Büschelmännerhaus: The Buschelmans Take Space-A

During a Spouse's Orientation at our first assignment 14 years ago, I first learned about Space A travel. For those unfamiliar with this term, it is a way to travel for free for military members on mission flights nearly all over the world. The A stands for "Available". As in, as long as there is space available..one can catch a hop (much like Dana Andrews does in the opening scenes of "The Best Years of our Lives", which I suppose was my initial introduction to Space A travel, I just didn't know it) As the cheapskate that I am, I was immediately intrigued. As we added to our family and my math skills informed me how much more expensive air travel becomes with each child...I became even more so. Here is the thing, though, flying Space Available is tricky the more people attempting to fly together...more on that later. First the set up:

The above is a picture of what has become my most viewed photos on Facebook. At bases across the world, one can view 72 hour flight plans. Only 72 hours. And those can change at a moment's notice. They also show how many potential seats are available. Also can be changed at a moment's notice (or no notice for that matter...they aren't flying for you, they are flying for the mission). Here on the east coast, we are within a few hours of multiple flights to Germany. Potentially. The most regular is the Patriot Express out of Baltimore. This flight is for military members deploying or PCSing to Europe. It is a commercial flight, and a crown jewel for this attempting Space A. All the luxury, none of the price (well...a bit of a price, but $50/round trip<$1000/round trip #math). I had been monitoring this flight for a while and knew it regularly let on several more passengers than the initial post showed. We were going for it.

Sunday, June 2, we loaded up our backpacks (we only took backpacks for our two week trip...and it was great). Not all of our kids were thrilled to be leaving as they had plans for the Monday they thought were going to happen, until I informed them on the previous Friday we'd be trying to fly out. They got over it, sort of.

We checked into the desk at Baltimore. Initially it had said 8 possible seats available, but when we checked in, it said 0. No problem. We headed to a park for a while where I tried to stay calm and Eric tried to pretend he was so that I would stay calm. At 6 PM, we were back in the terminal for roll call. There are now -1 seats available...No Problem! This is the point when they say whether you made the flight or not. At least that is what we thought.

Turns out, however, that the Patriot Express is a little different. Roll Call did occur, and 20 names were called. Ours was not one of them. They then called everyone else in order. We think maybe we have made the flight, but this being the first time...we aren't exactly sure. I have a bit of experience in math, so I wasn't sure how negative 1 seats translated into 80 people making the flight. Fortunately, a gentleman quickly explained that at the time of roll call (6PM) 100 ticketed passengers had not shown up for the 9PM flight. They would release seats as the flight time got closer and closer based on an algorithm. He figured the first 20 passengers were on no problem, but he didn't want to allow some people on, and then have to make us get off. We were approximately in positions 29-34. For the next 90 minutes we stood in line, meeting people, sharing Space A stories, and waiting to see if enough people wouldn't show up.

About 7:30, the nice man came over and let us know he had 4 seats available. For those keeping track, we needed 6. We got out of line and watched as the next 4 people behind us made their way to the check in counter. The Patriot Express was not to be. We calmed a few teary kids and made our way back to long term parking to collect our car (only $1/hour!). We also stopped in at an establishment that served cold beer and hamburgers and discussed our next step which had popped up the night before on Facebook:

Originally, our plan B was to drive immediately to Dover and compete for the 8AM roll call, but our new best friends in the line had let us know those flights had been changed. A quick call confirmed the flight was now scheduled for Tuesday evening. We were cool with that because it meant we would have a day to re-group (That Baltimore experience was stressful), the boys would make their activities, and we'd fly out in time to make scheduled events.

However, upon returning home and after the kids went to bed, we learned the flight had been moved back to Monday evening. We did a quick re-group and headed out to Dover. The kids did a really great job with this change of plans. Better than I expected. I think they were even surprised at how disappointed they were to miss the flight they had sort of been hoping to miss.

Perk of driving to Dover was crossing this massive bridge over the Chesapeake Bay. Terrible picture, but it was massive.

Dover was a much more relaxed experience than Baltimore. For one thing, this was now our second time to attempt this and knew the drills. Second, we knew there were 40 seats on the plane, and since we'd been the first cut in Baltimore, we had a solid chance to make this flight, which we did. Third, with only 40 people flying, everything just goes quicker.

Our names were called in the very first group, our bags were checked, we hung out in the USO for about an hour while all other passengers (several of whom were in Baltimore the previous day) were checked in, we boarded a bus and headed to the C5

There are no frills on this flight, but also it was completely free. AND we didn't have to pay long term parking. Missing out on the Baltimore Flight meant we were saving at least $300.

With only 40 passengers, everything just went so much quicker than any other flight I have taken. Unfortunately, we didn't spread out as much as we could. There were several people who got entire rows to lay out on. Rookie mistake!

The C5 has only a couple of windows, you fly backwards (though you don't really notice this), the emergency landing information seems a little more necessary, there are only purex wipes in the bathroom, and they hand out ear plugs...but, it gets you to Europe for free. Dom would have preferred a plane with movies, but even he admitted he slept more since there was nothing better to do. It was fantastic!

Space A is not for everyone. There were several times I wondered if the stress was worth it. But, I have to say our kids did an amazing job with all of the travel plans being changed at a moments notice (more on that later).