TRAVEL TALES

Yes, it Happened to Us

Seven stages of missing our first-ever flight

When you think you’re immune against missing a flight and are overly confident sitting for 2 hours at the gate next to the one your flight will be taking off from then I guess you deserve it. The experience of missing a flight.

If you’ve traveled as much as I have it might even be a surprise to hear I have never missed a flight before. Being German, for sure, I’m always overly prepared and super early at the airport.

I’ve been that early at the wrong airport in Bangkok before that I had enough time to catch a taxi, drive 1,5 hours through Bangkok’s rush hour traffic and still make my original flight from the right airport.

On another occasion, I was flying out of Germany when the train I was on just announced it wouldn’t be stopping at Frankfurt Airport and driving straight through to the city. I had to get off, take a different train and drive back to the airport. The lady at the check-in counter didn’t want to proceed me saying I was too late until 5 people in the line behind me said they were going on the same flight.

After living in Ghana for 5 months I had lost all my German punctuality and stress. The morning I was flying out I still had to go to the hospital, get a medical certificate, then drop a package off at some post office and make it to the airport in time. All before noon. Sounds for you doable, but not in a city like Accra.

I made it.

But in all these situations and all the other times, I might have not been surprised to miss a flight. But not today. And that’s why it happened. I was way too relaxed, way too confident and simply wasn’t paying attention.

Both of us. Let’s not forget about this. I was flying together with my husband. Both of us have flown a fair amount of times across the globe before.

So let’s analyze what happened today and maybe learn from our mistake.

The stages of catching or missing a flight

It’s funny now, about 5 hours after we realized we missed the flight. But I’m telling you, I didn’t find this funny at all. But we kind of deserved it.

Let’s look at the stages we went through this morning.

1. Being the overly confident frequent traveler
2. Ignoring all warning signs
3. Being in denial about having missed the flight
4. Embarrassment
5. Working on Plan B
6. Trying to see the positive
7. Laughing about what happened

1. Being the overly confident frequent traveler

Yes, this wasn’t our first flight ever and also not our first domestic flight. We both have been on countless long-haul and short-distance flights before. Together and alone.

We’ve made our fair share of experiences with delayed, canceled, and postponed flights. We have managed to be at the right gate after a change was announced via the intercom.

We knew we wouldn’t need to be very early in Bangkok since we only flew with a carry-on and were boarding for a domestic flight. We still planned to arrive early and did arrive in time.

We had done online check-in and only went to the check-in counter to find out at which gate we were boarding which wasn’t filled out on our online boarding pass. The lady asked for our vaccination certificates and printed out the boarding passes. While handing them out to us she said “go to B2".

So off we go, through several more checkpoints until we finally sit down at gate B2. 1,5 hours before take-off. Way too early but hey, now we’re here.

2. Ignoring all warning signs

The waiting area was rather empty but slowly filled up as time was passing. Occupied with our phones to make time pass faster we didn’t bother thinking about our boarding passes. Until now, not once did we look at them.

I mention the fact that there’s not even a plane in front of us while we should be starting to board the plane already according to our schedule. But this doesn’t distress us. We’ve experienced multiple similar scenarios waiting for delayed flights.

Eventually, a plane arrives and I mention the fact it’s not an Air Asia flight. My husband is shrugging his shoulders but doesn’t seem to be too bothered. I put the attention back onto my tablet.

Eventually they start boarding of course with some announcements which nobody understands. We wait a bit longer until we get up and line up in the queue.

3. Being in denial about having missed the flight

Now, this is the first time we look at the boarding pass. My husband says out that our gate is B3, but we are standing in line to board a flight in B2.

I get a quick heat rush but still don’t register what happened. We are almost in front and decide to wait for the guy to tell us this is not our flight. We look at the time. It’s 10:20 am and our flight had a scheduled take-off at 10 am.

Now I am starting to panic in my mind while running to Gate B3 which is next to the one we were sitting in for hours, my husband starts to enjoy the adventure of missing his first flight. He’s laughing.

4. Embarrassment

Arriving at the counter at gate 3, embarrassment finally hits me when I face reality as the lady tells me our flight has departed.

I cannot believe we’ve been so stupid. We’ve been for 1,5h at the wrong gate, right next to the one where our flight was boarding. We didn’t look once onto our boarding passes to confirm we were at the right gate. We also never read the sign indicating the destination.

I’m not sure if it’s stupidity, ignorance, or over-confidence but it made me incredibly embarrassed. How could something like that even happen?

Meanwhile, my husband is just laughing. At me, at the situation, at how we weren’t paying attention.

I wasn’t that far yet. To laugh at the situation. Now we were back-tracking through the airport to get to the Air Asia counter with the hopes of getting another flight.

5. Working on Plan B

Since I was the one who had booked the flights, I knew there wasn’t another flight until the next morning. Not with this airline. But there was another flight. In the afternoon. At 3 pm. Meaning 5 hours from now.

And as the lady told us we just lost our tickets and she can’t do anything else for us we walked on to the other airline offices trying to get onto this afternoon flight.

What else should we do?

6. Trying to see the positive

While my husband is down to earth and more a realist than me, he knew from the moment it happened it wouldn’t help if he’d be upset, angry, or embarrassed about the situation. It simply wouldn’t change it.

But I’m different. I’m the emotional type of person. I take everything in life personally. I make things my mission and problem which have nothing to do with me.

I’m a perfectionist. I hate failures and surely can’t see myself missing a flight.

But here we go, what did my husband say “what does it help if you are upset now? I’m not going to ruin my holiday because of a small mishap.”

Yes, I got upset about him calling this a small mishap.

The African versus the German. Once again. The story of our relationship. Or let’s say the story of our life.

We’re walking through the airport. He’s behind me laughing.

While he’s trying to uplift my mood he mentions we can tick this off our list. I’m like really? Missing a flight once in your life is a thing to have on someone’s bucket list? It was surely not on mine.

But he’s not giving up.

“Let’s look at it this way, be glad this was only a domestic flight. Imagine we would have missed one of our long-distance flights. Learn from it and let’s not let this happen again.”

Slowly but surely I have to give in. He’s right. We’ve only lost 5 hours of our holiday at the destination and about 70€ due to the “mishap”. That’s it. I’ve surely wasted more money in my life on more stupid things and wasted more hours playing on my phone or curing out a hangover in bed.

It was a rather cheap lesson learned.

7. Laughing about what happened

Not sure if I’ll ever get to this stage but I’m not there yet. While I did agree with him that it is not worth being any longer upset or angry, I can’t laugh about the situation. Just not yet.

Final words

I’m now on day two of our vacation and you know what? I don’t think back at this mishap anymore. I’m enjoying every moment of our holiday and don’t worry about yesterday.

I’m enjoying what is now. The present. I don’t care about yesterday and have no idea yet what we’re going to do tomorrow. I think that is amazing.

Living in the moment.

Photo credit by the author.