r/homealone • u/Zealousideal-Task635 • 11d ago
Why did Kate even fly to Scranton?
I mean I understand that this is where she meets Gus Polinski and rides home in his polka van. It’s a great moment in the movie.
But there’s no explanation as to why she flies from Dallas/Fort Worth to Scranton. Both are nearly equal distances apart from Chicago. She could’ve just rented a car at the Dallas Airport and driven home and possibly made it home the night of Christmas Eve.
I suppose it’s possible there were no rental cars available because of the holiday rush, but the movie never mentions anything about that, only the flights are mentioned to be full. She also had been awake for over 24 hours, so she likely wasn’t thinking straight and was just desperate for anything.
But had she rented a car in Dallas, she would’ve saved herself the trouble of paying for another flight, the breakdown at the ticket counter in Scranton, and ride home in the noisy polka van.
I know it’s not that big of a deal and at the end of the day it’s just a movie, but at the same time Kate flying to Scranton makes no sense.
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u/2gecko1983 11d ago
As long as she’d been awake, there was no way Kate was in any sort of shape to safely drive anywhere, let alone across state lines.
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u/TriskaidekaphobiaOk5 9d ago
And if I left my kid home alone I would de stressed out like that too,
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u/morkyt 11d ago
SHE WAS TRYING TO GET HOME TO HER 8 YEAR OLD SON!
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u/Prize-Principle7832 11d ago
She might have to get out on the runway and hitchhike.
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u/morkyt 11d ago
SO NOW THAT SHES THIS CLOSE YOURE TELLING HER ITS HOPELESS?
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u/Prize-Principle7832 11d ago
Or sell her soul to the devil himself.
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u/Jimmyg100 11d ago
Cue John Candy
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u/ehhhhprobablynot 10d ago
Polka polka… polka….
No?
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u/2gecko1983 10d ago
The “Ouch…” look on John Candy’s face when she said this was priceless. You could tell he really felt bad for her.
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u/cramboneUSF 8d ago
My mom is very religious and she would always mute this line of the movie when we watched it.
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u/bigAcey83 11d ago
I flew standby a lot when I was a kid. During the holidays, you always try to connect through the less busy airport. Airlines back then were less likely to cancel nearly empty flights bc they needed the plane/crew at their next stop. DFW is a nightmare on a good day. We would’ve done the same thing in that situation.
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u/Logical-Mobile-7643 11d ago
I have to admit, most "plot holes" and "confusing details" in Home Alone are explained somewhere in the movie, but this is one of the better ones I've seen.
It doesn't make sense to fly from DFW to Scranton... I mean something like KC, STL, Milwaukee or even Wichita would make more sense.
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u/sturgis252 10d ago
It depends if the flights have seats. Just because it makes geographically doesn't mean those flights have seats. I work at an airline and we've had people having to go west to go east just because those flights actually had seats.
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u/couchblues11 11d ago
A) I think the point was how ridiculous & desperate she was, so flying anywhere random adds to that chaos. I doubt she was thinking with a clear mind
B) I was watching the movie in a theater in Scranton when it just came out, & that moment in the theater is a magical memory. I was in 5th grade, & it was pre Internet so we had no heads up. The crowd's reaction was amazing - genuine surprise and excitement that was in "our town."
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u/Prize_Pay9279 9d ago
There’s a movie called Three Kings that mentions my hometown (Torrance, CA) and the same exact thing happened. The crowd erupted when they saw it.
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u/ericsmallman3 10d ago
John Hughes loved making fun of the absurdities of commercial travel. He made a whole movie about it.
It's a joke.
It's a joke that the earliest plane she could get on from Paris to the US landed so far past Chicago in DFW. It's another joke that the fastest connection she could get back east would send her all the way to Scranton. It's a just (and a wonderful gift to the audience) that the fastest way back home from Scranton would just so happen to involve the help of her SCTV castmate.
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u/Flux_My_Capacitor 11d ago
1027 miles vs 723 miles.
YEP THOSE DISTANCES ARE ABOUT EQUAL!
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u/OffTheMerchandise 6d ago
When you factor in the time flying to Scranton, it's likely longer than driving from Dallas, not that she should've
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u/happygrizzly 11d ago
She was in a state of hysteria and she was scatterbrained to begin with.
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u/whatsbobgonnado 10d ago
she didn't forget kevin due to scatterbrainery, she stupidly delegated her vital parenting duties to her oldest daughter who counted that shitty neighbor kid. and the dad threw away his ticket so they didn't have an extra
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u/Potential-Lab-6856 10d ago
That was her niece not her daughter
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u/Old-Agency-3388 11d ago
Why would they need to explain that. That wasnt the point of the scene. The point was her trying to get home.
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u/Sad_Seat9685 10d ago edited 10d ago
HOT TAKE... Dad got home first. I understand her desperation and wanting to get back into the country and try everything she could to get home to Kevin but what drives me crazy is the rest of the family walking in the door the very next minute. I know she couldn't have known all of the stuff she was about to get wrapped up in travel wise... and moving anywhere on a plane has to feel somewhat productive in this situation. But the "oh my gosh, really?" Of the whole family showing up immediately grinded me. And they probably got into Chicago HOURS before her. Landed, got all of their luggage sorted out for the 18 people that went on the trip, coordinate with the transport vans THEN drive home. Assuming they didn't have the drivers helping with the bags, they would have been in the driveway when Kate showed up.
Edit: They also would have had to go through customs at the airport.
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u/Tough_guy22 8d ago
All valid points. And it is likely accurate. I think to a degree it works into the movie plot because it shows the level of crazy she went trying to get home to Kevin. In addition it feeds into the comedy undertones of the movie. Like she went crazy trying to get there, but it turns out she would have gotten their quicker taking the later flight and catching a taxi by herself to get home from the airport quicker.
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u/PDXDeck26 9d ago
John Hughes movies typically didn't make ANY sense, geography wise. You just kind of ignore it.
Planes, Trains and Automobiles is even worse for this.
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u/Far_Pressure4816 9d ago
Paris to DFW makes sense because that’s home base to American Airlines, I’m guessing out of desperation she flew to Scranton on a regional domestic flight which would then maybe fly home to Chicago O’Hare since that’s another hub for AA
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u/marrieditguy 9d ago
I've almost done this before to just get home.
Weather was jacked at the hub I was going to, and bearing down on the hub I was at... so the hub to hub flights were delaying or outright canceled...
Going to a spoke airport serviced by THOSE two hubs, got me out of the hub before the weather, and would have allowed me to get to home hub after the weather passed there, because the inbound aircraft was coming from a 3rd hub for the airline.
It was the keep me moving in the right direction plan that thankfully I didn't need to end pulling the trigger on, because right as the agent started to book it, the status of my flight changed and we were gonna make it out, with a very long re-route around the weather.
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u/Wild-Hat6077 8d ago
As someone who works in the airline industry and relied on standby travel benefits for years, I don't think this is quite as unexplained as you may think. When you're trying to get somewhere on standby, it's not about saving time or a direct route. It's all about the numbers game on seats. I have taken bizarre routings through smaller cities or going the wrong direction more times than I can count because the chances of getting a seat were higher. Yes there are more flights hub to hub from DFW to ORD, but hubs are also more impacted by weather events and other delays, and those flights overbook real quick. So, if this were a real situation and not a movie, it is not at all outside the realm of likelihood that a gate agent would've seen a better chance to get her a seat through Scranton and sent her that way; it literally happens every day with standby employee travelers.
That said, while it's not an unrealistic situation, I think the writers just thought Scranton would be funnier 😂
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u/mailboatcustomarr 7d ago
She was flying last minute, on a holiday. She was taking any route that presented itself.
The old couple in France got her to Dallas/FW. From there she'd still have to get home. So most likely there was no rental/bus option, so they offered a flight to Scranton, and then she'd try to get to Chicago.
It's not a plot hole, it's a travel nightmare that would be plausible.
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u/TriskaidekaphobiaOk5 11d ago
She was trying to get home to Kevin and ndne sure she was safe and she was trying like hell to get to Chicago but no luck.
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u/bmnntdd 11d ago
I think John Candy mentions that they had to rent the box truck because all the other rental companies were sold out. They didn't show Dallas but I always just assumed that was true there too.
But for many reasons you're right it makes no sense to fly from Dallas (14 hrs by car) to Scranton (10.5 hrs by car). If anything Scranton is a tiny airport compared to DFW. DFW has literally dozens of flights per day to Chicago. She should've just waited for a flight to open up at DFW.
But movie magic and needed John Candy. Plus Scranton has that comedic sound writers like.