Milk, Planes and Airports

I feel like I can write a book about milk and travel now. Although I brag about being a pumping master, I really can't handle it very well when things don't go well. Let me tell you why.

United mis-delivered my checked luggage twice in a month: the first time the bag was on the plane that came in 3 hours later after mine original flight, I had to sit at the airport waiting for it, ruined the first part of my night; second time, the luggage somehow went all the way down to LA and made its way back to SFO around midnight, then they informed me that they will deliver the bag to my house between 1-3am, of course I believed them and waited up, and of course nothing and nobody showed up, not between 1-3am, not between 3-5am and not between 5-7am, when I finally got hold of someone at 7am, they said the delivery crew never picked it up from SFO therefore the bag had been sitting there the whole night, and finally it made its way to my house around 9am. Now, the funny part. Last night I got on the plane and made such a big complaint to the United agent that they sent the general manager of the airport to get on the plane and made sure my luggage IS really on that plane. They also made a very nice gesture of upgraded me to first class for free. Oh, so I thought my night would finally go fine. Of course it didn't: first of all, we sit on the runway for over an hour due to the heavy rain and gust in SFO, then we took off, got to SFO, but could not land due to the weather, circled for another 2 hours in the air until the caption said he could not hold it any longer due to fuel and safety reasons. We landed you know where, SJC airport. Of course they could not let the passenger off because they said this was international flight and had to clear customs in a port of entry which SJC wasn't. This is complete nonsense for anyone with common sense. So, after an hour they worked it out with SJC airport police department, by that time many passengers were so upset or uncomfortable that they insisted to get off at the risk of being arrested. So I made my case of getting off the plane, and talked to the caption about the need to having to pull my bag out of the plane, etc. Surprisingly he understood what I was going through and let my bag be pulled as an exception - he announced to all the other passenger that he can let people off the plane but ALL checked luggage had to go back to SFO.

Oh well, I consider myself very lucky that night, after 4 hours of delay I got home WITH my precious bag of breast milk. And I kept wondering about those passengers who had chosen not to get off the plane at SJC, waited for someone to refuel the plane, waited again for someone to push the plane out, waited for the arrival approval from SFO and waited for their luggage, hoping it would come out ok. I hope no one has to go through this experience again, just reading it is exhausting enough.