Nature is a Mother

This post is about my misadventures trying to fly to Europe through inclement weather. It’s whiny and not at all sexy. Ye be warned.

So, yesterday I was supposed to fly to Switzerland again, to get the whip cracking. Here was the plan (call it Plan A):

Plan A: ROC to ATL to ZRH

Pretty simple. I take the 12:25 to Atlanta, then catch the 4:30 to Zurich. I check in the day before before and print my two boarding cards. Here, let’s keep a score there:

Number of boarding cards: 2

I get to ROC, and find out my flight to ATL has been cancelled, because the snowstorm, that destroyed the roof of the Metrodome in Minneapolis and lethally blanketed Detroit prevented my plane from leaving it origination and coming to Rochester. They HAD rerouted me to an earlier flight that day…and never called. So, technically there WAS a plan B:

Plan B: ROC to DTW to ATL to ZRH (catching the 9:30 to Detroit from Rochester on the 13th and then the same ATL-to-ZRH leg).

However, that was DOA because I didn’t know about it until I arrived at the airport for my 12:20 at 10:15. So, Delta rolled out Plan C:

Plan C: ROC to DTW to ATL to ZRH (all tomorrow on the 14th)

And, let’s update the scoreboard:

Number of boarding cards: 5

Unfortunately, I am someone who looks at a globe now and then, and I realize that Rochester is next in line for this blizzard, and that this plan takes me straight into its chaotic wake. So I get on the phone with Delta, who then conjures forth…

Plan D: ROC to ATL to AMS to ZRH (taking the 5:30 to Atlanta, then off to Amsterdam after a two-hour layover)

This flight is hours later, so we go back home, and I pack a few boxes before we head back out to the airport. There I get my luggage checked and they print me a new set of boarding cards. Which reminds me:

Number of boarding cards: 8

As I sit comfortably at ROC waiting on my flight, I hear the PA come on about 45 minutes before departure to announce boarding calls. Except that they are announcing a delay of two hours. Seems our plane is coming from Detroit. A few moments later, the delay gets extended twenty more minutes, which means I am guaranteed to miss the connection to Amsterdam. I consider toughing it out, since I have family in Atlanta, but instead get on the phone. The agent on the phones whips up…

Plan E: ROC to JFK to AMS to ZRH (catching the same AMS to ZRH leg)

This is now at about 5 PM – and the flight to JFK is at 6:38, arriving at about 7:50, and my connection is at 10:10. As I the gate agent is struggling, and eventually succeeding, to print my boarding card (he can’t print anything for the JFK-AMS-ZRH parts, only as far as JFK)

Number of boarding cards: 9

I starting chatting with other people at the gate, who were waiting on a flight to JFK since about 1. (Their plane was coming from Minneapolis) Their flight was at 5:10, and was being pushed back to 7:30. The 6:38 was coming from Cincinatti, and was already in the air. Suddenly there is a tidal wave of people rising up to the gate agent to get on the (hitherto nearly empty) 6:38. I am literally the toast of the gate. Meanwhile the update emails on my flight to Atlanta keep rolling in..delay…delay…delay…delay…cancelled. I pat myself on the back for a good call.

The plane arrives a mere ten minutes late, they get us on board in record time and we’re…waiting. Eventually the plane pulls out, and we get stuck at a bottleneck as they are de-icing every plane just before they take off. Our delay stretches past an hour (let’s face it, you can’t be too unhappy about de-icing, except maybe it would be nice to have a little more capacity) but we eventually take off. Our one hour flight brings me to my least favorite airport, JFK, and we land at about 8:45. Awesome.

And we get to our gate (actually, anyone who flies a puddle jumper to JFK knows that “gate” refers to a spidery path of temporary corridors set up on the tarmac) and…we…sit…there. They decide to keep up in the plane while they unload the gate-checked baggage. And we wait. And we wait. And we finally get off at 9:08. I sprint through the labyrinth of leaky plywood to the jam-packed terminal looking for gate B24, where my 747 awaits. (personal dream) Only, to no one’s shocked, they park the world’s largest airliner no where near where they park the puddle jumpers. And the shuttle to the other terminal has stopped running. I ask a couple guys at the shuttle stop, and they say that I can catch the shuttle from gate 11 till 9. I show them my phone: 9:13.

“Well, you can take the Airtrain – you just need to exit at gate 1.” What this means is that I need to leave the secure area, and take the train to the other terminal and go through security again. Now – the inability of the agent in Rochester to print my 10th boarding card becomes an issue: without a boarding pass for the JFK-to-AMS leg, I can’t go through security. No problem I’ll stop at the KLM counter…which is closed. It’s now 9:20. I get back on the Airtrain to terminals 2/3. The Delta counter in 2 is closed…so I take the walk back to terminal 3 to find a madhouse of travelers desperate to get on anything wings. However, to Delta’s credit, their crew at JFK is poorly trained, lazy, and unmanaged. So that’s good.

Back on the phone I go. Meet Plan F:

Plan F: JFK to AMS to ZRH (at starting at 4:20 on the 14th)

I decide that if I’m going to waste a day, I might as well do it on a mattress, so I start making my way to the hotel shuttles. However, I just have that sense in my head that something is not right. So I call Delta, and first reach someone who speaks with a severe accent and an unreliable microphone. After ten minutes of struggling to understand and making her repeat everything, I ask for a different agent. She tells me to call again and I’ll get someone different. I call again. This agent can’t help, and transfers me to a well-spoken person I can easily understand, at which point the Airtrain goes into a tunnel, dropping my call. I call again, and get a helpful agent who clarifies a misunderstood detail, and then strongly advises me to go back to the terminal and get my tickets printed now. With a heavy sigh (it’s now past 11) I walk away from the hotel shuttle and back to the train, back to the terminal, and wait in line. I catch one of the lesser agents, who works next to a greater agent. After twenty minutes, she re-checks my luggage (somehow, it seems to be in JFK. How, I have no idea.) and prints a boarding pass:

Number of boarding cards: 10

At this point, I just know something is wrong, so I read the card, and, lo and behold, it is for Amsterdam to Zurich. Nothing about how I get to Amsterdam. I ask her for help, she pecks at the computer for ten more minutes, then gives me to the greater agent, who assaults her computer for 25 minutes, before phoning for help, who flogs the system for ten more, until they finally tell me they can’t print that ticket because KLM is closed and they can’t access KLM’s system.

Fine.

Hotel.

I go back on the Airtrain, back to the hotel shuttles and call the Hampton Inn, and ask them to send their shuttle. The waiting area is a blast chiller, amplifying New York’s 20 MPH winds and plunging the 30-degree weather into a decidedly frosty wind chill. I have not had dinner, and I am wondering if any place delivers. Shuttle after shuttle comes…no Hampton Inn. Finally, one guy asks me “Hey, where are you going?” I tell him. “That’s right next door to where I’m going, come on.” I numbly get in. We whip around and he drops me at the Hampton (where I see their shuttle…still still waiting to leave). I get out and I hear the driver, “What, no tip?” Fuck.

I slap some cash in his hand, run in, take the smoking room (all they have available), and a chinese delivery menu. I get to my room, set at a balmy 62 degrees, decide not to both with dinner at half past midnight, and go to sleep, cold, hungry, alone, but still grateful to be in a bed and not in the even more frigid terminal 4 waiting for the KLM desk to open.

As I write this now, I am at the Hampton, with a whole day to kill. Let’s hope this day goes better than yesterday.