Esther & Adiel’s Blog

27 November 2007

The Long Journey Home

Posted by Esther under: Oysh; travel .

For the second year in a row, we flew down to Adiel’s Mom for Thanksgiving. It was so wonderful to see her, her husband Jim and Adiel’s sibs, Amanda and Alan. We spent Shabbos with the Wargas like we did last year and the other days shmoozing, eating, watching TV and shopping. Mom was so gracious and bought us loads of Kosher food so we had plenty to eat and drink during our stay. Thanks Mom!

The time flew by too quickly and it was time to say good-bye to dear Mom. So we woke up early Monday morning and Jim drove us to the airport to catch our 10:00 flight. We got to the airport and checked in with plenty of time to spare. OK, good things are going great. We get to the AA gate and theres a 45 minute delay. I wish they had told us about that earlier cuz we could have slept an extra 45 minutes, but oh well. Then they make an announcement that it might be even longer like 11:30 or 12 because of bad weather conditions in NY. At this point I start getting a little nervous, and Adiel calls his school to tell them he won’t be making it in to teach. Next thing we know, they are giving out this little card to each person which says ‘we’re sorry for the delay or cancelled flight, please call this number so they can assist you’. Not a good sign. About 20 minutes later, the announcement comes ‘we are sorry but there is no window for us to fly into NY and the flight has been cancelled. There is no room on any other flights leaving today, the best we can do is get you on a flight first thing tomorrow morning’. So everyone is all up in arms, calling people, waiting on the lines, asking questions, etc. Adiel and I were just laughing. I called the number they gave and after waiting for about a half hour, they finally got us on a US Airway flight to Charlotte, leaving at 2 PM which then we could get a connecting flight to NY at 4:10 (and would get us home at 6). It was only about 11:30, but it was the best we could do and at least we’d be getting home that night.

Wall street Journal article about the delays, it menitons Atlanta.

OK, so we knew we had a couple of hours to kill before heading to Charlotte. So we collected our luggage back (quickest luggage retrieval ever) and headed to the Atrium in the airport which is big and gorgeous and had a place to plug in the laptop and charge. We chilled and used the computer and shmoozed, repacked some of the stuff to take out deli meat and cereal to munch on, and noted on how many army people there were. All of a sudden some guy comes out in tne middle of the atrium and claps his hands and says ‘Attention Ladies and Gentlemen!!’ and we were like ‘uh oh’. But then he says ‘These troops are heading back to Iraq today’. And all of a sudden tens of soldiers just follow him, carrying their backpacks. And everyone that was in the atrium – literally hundreds of people stand up and cheer. It was like attending our very own Veteran’s Day Parade. Brought tears to my eyes, and made the waiting almost worth it.

But all of these distractions actually took longer than we had realized, and all of a sudden we checked our watches and it was 12:40, and our flight was at 2, so we knew we had to check in already (again). We go to US Airways, wait online, try to check in with our e-tickets and it didn’t let us. Tried again and again, it just wasn’t working. The minutes were ticking by and all of the agents were busy. 12:50, finally the guy asks what we need and we explain the situation. He looks and looks and says Adiel has an e-ticket but you don’t. Uh oh. After a whole bunch more of searching, he says ‘Oh, I see why because your name is spelled Esther, but the American Airways representative wrote it as Ester.’ Grrr. How frustrating!! The guy had to make a whole bunch more phone calls and we’re just watching the clock tick by. What further exasperated the situation was that we knew we had the ‘SSSS’ on our ticket, which for those of you who are not airport-security savvy, means that they put you through the highest security possible because of the ‘last minute tickets’ that we booked. Extra time for frisking and looking through our stuff that we just didn’t have!! The guy finally lets us go at 1:20, a mere 40 minutes before our flight. We still needed to wait through the regular and extra security (including the whole ‘shoe take off’ fun) and take the escalator up and down and the train 4 stops to the proper concourse. AAAHH!!! We check the screen, and the flight to Charlotte is leaving on time. Time to put on the jets and hope for the best.

We fly through the airport and b’h the security line (while long) is moving. We get through within 15 minutes and get the whole extra security treatment. Fly down the escalator, the train just came, run up the next escalator and get to our gate at 10 to 2. Phew. One look and we knew we weren’t leaving on time. The terminal was packed, noone was lining up anywhere to go on any plane. Lalalalal. Of course there are no seats either, people are just sitting and spacing out, but I find one isolated seat and adiel stands. We hear the announcement that the plan from charlotte just landed so it will still be a good 20 minutes before we can board, but ‘they are going as quickly as they can’. Why couldn’t they have just posted that the flight was leaving late – it would have saved us a lot of agmas hanefesh….
Whatever. The plane boards around 2:30, doesn’t actually take off until closer to 3. Our connecting flight is at 4:10, but at this point, we realized there are probably delays up and down the East Coast airports and we’re just happy that we’re going to IY”H be that much closer to home. We touchdown at 10 to 4, but being that we’re in the back of the plane, it takes a while to get out. We exit the plane at 4:05, a mere 5 minutes before our flight home is scheduled, and lo and behold we’re standing right next to the gate that we are supposed to be leaving from. What hashgacha! Of course, a similar scene is greeting us and instead of a ‘final board call to New York Laguardia’ with a few last people heading down into the plane, we see a terminal full of bored looking people checking their watches. ‘Here we go again’. The new boarding time is 4:30, and we actually do board then but the plane doesn’t take off until 5:00. Still - we were on our way home and expecting to land at around 7 PM, only an hour later than we were originally scheduled (and 7 hours later that we had really originally scheduled). My wonderful sister and brother in law who took great care of our car and even replaced the battery (long story) were going to pick us up as soon as we landed. We munched on the deli meat and cereal for dinner and played a computer game together. Before we knew it, the plane was starting to descend, it was about 6:45 and I could just smell the NY air…and the pilot comes on and says…we are beginning our descent – to Baltimore!!!

WTH?! Apparently NY wasn’t letting anyone land at this point because of bad weather (fog) and they were refueling in Baltimore. We land and stay put for a long time and the pilot actually comes on and says ‘To be honest I’m not 100% sure what’s going on, I’m a pilot, not a politician, and we want to get home too, but we haven’t been able to reach the Baltimore airport to find out where to refuel, probably because there are so many planes that are doing the sajme thing. I will let you know anything as soon as we do, and we appreciate your patience.’ I really liked his candor and honesty. The flight attendants started passing around drinks and pretzels and everyone waited on line for the bathrooms. Boy did I feel sorry for the people with little kids.

I’m getting exhausted just remembering this. Long story short, we sat and waited and than refueled abd waited some more. I thought they would cancel the flight altogether and kick us off the plane, and we were already discussing the possibility of renting a car and driving the rest of the way

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