PHOENIX — What would have been a six-hour flight home turned into a more than 50-hour bus ride to Arizona for one Peoria family after Southwest Airlines canceled their flight home.
Heather Lisey and her three kids had gone to visit family in Akron, Ohio a week before Christmas. They were scheduled to return home on December 24, but the airline canceled their flight and rebooked them with a new itinerary four days later.
Then on Wednesday, their flight was once again canceled, and they were put on a Sunday flight. Lisey checked other airlines but said none had four seats available.
“I made a last-minute decision to take a Greyhound bus instead,” Lisey said. “It was going to cost me more than $1,000 to rent a car and drive, but I wanted something safer since it was only one driver and three kids.”
Lisey, her 9-year-old twins, and her 10-year-old daughter hit the road Wednesday around noon.
Although they’ve had to change buses multiple times, Lisey said her kids are making the best of the ride.
“The kids have been so adaptable, they’ve been so good,” she said. “My son didn’t even have his medication this week because we couldn’t get it from our doctor. He has ADHD and he’s been amazing.”
Lisey spoke to 12News from their Amarillo, Texas stop, about 40 hours into their “adventure” as she called it.
While on one of the buses, the family had to sit apart from each other. Lisey said it was thanks to “several guardian angels” that her children were safe and entertained.
She said a nurse in Ohio kept her son busy with movies and gave all of them snacks. Another woman gave them one of her drinks and apple juice, as the vending machine at one of their stops didn’t work.
A couple sitting behind them, who is also heading to Phoenix from Chicago because of Southwest Airline cancelations, she said, has been also lending a hand.
“A lot of people on the bus, their flights were canceled as well,” Lisey said. “They jumped on a Greyhound bus and pray to get home.”
While the trip has been “uncomfortable” and “hard to sleep” for Lisey’s son, the kids have enjoyed views of windmills and cows along the way, they said.
The family expects to end their more than 50-hour bus ride on Friday and arrive at the Phoenix Greyhound station around noon.
“It has been a lot of work, we’re exhausted,” Lisey said. “But we’re not giving up, don’t give up until you find a solution and that’s what we did.”
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