After all the craziness in travelling to Rome, we were looking for an uneventful trip home. Unfortunately, it coincided with a major blizzard hitting New York. David and I started becoming hopeful that we would be landing in New York City about the time that the storm was scheduled to hit, so we could possibly just beat it there. When we got to Heathrow, all of the later flights were cancelled but ours was still on. At one hour to departure, our flight was cancelled. We asked about being rebooked on another flight. We were told to go to the American Airlines check-in counter to rebook. When we got there, it was chaos. They were still trying to work their way through the people on the previously cancelled flights. There were reports from employees that we might have better luck talking to an agent at the main American Airlines check-in center. Feeling that it would be hours before we got to talk to an agent at the current desk, we decided to try our chances at the main check-in desk.
Heathrow, while always being a horribly designed airport, had slipped a few rungs on the ladder of organization and maintenance recently. I can't tell you how many times we were looking for something like Terminal 2. We would have to ask for directions, people would point us down a hallway, and we would get there, there would be a handwritten sign on the door saying "Exit Closed. Use Detour at Door G." And then we would scramble and look for "Door G." We had three of those scenarios just in the first evening.
When we finally got to an agent, we found that our choices were very limited. There were no flights to NYC that we could get seats on. Everything was sold out for days. David and I discussed our options and we decided that we would rather be in the United States - even if it meant that we would not be quite back in New York. So we decided to get on a flight to Chicago for the next morning with the theory that there are hourly flights to LGA from O'Hare - so as soon as the airport opens up, we would have an easy time getting home.
The agent tried to offer us a flight to Edinburgh and from Edinburgh to Newark, NJ - but we suspected that the flight to Newark would get cancelled sooner or later and then we would be stuck in Edinburgh without the flight options that Heathrow had.
Several people have asked me why David and I didn't stay in London and make a vacation of it. First of all, David really had to get back to work. Secondly, when you don't know when you're going to be able to fly home, you can't really go hopping around London, you have to hang out at the airport and wait to get on a flight. I was not enjoying the crowd and disorganization of Heathrow. And thirdly, when you want to be home, you want to be home. And being in the U.S. just felt more like home than London.
So we got a flight to go to Chicago the next morning. We even got upgraded to business class. And the flight to Chicago was uneventful and pleasant.
Landing in Chicago, however, was total chaos. The airport was packed with people that were stranded, trying to get to New York. All flights were still cancelled. We talked to a few agents about trying to get to Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia so that we could take the train from there. (I later found out that the trains were completely sold out as well, so it's just as well that we couldn't take that route.) David and I stood by for flights for a couple of hours, but after a while it appeared hopeless and we decided we'd rather hang out at the Hilton Hotel than in an airport lounge.
I should point out that I was in a foul mood at this point. Who likes airports? Not me. And I had no clean clothes. I decided to make the best of it and took the train to downtown Chicago. Nordstrom's was having a men's clothing sale of which I took ample advantage.
The next morning we got to the airport around 5:30am to start waiting for flights. Lines were already forming. My foul mood returned. I snapped at David twice and then decided to take a walk. On that walk, I made an important resolution. I knew that the day was going to be unpleasant and I decided that no matter what happened, I was not going to let it affect my mood.
Done.
Resolved.
I went back to standing in line with renewed patience. Honestly, it was a big relief to not have to worry about "reacting" to this unpleasant situation. I started chit-chatting with the people in the stand-by-line. These people would become my bestest friends over the next 24 hours.
For the rest of the day, our group of stand-by-ers would go from gate to gate and pray to get on that flight to NYC. I think David and I started off being number 12 and 15 on the standby list, so we were reasonably hopeful that we would make one of the first few flights. Unfortunately, that was not the case. Any spare seats on flights went to employees of American Airlines first. (We later found out that these people were called "deadheads." We learned to fear and loath them.) Because of the storm, there were no crew members available to fly planes out of New York, so the airline first had to get as many crew members to New York as possible. In fact, about a third of the flights from NYC that morning were being cancelled simply because they didn't have enough people to fly planes out. And then when a plane couldn't fly out of NYC, a flight to NYC would get cancelled. So while David and I started at numbers 12 and 15 on the standby list, our numbers often got worse at the next flight.
At each flight, everyone would wait silently once they announced that the gate was being closed since that's when they would start calling for names. Everyone would get silent, still, and tense. People would count how many names were being called for people that had not yet checked into the flight. I felt like it was Oscar night and people were anxious to hear their name.
I was amazed how many people would show up with a ticket for their flight just 10 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart. Usually, they sauntered up in no particular hurry, even though their name had been called several times to board or risk losing their seat. David and I agreed that they did not deserve to have their seat if they could not get themselves to the gate at a reasonable time. Did they not know that there were hundreds of people trying to get from Chicago to New York City?
There were several people that had major hissy fits at the gate. They were usually middle-aged business men giving a tempter tantrum worthy of a five-year-old. And they would usually, at some point, shout out "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. I HAVE TO BE ON THE NEXT FLIGHT TO NEW YORK!" The response from the agents was always the same: "Sir, look around. Everyone here is trying to get to New York. We are doing the best that we can but there are no available seats." Twice I heard someone say "YOU ARE NOT ACCOMMODATING ME!" which seems to me to be very odd phrase to shout when your angry, but it seems to be the businessman's threat of choice.
But the "Angry Traveller Award" goes, without a doubt, to two French prostitutes that were trying to get to NYC. I found out (from their screaming) that their bags made it on an earlier flight to NYC, and now they were trying to catch up. They screamed at every poor gate attendant of every flight. They screamed at the men taking tickets. They even screamed at a janitor who was so thrown off by these crazy French prostitutes that he just laughed at them and said there was nothing her could do.
How do I know they were prostitutes? Well, I don't. One was skinny and one was fat. One wore fishnet stockings, a leather miniskirt, a black tank top and a leather jacket. The other wore a black unitard with an oversized lipstick red sweater coat. They both wore stiletto heels. They both had a ton of make-up on for 6 in the morning and they both touched up their makeup relentlessly. And I think they were both wearing wigs. And they were not so smart.
How do I know they were French? I don't. But they sounded like Inspector Clouseau.
On the first flight of the day, they decided that they didn't need to wait in line and simply interjected themselves near the front of the line. They claimed that they didn't understand any English and so refused to move to the back of the line, but they gave each other sly glances at their cleverness and laughed. I arrived as a fight was ready to break out. The woman behind them was shouting things like "You don't have to understand English to know that there's a line here and you belong at the end of it!" This was later followed with "Everyone that thinks that these two belong at the end of the line, raise your hands!"
I was kind of shocked that a fight didn't break out, but I think everyone realized that they were the French prostitute versions of Laurel and Hardy.
On the sixth flight of the day, after they finished screaming at the agent at the gate. They waited until the plane started boarding and decided to walk on the plane without tickets. They raised their chins and went striding past the gate attendant. When the agent stopped them and asked them for their tickets, they started shouting at him that they needed to be in New York. The group of us that were going from flight to flight hoping to get on a plane all burst out laughing at their antics. Why no one ever called security on those two, I'll never know.
It was around this flight that we all started losing hope. None of us knew of anyone that had been standing by and actually made it on a plane. Whenever they called for people off the standby list, it was always American Airlines employees. David was up to number 5 on the list and I was number 7, but the numbers kept jumping around from flight to flight. And the total standby list was over 200 people by now.
Out of the blue, David's name was called. He squealed. He kissed me and said goodbye and ran to the gate, shouting "I'll say hello to the puppies for you!" Everyone had been feeling so hopeless that they burst into applause that one of us "Regular Joes" got called to make flight. Now it was possible that we could all go home.
After my attitude adjustment in the morning, I had been having a genuinely good time. David and I had been getting along famously, laughing at the antics of the French Prostitutes or the latest Angry Business Man. The prospect of waiting in the airport by myself all of a sudden seemed awful. I got a little choked up that he was saying goodbye.
I went to the next flight and my standby number had been bumped back to 16. I waited for the flight to board and not even the deadheads made that one. The prospect of sitting around O'Hare for the rest of the day was not appetizing. I had a ticket to go home the following morning, so I decided to call it quits and check into a hotel for the night.
When David got to New York, he kindly called the Palmer House hotel and made a reservation for me. I went downtown, checked in, joined a friend for dinner, and got a decent night's sleep.
The morning was uneventful. The standby list the next day was less than 20 people. I don't know what they did to clear out all those people, but by 48 hours after the storm, it looked like American Airlines was clearing through the mess of displaced travelers.
Luckily, I saw one thing that made me smile. The two French prostitutes were still in O'Hare, furiously stomping in their stilettos to complain to someone. As long as I beat the prostitutes home, I was happy.
