I love being on vacation – who doesn't? And this year was no exception, especially after the death of my sister in February, having to quit a job that I loved, and the interminably long winter – heading to Maine was first and foremost on our minds once we had determined a week for our trip.
Everything was more expensive this year – airline travel was triple what we paid in 2011 and the car rental was more than double what we paid that same year. I carefully planned our travel, including the decision being made not to fly home the same day we had to check out of our cottage so we could avoid an early morning flight on top of an early morning drive from Maine to Manchester, NH's airport.
To accommodate our trip, I decided we would spend Saturday night at a hotel near Manchester's airport and give ourselves most of Saturday to run around Portland and enjoy seeing sites that we love and whatever family we could see.
We awakened at 4:30 Sunday morning well-rested and I immediately checked our flight status only to find our flight was the only one delayed at MHT – delayed by one hour. So instead of flying out at 8:30 a.m., we'd take off at 9:30 a.m. With a 2 hour layover at LaGuardia Airport in NYC, I figured we'd still make our connecting flight.
Boy, was I wrong.
Once we finally boarded our first flight, we found ourselves waiting and waiting for take-off to occur. Eventually, about 15 minutes after the last passenger was seated, the head flight attendant announced why the flight had been delayed ... they had all worked 17 hours the previous day and due to a mechanical error on the plane from the last flight, they were not permitted – by FAA rules and regulations – to fly unless a specific number of hours of rest were between flights.
OK - we get that and understood. Now, get us off the ground.
However, next thing we knew, the doors were re-opened, one of the ground crew was on board and had his face in the face of an older man in the front row of first class. A few minutes later it was announced by our female pilot that the man had been so rude and nasty to the female flight attendant, that the sky marshal had been forced to remove the man from the plane – citing the fact that an unruly passenger while 30,000 feet about the ground, was not something pleasurable.
Yep - I agree with that wholeheartedly. However, we were now 90 minutes past our original departure time and would only have 30 minutes at LaGuardia to catch our next flight. Time was ticking.
Our flight was uneventful (thank you Lord) and short, but as we approached LaGuardia we were informed that the skies were busy and we would have to circle LaGuardia until cleared to land and we would have to land at a remote location and be bused into the terminal.
We knew we'd never make our connecting flight. And we didn't. By the time we did land – thankfully at a viable gate instead of the aforementioned remote location – it was the exact time of our connecting flight's departure.
What do we do? Neither of us had ever missed a flight and had no idea what we'd do, but assumed we'd be directed by Delta and be scheduled for the next available flight to Kansas City.
By the time we got down to the end of the exit ramp, we fully expected to find a Delta agent waiting to assist anyone who had missed a flight – we were wrong.
We exited to find a crowded, busy airport – simply bustling with activity and no agent in sight. What do we do? After a few minutes, we decided to walk to the terminal our flight to Kansas City had departed from and see if we could find someone to help us.
Delighted to find a "Need Help" kiosk, we got in line only to find ourselves still 6th in line 30 minutes later – one clerk at the two-man desk and still waiting on the same customer.
We got out of line and continued to the aforementioned terminal. We grabbed the first gate agent who didn't have someone in line and caught her as she packed up to leave her desk. Polite and helpful, she directed us to another agent on the other side of the terminal and walked over to get us introduced.
We were told there were 9 open seats on the next flight to Kansas City, four hours later and we'd surely be on that flight and he'd put us on standby. The man checked our baggage and found it was checked through to Kansas City already.
So, we grabbed lunch and then seats near the gate we were to depart from and settled in to wait.
Having never been in LaGuardia before we spent the next 6 hours (yes - that flight got delayed - twice) people-watching – a fascinating past-time when you consider the facts. People dress for flying in a wide array of ensembles – sandals, boots, high heels, sneakers, mini dresses, shorts, peddle-pushers, jeans, skimpy outfits, hair in a number of styles from clean to dirty, disheveled to coiffured, pulled back with rubberbands, loose, piled atop the head, or wearing baseball caps. They carried small suitcases, carry-on bags, diaper bags and backpacks.
They all had somewhere to go and get there quickly. They were from all walks of life from the 50-something man with a head of greying curly hair and his high-end laptop, to the teenaged siblings heading home for an emergency, to the local Kansas City news reporter, to those traveling alone, in groups or as couples.
People were draped across the small quantity of seats available and spread out upon the dirty floor. Men didn't give up those precious seats for women and others didn't vacate their seats without having someone save the seat for their return. Chairs were the golden commodity in that aging terminal.
Throughout the afternoon we heard the constant announcement of flights being canceled - one after another, as well as delays. Gate agents were blaming the weather – though it was overcast, there was no rain at the time.
One family sat near us and was trying to get on a flight to Syracuse, NY – probably just a few hours from New York and had had two flights canceled already and the third canceled within minutes of sitting down to chat with us.
No one smiled in that packed terminal – not one passenger and not one employee of Delta was happy.
This is apparently a part of every day life at LaGuardia, known as one of the worse airports in the U.S. for delayed and canceled flights, dirty old terminals and overcrowding. It isn't Delta – it's all the airlines.
Finally it came time for our flight to board and still we weren't called up to be seated. We listened as a number of names were called – all members of Delta's elite club who were on standby too. Nevertheless, despite the fact we were the first on standby for that flight, we were the last to be chosen to fly because we didn't qualify as important passengers since we weren't members of that "elite club."
However, finally our names were called and we had our precious seats on a flight home.
Praise the Lord, we were going home.
Our crew was fabulous, our pilot skilled. The only scare we had was the three jets we saw out the window dangerously close to our plane. Only to learn the next day that there had been an incident near Detroit's airport with a parachute plane that had come too close to a jet causing the jet's pilot to nosedive in order to avoid a hit.
The skies are crowded and we are ever so grateful to have landed on Missouri soil. Our long-awaited vacation a bittersweet trip soiled by unpleasant travel and a bit of drama that occurred while in Maine.
We may not live near the ocean or mountains, but our little historic city in Missouri is home. Our beautiful kitties awaited us with open paws and our son and grandson with open arms.
Needless to say, flying to the coast is much quicker than driving – so we will fly again. Yet we will never, ever fly through another coastal airport like those in New York. Lesson learned.
There is simply no place like home.
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