The Cost of Sleeping In

Dave's travel woes can't always be blamed on the airline.

Last November, Dave was scheduled to go on an engineering training course in Winnipeg. The title of the course was something like "How to design buildings so they don't fall down." One of our close friends was living in Winnipeg at the time, and I owed her a visit, so I scheduled my quick trip so that our time in the city would overlap.

I flew West Jet for the first time, and arrived in Winnipeg a few minutes ahead of schedule. Thanks to the time change, and a very early departure, I was at my friend's apartment by late morning on Saturday.

Dave's journey was more complicated. There are no flights out of the mine site on the weekend. So even though he wasn't due to arrive in Winnipeg until Sunday afternoon, he had to leave site on Friday and spend the weekend in Yellowknife.

Before we go any further, I should fill you in on what Yellowknife means to the guys who work at the mine. The mine is a dry camp-- no alcohol-- which is probably a good thing when you have 800 workers (mostly men) confined to a camp in the frozen arctic for 14 days at a time. What this means though, is that anytime they fly to company headquarters in Yellowknife, they tend to let loose. It doesn't help that one of Dave's old college buddies lives in the city.

On Friday night, Dave checked into his hotel, dropped off his bags, ran to the nearest bar, and stayed there well into the wee hours of Saturday morning. On Saturday night, he called from his Yellowknife hotel room. He was once again heading out to the clubs.

"DON'T overdo it," I warned. "If you miss your flight tomorrow, I'll be very, very angry." Dave reassured me that he'd had his fun, and planned to be snoozing away in his hotel room even before Cinderella rushed home from the ball. To be honest, I wasn't particularly worried. Dave had been commuting 8,000 kilometres a month, for a year and a half (including several trips to Yellowknife), and had yet to miss a flight.

I should have known his unblemished track record couldn't last.

Sometime Sunday morning, my cell phone rang. I looked at the caller ID, looked at the clock, and knew this couldn't be a good thing. Dave was supposed to be 30 thousand feet above the ground. Cell phones aren't allowed to be used during a flight. Yet, it was his cell number that was flashing across the screen on my phone. I took a deep breath and answered:

"Hi"
"Hi, I have good news and I have bad news, which do you want first?"
"What did you do?"
"Which do you want?"
"Why aren't you on an airplane?"
"Ok, we'll start with the good. I was able to rebook, and should make my connection to Winnipeg."
"Why did you need to rebook?"

He told the rest of the story: "I woke up this morning feeling refreshed and well rested. Then, I started wondering why I felt that way, since I got back to the hotel very late and shouldn't be feeling rested at all. I looked at the clock and it said 8:00 am."

Dave's flight to Winnipeg was scheduled to leave at 7:15 am.

As he said, he was able to rebook, and he did arrive in Winnipeg in time to meet us for supper at a Sushi house. But Air Canada doesn't rebook flights for free. Dave's night on the town in Yellowknife cost him six hundred dollars for a new plane ticket.

He asked me if I thought he would be allowed to charge the ticket to the company-- since they were the ones who had booked him on such an early flight. Partyway through my tirade, he admitted that would be rather unfair.