Getting Back

Believe it or not, in my lifetime I have been on many flights that went smoothly, sailing through security with just enough time to buy a coffee before getting on the plane, which takes off on time, and gets in 10 minutes early. Yes, even after 9/11.

Our first flight coming home, the one from Nashville to JFK, went smoothly. Sure, we were all over the gate and I kept rushing back to the bathroom to change diapers, but that was OK. And my mother ended up loosing both her earing and her glasses during the frantic time we had boarding and installing the carseat while Nate screamed and Nicholas tried to sit ib every other seat on the plane, but that was still OK. We left just a little bit late, but that was still OK.

Then we got to JFK.

In my whole life, in all my visits to JFK, to Heathrow, in all of my delayed flights and rerouted flights, including the time I was dumped at an airport in Chicago for hours and that time I ended up having to take the big purple plane with the basketballs on it... even that time we were coming back from France and our flight got cancelled and we all had to stay at a hotel... I have never seen a zoo like this.

The gate on the monitor said 25R. Not Gate 25. But 25R. SO I asked the lady at the desk what it meant. Apparently 25 other flights were also scheduled to depart from that gate during the next five minutes, so it was a little tricky. SHe told me that the gates flip flopped. "Sometimes it takes of from 25, sometimes from 23. But now it says 25 so stay here." Well, our departure time got closer and closer... Then the big monitor told us it was delayed by 20 minutes - 5:18 instead of 4:59. No big deal. I took the boys to a play area and they got to run around for a bit. Then we headed back... the gate had changed. It did not say 25. It did not say 23. It did not say 25R or 23R. It said SPO.

I stopped an airline employee (there were 50 people on the line in front of me) and asked what SPO meant, and she helpfully told me that she had no idea. So I stood in line. I was lucky enough to be behind a young man who asked the exact same question. The lady behind the desk, now a black woman with long dreadlocks, a yellow vest, and the ability to ignore a person for up to 20 minutes while talking and looking busy the whole time, finally told him she didn't know, but it probably meant they hadn't chosen a gate yet. "Stay here." she said. "I'll let you know."

This is when the girl next to me said she had missed her FIRST flight that way - they kept telling her the flight as coming, to wait, and then they told her it had taken off at another gate. Naturally I refused to leave the gate area after that, and insisted on asking about our flight every fifteen minutes, just in case something happened and I wasn't notified.

Meanwhile, please understand, there were 50 other flights, most of which had been delayed. Flights kept beeing switched to gate 23, and none of these passangers were happy. at about 5:15, our flight time changed to 6pm, and I was forced to leave the gate with the boys to find something to feed them. Nathan was drinking the last of the baby formula, and Nicholas had eaten nothing but cookies since breakfast. I found a newstand and got a bottle of juice, some m&m's, and some Pringles. What a meal.

By the time we got back, our flight was no longer on the board at all. It just wasn't up there. But the other people going to Manchester were still there. After another round of standing in line and being ignored, the dreadlock woman finally told us the plane was there. It just couldn't make it to the gate because of the OTHER planes in the way. And the OTHER planes didn't have crews, so we were waiting for THEM. She didn't know why it wasn't on the board, but we should just WAIT. When our flight finally made it to the board the time of departure was 6:45. The gate still said SPO.

Finally the woman got on the speaker and said our flight was boarding. I have never seen a group of people move so quickly. Once on the plane we waited 45 minutes before we could take off. The flight itself took less than an hour. At no point were we given beverages, or snack, or even apologized to for the airline's obvious incompetency.

It wasn't that the flight was delayed, really. Things happen, flights get delayed. That's understandable. It was that they kept pushing it back in small increments. If they had said TWO HOUR DELAY up front we could have found a sit down place to have a meal. But not even the employees knew what was going on, where the plane was, if it had a crew, if even if there WAS a flight to Manchester. No one knew where it would be, or when it would be.

What do you think?