Hurry Up and Wait ... The Sequel

The trip snuck up on me. Finals at our school were 5/23-5/25. Teachers reported until Friday to validate grades, talk to parents of students requiring summer school, and packing up the room. Now this is normal procedure but you need to remember that for a high school science teacher that is double the work as we need to secure the lab as well. So this left me with one day to do anything necessary for the house for the two weeks I would be gone, shop for anything I still needed for the trip, and pack. I finished about 11pm Saturday night. I had little to no time to get excited.

I set my alarm for the morning of our departure for the same time as I would normally get up to go to work. Again, there was nothing to set this day apart from anything out of the ordinary. Lizzy, on the other hand, got up with me which *was* unusual. The only time that you see her at 5am is if you catch her going to bed. While I got my coffee, she jumped in the shower and she was actually ready before I was which was extremely rare. We left the house with time to spare and got to the airport at six thirty for our flight to Dallas at 8am.

The kiosk was not reading passports, so we had to get in line. Now, we had an hour and a half before our flight so we weren’t concerned about the size of the line; however, after about 10 minutes, it became quite apparent that there was a very large problem. As far back in line as we were, it was still relatively easy to piece together. There was a group of 18 travelling on our flight to Dallas trying to get their boarding passes. Their itinerary, which they printed out and held in-hand said that they left on the 29th. However, American’s system showed them as booked for the 28th and as no-shows and they cancelled their entire itinerary in both directions including their final destination which I never did hear. The assistant behind the desk even called the original booking agent on their side and the travel agency that handled the tour and verified the dates and some unknown snafu resulted in the cancellation. Our flight wasn’t full but they could only accommodate 8 of the 18. American personnel passed the group off to a manager and quickly whittled down the line.

Despite having allowed plenty of time, by the time we made it through security it was close to boarding time. As boarding time passed and departure time approached, I looked out the window and saw the fuel line still attached. Obviously, for safety reasons, they couldn’t board a plane while it was being fueled and so we waited. And waited. And waited. Then everyone’s phone went off and we all laughed and looked at each other. Apparently our flight had left 15 minutes ago and we were all in the air and scheduled to arrive on time at our destination. And there was not a single agent to be found in the entire terminal. Cue Twilight Zone music …. The platinum members were not happy campers and quickly called their special 800 number and promptly got told that they had missed their flight. Oh, the language was not pretty ….

Shortly thereafter, there was an announcement of a gate change. And we had to go downstairs and use that gate which led onto the tarmac. Once we were seated, the entire group that they had cancelled got on board. Light bulb moment. We were all delayed because they had to change to a bigger plane which had to be brought in from who knows where. So they took care of the one problem (or I suppose 18 of them) but at the risk of everyone else missing their connections in Dallas. WTG AA. Note sarcasm font. We only had a half hour until our flight for Incheon began boarding and a little more than an hour before it left and we were going to need to change terminals. It was going to be tight.

We no sooner touched down and turned off airplane mode and our phones began to go off like crazy as the other members of our group who were coming from different areas and airports were texting us to let us know the plane was boarding. Now I’m a little too old and overweight to be playing OJ Simpson and running through airports but I booked it as fast as I could. We arrived at the gate to join the last set of passengers boarding even though we had priority access because of our FF status. We quickly settled into our seats, stored our carry-on luggage, fastened our seat belts, and waited. And waited … And waited … And waited …

Eventually, there was an announcement that there was a problem with the aft climate control unit and we were waiting on a part. Ten minutes they said. They lied. Three hours later we were finally in the air. Then we *only* had 14 hours in the air left to wait …

To be continued …