Tales of the Infrequent Traveler (aka the return flight from Hell)

Some trips are case studies of Murphy’s Law in action. In my case it wasn't just that “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”, it was that EVERYTHING that could go wrong did go wrong.

It was like one of those bad road trip movies or a nightmare where you were try to run but you feel like your feet are mired in molasses or your goal keeps getting further and further away from you no matter how fast you go (or all of those at the same time).

It all started the morning my wife and I were packing for our return trip from a brief sojourn out to Tucson Arizona.

I turned on my trusty iPad went to the American Airlines web site and found out that the departure time for the first leg of my flight was delayed a half hour, which would change our layover in Chicago from 35 minutes to 5 (with a long hike between gates), so when we got to the airport, the ticketing agent cheerfully changed us to a later flight for the second leg, giving us a two hour layover.

Those of you who are frequent travelers might be asking yourselves how I could stomach the flight change fees. Well, because the day before, American had suffered a major server crash that caused them to cancel several hundred flights, they were waiving change fees for the next few days.

In and of itself, this “good” news was a very ill omen because it was at this point that things started going south.

At the scheduled departure time, the flight to Chicago was delayed for 45 minutes due to a weather-related delay in Chicago. No problem because we still had an hour buffer before the second leg of our trip.

Our flight eventually took off – two hours late. So much for the buffer.

Turns out that there was a massive almost stationary storm front stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes which was pouring rain on Chicago. Our pilot assured us that if we were going to be late going into O’Hare, so was everyone else, so chances were, we’d all make our connections.  Show me a pilot who does not believe in Murphy’s Law and I will show you a pilot who does not believe in pre-flight checklists. 

Despite our pilot's misplaced optimism, we did make it to Chicago at about 10:30 PM. We did not miss our connection, it was cancelled as were dozens of other flights as rain poured down, lightning flashed and thunder boomed outside the terminal windows. 

We found a gate agent who had only one customer and we waited 15 minutes while she struggled to get the man a flight to . . . Boston.  The agent was able to get us rebooked for a route that would first take us to LaGuardia in New York, leaving at 6 AM. She also put us on the wait list for the last flight to Boston still scheduled for that night.  We were number 42 and 43 on the list for a flight that was already overbooked.

A hotel was not an option. All the ones near the airport were already booked. But the Chicago Aviation Authority was kindly providing cots.

Robin and I walked to the very furthest end of the American terminal and started seeing hundreds of other kindred passengers already sacked out on cots, covered in those thin blankets and miniature pillows like those you now have to pay to use when flying coach.

We stood online for about half an hour waiting our turn to get a cot, our eyes now aching from fatigue. We now had a very slight understanding of what it was like to be treated like a refugee because that is what we were – temporarily homeless travelers trapped in a large impersonal noisy building.

When we finally bedded down on our Coleman cots with thin blankets and mini pillows, it was almost midnight. TSA security announcements still boomed over the PA and the lights still blazed.  It seemed that I had just faded out when a big burly security officer was striding through the terminal telling us all to wake up and get a move on . . . at 4 AM. 

Not only that, rain was still pouring down, lightning was stil flashing and thunder was still booming outside the terminal windows. Chicago was slowly submerging (I kid you not).

CAA staff handed us zip-lock bags containing miniature sized toothpaste, tooth brush, hand sanitizer, sani-wipes and a coupon good for 10% off any item in a terminal store.

It was after brushing my teeth that the first good thing happened - Dunkin’ Donuts was open. The coupon was not good at the food court.

Robin and I made our way over to our gate and at 5:30AM the gate agent announced that our plane was still in the hanger waiting to be towed over, so departure time was now scheduled for 7 AM. Then there were more ramp delays because of continued lightning as a massive squall line bore down on the airport. We left the ground at 9:30AM.

Needless to say, we missed our 10:30 AM connection in New York. I got on the American Airlines courtesy phone and an agent put us on another Boston bound flight on USAir, scheduled to depart in an hour. We had to go to the AA check-in get our boarding passes but we were handed vouchers and told we had to go to the US Air terminal to get our passes. 

So we got on to the LaGuardia shuttle bus, and slowly, slowly, slowly made our way over to USAir only to be told that we had missed that flight. The USAir agent put us on the next flight, which took off at 2 PM. We had now been in the process of “getting home” for 26 hours.

As the plane approached Boston, the engine noise increased, the plane banked and climbed. The pilot announced that landings were suspended temporarily so Robin and I looked longingly out the window as our airliner circled Beantown for the next half hour. 

So near and yet so far.

Finally, we touched down at about 3:30 PM.

Exhausted, we dragged our carryon luggage to Robin’s car. She pressed the key fob to unlock the car and nothing happened.

The car battery was dead.

You just cannot make this stuff up.