When passing through O'Hare

Several years ago I arrived at the ticket counter in the early hours of the morning, for an interview fly-out only to be told that, while the agent could see a reservation had been created, it hadn’t completely been processed and I was, therefore, not actually on the flight. For $900 we could all correct this matter and I’d be on my way. I could not reach anyone there to ask what happened and so  plunked down my credit card and hoped that my separation from $900 was only temporary. (It was. The hiring team was admittedly more than a shade embarrassed when I explained the issue to them later that morning.)

For the duration of my visit, wave after wave of ferocious storms swept across the Philadelphia metro area. The weather was no different when it came time to leave; not surprisingly the blue lights that signaled a full ground stop were in full view when the cab pulled to the curb. “You’re going to have a long night,” the cab driver told me, helpfully, before speeding off in a driving rain. Indeed. Naturally, however, it would be hours before the flight would be canceled. After waiting for an hour for the gate agent to rebook me on a flight the following morning, I was faced with the option of sleeping in the terminal or queueing for a room at the airport hotel. Obviously I opted for the latter, hoping again that my prospective employer would not honestly expect a job candidate to sleep in the terminal. (At the time I was correct; nearly a decade later, I’m not so sure that equation still holds true.) 

In the wee hours of the morning, on one of the first flights down the runway, I headed toward home, via O’Hare. Here I was met with a mechanical delay – one of the seats was broken and, although this was not a full flight, we could not board until the issue was resolved – followed by one of the inexplicable delays for which that airport is notorious. Settled into 1C the flight attendant facing me shrugged her shoulders and said, “You know what they say about this airport, don’t you?” I did not. “Time to spare, fly through O’Hare.” She smiled and opened her book.

Northworst

For years my father dreamed of visiting Alaska. In 2004 he would finally realize this dream. Naturally, however, it would not be without more than a few glitches.

For starters, Northwest Airlines had absolutely no record of my ticket. The fact that my mom waved papers from the airline itself attesting to the reservation seemed to perplex the ticket counter agents rather than spur them to action. Eventually, time growing short, a seat was found. Unfortunately, we were only allowed to check in as far as Seattle, where we were told we would need to visit an airlines service center  to check in for our flight from Seattle to Fairbanks. Despite our misgivings about this highly unorthodox practice, our options quickly dwindled to 1) stay and argue or 2) actually make it to Seattle. 

We might have rather stayed to fight, for in Seattle the line was dozens deep: the airport was experiencing problems with their jet fuel lines and numerous flights had been cancelled; what wasn’t cancelled was delayed. Our flight was not cancelled, however, for we learned that it did not even exist. 

I have tried now for going on a decade to understand how we could have been ticketed on a non-existent flight, but occasionally the tangled webs of airline lies are too great for my mind to master. Mercifully, this snafu occurred in the days when airplanes were not normally filled to 112% capacity and the woman at the desk, probably the most helpful airline employee I have encountered to date, worked diligently to find four seats on the same flight. Granted, my sister and father would fly first class, while my mom and I jammed into the last row of coach immediately adjacent to the toilet, but we would sleep in the Great White North that night.

Except that the Great White North was experiencing a heat wave and the accompanying forest fires filled the air with an acrid, brown smoke. Our flight, in fact, consisted largely of fire fighters from the lower 48 states who were traveling north to battle the flames. Had he known this our captain might have worried less, but perhaps he did not, for the voice that addressed us as we descended into Fairbanks had more than a hit of nerves to it.

“I have an important announcement to make. You may be aware that Alaska is experiencing major forest fires right now. As we make our descent, this smoke may enter the cabin. Do not panic. The plane is not on fire, nor are we in any danger. I repeat, you may smell smoke in the cabin. Do not panic.”

On cue, the smell of smoke permeated the cabin. 

We may have made it to Alaska that night, but our bags did not. Or rather, my bag did not. Miraculously, the ground workers at Seattle found the completely mis-tagged bags that belonged to my sister and my father and routed them onto our flight. This was probably a minor act of heroism on their part, as the bags had been tagged in Detroit with both a wrong flight number and wrong destination (Anchorage). My bag, along with that of my mom, was nowhere to be found. As I griped to all who would listen - and I have learned over the years that nothing unites strangers like airline horror stories - one man shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly and said, "What can I say? That's why we call it Northworst." 

(Not, of course, that it was any worse than the others. Some days now I even miss it.)