3:20 am, pack her stuff, and be back at the airport by 6am. If there was another delay, or our flights got merged, she would not even be able to go back home to get her stuff anymore.
So she called the airline hotline to ask for a solution. It took her 3 tries, because the line kept disconnecting. But finally she was able to hold a connection and convince the agent to talk to a supervisor, as the solution she found on their website said that we could demand the airline to find us a replacement flight. It was around 1pm when the call center supervisor/manager told her she would call back in 2 hours, and we thought that all would be well.
A few moments later, we got another text update telling us the cancelled flight had been moved to 11:05, which was a time that we thought we could deal with so we didn’t worry about it too much anymore.
We picked up our daughter at 3:30pm, and had a late lunch together while waiting for the call back. Since there was no return call, she called the hotline once more to follow up, and that was when we realized that the latest update that said 11:05 meant 11am of December 2, not 11pm (23:00) of December 1!
My wife was the one who really needed to get back home. Our daughter, who had exams that day, had already given up and was making plans to get make-up exams. I was resigned to taking a VL or being absent from work. The call center agent was not helpful, so we decided to go to the airport to give it one last push. Best case, 2 other airlines still had 9pm flights to Bacolod that they could get us on, worst case, wife goes home alone, we stay and get on the cancelled flight. By then it was already 6pm.
Our bags were already packed since morning, so we rushed to the airport, and upon getting there, directly asked for the duty manager. By 7pm they had us booked on an alternative airline’s 9:20pm flight to Bacolod. We were home before 11pm and the wife started packing for her 6am flight back to Manila. Mischief managed.
The lessons we learned from that episode is that you should know your rights and read the fine print, never give up, and that the people at the airport will face the problem more urgently than the guys at the call center, primarily because it is a face to face conversation with the customer who is already there at the airport.
We were fortunate that there wasn’t too much traffic that night when we decided to give it one last desperate shot, that our concern was faced squarely, and the other airlines still had seats available for our party despite the short notice. If we hadn’t asserted our rights and plead our case, we would’ve been left with no choice but to take the cancelled flight that was moved even further to 12:25pm, and the wife would’ve had to deal with the consequences of missing the ‘connecting’ flight.*
