Airport Horror Stories

A couple of my most recent experiences (I think I have more, but can't remember them right now). I'm sure if I was a good story-teller, these would be even better. But oh well, you're stuck with me....

Friday 12/1/06 -- A Day of Storms and Cancellations
The weather was highly unstable and turbulent in the Midwest and Northeast. Many flights for Friday were canceled on Thursday night. More flights were canceled or delayed by HOURS on Friday. My flight was at 5:10pm, a direct flight from JFK to San Diego. I kept checking the status throughout the day and it was always "on time". Whew. We boarded on time and was out of the gate by 5:12pm. My thoughts, "Great! I can relax. I'm going to make it home tonight!"

The pilot of the aircraft got on the speaker and told us that the line for take-off was a bit long, but we should be off the ground in 30 minutes. Okay, fine, that's normal. I'm used to that.

Waiting... waiting... around 5:45pm, the plane stills, the engines shut off. What's going on? The pilot gets on the speaker, Uh, JFK is closed and we're not allowed to fly. So we shut down our engines and are waiting for the airport to open up. We haven't been told for how long we'll have to wait.

What?!?

An hour passes... Bored, bored, I'm bored! I call friends, parents, Dave's voicemail. I go through the ASCB meeting schedule (for all 5 days!).. Bored!

Another hour passes. The pilot tells us, We still don't know when we are leaving. Our gateway through the northwest is blocked by bad weather. However, we are approved to fly through a more southerly route.

The plane puts on "The Illusionist" for us to watch. Thank goodness!

Another hour passes... and then it's 9pm. We're ready to go! Yay!... We ended up taking off 4 hours after our departure time. 4 hours! FOUR hours on the tarmac in a crowded plane!!!

The next fear that goes through my head is... will San Diego let us land? The San Diego Airport officially closes at 11:30pm and does not allow any take-offs or arrivals after that time. My neighbor and I (we were both frequence NY-SD fliers) were highly concerned. But as there was no announcement to the contrary during the flight, our fears were eased. We arrived shortly after midnight PST.


Hello, do we have a pilot?
One morning, I was flying out of JFK. Everything was going smoothly... An announcement comes just as we're supposed to take off, "Ladies and gentleman, we are boarded and ready to go. However, we're waiting for our pilot to show up as he's stuck in traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike."... We take off 30-45minutes later.


Almost stuck in San Diego...
I had a 11pm flight leaving San Diego. There was an announcement telling us that the previous flight is running late, but we will probably begin boarding at 11pm. My thoughts, okay, fine, no big deal, pilots are good at making up 15-30 minutes. I'll still get to New York on time... Some guy then goes up on the speaker, Passengers, you must board as quickly as possible. Your plane MUST be boarded with the doors closed by 11:30pm or else you will not take off tonight. The airport closes at 11:30pm and any planes still at their gates will be grounded.... Have you ever heard of this? Well, let's just say that was the most efficient boarding process I've ever seen. No one dawdled. Everyone just got on, threw up their bags, and sat down... We got out around 11:20pm.


Supershuttle Nightmare
I was once picked up at 2pm for a 6pm flight (Supershuttle normally picks you up 3hours before, but they showed up early). Due to slacker Supershuttle passengers and really bad traffic, I got to my Terminal at.... 5:30pm!... Good thing I didn't have any bags to check. I RAN to my gate (which was in a different terminal from the one I was dropped off at. And thank goodness I have good sprinting muscles) and made it to the gate with some minutes to spare (albeit, all sweaty and gross).