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Independence Air

Independence Air flew us to Virginia and back. If you haven’t heard of em they are worth checking out! They only do direct flights into major cities…The planes are nice- 50-seat Bombardier CRJ-200s with leather seats. They are clean and roomy. Our flight lasted 5 hours and 15 minutes and although they do not offer meals there were plenty of snacks and refreshments. They rent dvd players with plenty of stuff to watch and sell really nice pillows and blankets. I know what your thinking…no food-no free movies-blankets or pillows…well by not giving these things away but offering them at resonable prices you can take a direct flight cross country for less then $300. I think it’s well worth it. My only problem with them is the closest I can get to Williamsburg, Virginia is Washington DC Dulles Airport , possibly the worst place I have ever been. I’ll go into that later…back to Independence Air. Everyone I encountered (except one) was extremely nice and helpful. Traveling alone with 2 small children you depend on the kindness of strangers and I was definitely taken care of by their staff. It is because of their wonderful staff that I made it safely back and forth.

My bad experience with Dulles airport started with wrong information. I called ahead to find out if my father could get a gate pass and meet me when I got off the plane. Dulles airport is large and I was alone with an almost 2 year old, a 2 month old, a stroller, diaper bag, camera bag, Bub’s backpack, and his carseat-his large heavy awkward carseat. They said yes…come to find out that what they should have said was no. So I was left to make it on my own from the gate to baggage claim. After lots of elevators and a shuttle an hour had passed and I finally found my family. So we thought well it was because I wasn’t with him so he had no way to prove he was meeting me and that on the way home they would give him a gate pass. After all Ev got one in San Jose. Yeah wrong again…apparently every airport has different rules. So this Independence air employee offered to help me get through the security check-sounds nice right-well yeah she walked me over stood me in the employee line(pilots and what not) said I’m going to check something and I’ll be right back-SHE NEVER CAME BACK. It was also at this point that the security check had been shut down due to a breach. The lines were not very long, no one moving and from what I understood no planes leaving either. So I waited a bit for the lady to come back and when it became clear she wasn’t I was told by another lady this time an airport employee doing crowd control that I should go stand out of line against a wall and she would help me through. Hoping again to really be getting help I do as she says and wait. By now the line is ridiculously long and starting to move. I also notice the time 4:45 oh great the time my flight is supposed to start boarding. I start to panic-then cry. Afraid I would miss my flight and be stuck in DC. No hope left I was a approached by another airport employee-this time an older african man. I tried to explain what was wrong but ended up just handing over my ticket. He led me and the boys into the handicap line and got us through up to sercurity where he handed us off to a very nice man doing the sercurity check who not only helped us through the check but helped get us to the gate just as they were broadcasting a final boarding call for us…the last three people to board the plane. The wonderful Independence Air people helped us get settled on the plane never once acting put out or annoyed that they would now be off schedule. I wish I had gotten the horrible woman’s name who left us high and dry so I could call and THANK her. I wish also that I had gotten both of the gentleman’s names who did finally really help us. Not that they would ever read this but I send a big THANK YOU to them any way.

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