I was part of a university trip from Ontario to Tanzania, Africa. Seven students, myself included, were flying from Toronto to Amsterdam. The rest of the group, the professors included, were flying from Ottawa to Amsterdam. We would all meet up on our connecting flight and fly into Tanzania together.
Our little group from Toronto got to Amsterdam first and had 3 hours to wait for the rest of the group from Ottawa. Three hours ticked by and no one showed up at the gate. We began getting a bit nervous, not knowing if we should continue on or wait in Amsterdam for them. We asked airline employees but none of them knew anything about any delay.
As they were calling to board for our flight to Tanzania we decided as a group to continue on. We knew someone was supposed to meet us in Africa and we hoped that maybe our professors had been able to get ahold of them on that end.
Luckily they had been able to reach our guides in Tanzania. Turns out the rest of the group had missed the flight in Amsterdam by an hour and had to stay in the airport for the night. We all joined up finally the next night.
The professors were baffled as to why we weren’t informed that they were going to miss the flight. Apparently they had sent word ahead with the airline with all of our names and our assigned seat numbers so that the message could be passed on to us. Not one of us got the message.
Skip forward to the end of the trip. The little group of us are flying back from Amsterdam to Toronto when a confused flight attendant approached me and asked if I was [my name]. Confused and slightly worried I said, “Yes.”
“Oh,” she replied, “I have a message for you. The rest of the group is delayed and won’t make the connecting flight to Tanzania. You’re all supposed to go on ahead and someone will meet you at the Tanzanian airport. Does that make sense?” I couldn’t help but laugh. I got the message, but just 3 weeks too late!
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I am the first one!