Flying is just not my thing. I hate it. It's stressful and I feel like I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get to the right gate in the right terminal. The other day was no exception. After a wonderful week catching up with our family (we hadn't seen them in almost 4 years) we had a very difficult time making it to Alaska.
The first flight for us was from Kansas to Chicago. We got to the airport in Kansas 4 hours early! We had to turn our rental car in and get our furbaby and luggage checked into the airline. Once we paid for Ditto's flight we double checked with the lady and asked where we would be picking up our cat at in Chicago since we were switching airlines. She reassured us that he would be at baggage claim and that once we got him we would just have to take him to the new airline to check him back in and pay for him.
Once arriving in Chicago we quickly made our way over to baggage claim where we spent a good 20 minutes looking for all of our bags and Ditto. We didn't find any of our items so we looked for someone to help us. This person informed us that the bags, along with our cat, had been transferred over to the next airline. So the next step was to go jump on the tram and go two terminals over. At that terminal we went to the airlines desk to make sure that our baby Ditto had been transferred and to pay for the rest of his journey. But alas, the second airline did not have our cat! In this situation I was very grateful for my husband. He was the one to stay calm. I on the other hand just completely lost it the moment they said they didn't know where he was. With 30 minutes before our next flight we went back to the terminal that we flew in to and started the search for our furbaby. It turns out the lady who checked us in, in Kansas put him down as cargo instead of checked luggage. A bunch of calls were made and Ditto was found in the warehouse. After he was brought to my husband we went back to the tram to try and make our next flight. Since the flight was already boarding we didn't make it in time, but the airline that we were flying with next was very kind and understanding about the situation. They found new flights for us to get us to our final destination and they listed Ditto as a priority pet so we were given a sticker once we boarded saying that he had been loaded onto the plane.
The next two flights went pretty smoothly. We landed in Seattle with 25 minutes to get to our connecting flight and we made it with 5 minutes to spare before they started boarding. There was no luggage for us to deal with because it had been sent on the flights that we missed while searching for Ditto. We arrived to our final destination just after 2am and made our way to the hotel, where we will stay until we are offered a house.
