My two boys, ages eleven and ten and I, are stuck in Detroit. It’s the dead of winter, the sky’s are grey, the snow is falling, and all flights to Phoenix have been full.

One of the greatest benefits we have in our Flight Attendant Career is the ability to fly for free. The one catch is there has to be an open seat for us to travel.

Flights can be booked full. Flights can be cancelled, with the next flight then becoming full. Weight Restrictions can limit the seats on a flight. Sometimes it can get just plain ugly.

The boys had already missed a day of school. I had already spent more money than I had. The weather outside was even more frightening that it was seven hours earlier.

The last flight to Paradise was leaving in fifteen minutes. The flight was booked full and we were praying for a miracle. I must have been a “Bad Boy”, because we not only didn’t get on that flight, it had cancelled because of weather. All of the paying folk on board were going to be rolled over to the first flight in the morning. So……… here we go again. I am gonna get another ear full tonight.

Just when all seemed lost I must have regained my status as the “Good Boy” that I am. Cleveland had closed their airport and our Companies aircraft was diverted to Detroit.

The flight landed safely. The Flight Crew had timed out and they were going to ferry the flight to Phoenix in the morning.

In Flight Attendant School you will learn all these silly acronyms. Ferry Flight does not mean “Peter Pan” is on board; it means the Crew takes the plane back empty

I asked the Captain if the boys and I could hitch a ride in the morning. He replied, “No problem.”

We sat in First Class; I think those boys ate all the pie on board, we watched a couple of movies, and landed safely into a beautiful 85 degree day with unlimited visibility. I didn’t even need “Dorothy’s Ruby Slippers.”

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