Travel chaos to London

Crazy days. I’ll give it to you as it happened. Air travel in the 20th century…

While loading our ten-ton baggage into the mini(van) Conrad and Amber called to ask for a pickup from the airport as they were turned around at check-in. Not making much of this, we made it to counter front, waited half an hour with bizarre events surrounding us, colouring a picture of chaos across West America as bad weather had cancelled all flight through Chicago, New York and Philadelphia.

Our inbound was delayed, and by the time we were set to board, the airport staff had left for home. Figure that. So the airplane staff did a makeshift boarding procedure, and we finally departed to Washington. Nothing more than a 30min flight. A two hour drive if we had wanted to earlier…

I decided to chance it, not hire a car, but full knowing it would be tight in Washington. But with all the commotion surely Washington to London would have a delay too, no?

Ruth and I made hast across the length of Dulles’ C terminal, but missed our flight by 10minutes. Craziness from one end to the other. Kids crying, mothers distraught, businessmen up in arms, and everyone gathering in a queue at customer service which I could compute would take 5-6 hours to reach the front of. This is at 10pm.

We started asking about, and quickly realized the severity of the situation. Those who had managed to call through to the United Reservations were informed the first seats to London were on Thursday… And there were only a few of those.

First week of school holidays here, and flights were over subscribed as is. So now having to add 50 passengers just wasn’t happening. I wasn’t game for the queue, and begged an air hostess at a check-in station to run a search for us. Three seats came up on the Wednesday night flight! So we took those at a heart beat. There was nothing else. Nothing from New York to London, nothing from Chicago either. Chaos. For a moment I doubted getting to Wales before Saturday at all.

Our next predicament was weather to request baggage, or leave it in the transfer hold. You cant request it and then leave it there, or re-check it till Wednesday night they told us. But I wasn’t going to go throw stones at the White House while dragging my 110pound bike bag around. Our decision was made a bit easier when at 1:30am we were informed that even if we asked for our bags, we’d be lucky if it arrived within a few hours from C terminal’s hold…

So we bought two little travel blankets, a contact lens holder and some solution (as you cant travel with liquids these days) and got a security clearance to go back to terminal C, as sleeping in baggage collection was hostile and marbled floors.

(Bed time at 2am)

So through security again, shoes off, computers out, belts off, body search, and on to wait the shuttle.

I hit the couch hard, armed with ear plugs and eye covers, a comfy alternative to the harsh cab and hotel prices we were quoted…

(Morning hours outside but not under them eye covers…)

We weren’t alone. Everywhere stranded travelers hid n corners like Berggies along the Eerste River… My misses, she was a star.

By the time I woke at 8am, Ruth had been in a queue for two and a half hours, and had managed to change our previous nights best option of flying to Chicago this afternoon and to London through the night (which we were stoked about) to a stand-by (along with 35 other people) on a direct flight to Heathrow at 9:40am.

Spillovers from yesterday’s carnage meant many didn’t make it in this morning either, and we heard 10min before boarding that we were on. Thank goodness for that. I have my doubts about our baggage, and wont be holding me breath in Heathrow.

But being on a flight, as unbelievable as it may sound, is a huge relief. For a few moments there, I thought all over North American air travel wouldn’t be able to get two across the Atlantic in time for a rendezvous in Wales on Saturday.