You’ll Never Believe What Happens Almost Daily at Dulles Airport

I’m volunteering a few times a month at Washington Dulles airport at the Traveler’s Aid booth to help folks asking questions and needing assistance. As if I don’t spend enough time in airports, I figured I’d help give back a bit for travelers that may be in the airport for the first time or don’t know where to go.

We had a training event several weeks ago, and one of the points raised, which seemed humorous to me, was the fact that a near daily occurrence was passengers who meant to fly to Dallas (TX) would fly into Dulles (VA) and vice versa. I couldn’t believe it – I mean, this seems like a rather easy thing to figure out and I was shocked that there were travelers that would mess this up. Then again, I try to be careful booking tickets, and for an international traveler who doesn’t speak English, I could see the difficulty.

Anyways…

On a shift I had this week, I colleague of mine was assisting 3 men from Bangladesh, who, after about a 2 hour discussion, realized that their 4th traveling companion who was traveling in separately was now in Dallas, instead of Dulles, where they should have been. They were looking for the man by one of the baggage claims in Dulles and we figured out that the 4th man was at the same baggage claim over a thousand miles away…in Dallas.

I assisted the men over to the Qatar counter and finally the American ticket counter and was able to get the traveling companion a $209 ticket from Dallas to Dulles, which actually wasn’t that bad of a price. They were lucky that they didn’t have to pay more than that, especially which the check-in cut off time fast approaching.

Lesson Learned

Check your tickets, folks. If you’re flying into Dallas, make sure it doesn’t say Dulles. If you’re flying into Dulles, make sure it doesn’t say Dallas. 🙂