Travel Saga, Part III

O.K., yes, there was a big storm that hit the Northeast the day I was trying to get home to Maine. This is actually another reason -- besides the incompetence of United Airlines --that I have sworn off Christmastime air travel. There is virtually always a bad storm right after Christmas, that strands millions of travelers trying to get home. In 2010 my brother was prevented from getting home to New Mexico in a timely fashion by a true New England blizzard (see Note of December 31, 2010). But I guess we all hope against hope that somehow a miracle will protect us from the inevitable.

I had been watching the weather channel at my sister's house, but was hoping the worst would have passed by the time I reached Chicago's O'Hare. My plane left Colorado an hour and a half late (do United's planes ever leave on time?), but I wasn't worried, because I had a 3 1/2 hour layover in Chicago. But when I got off the plane, and sought out a Departures board, I was shocked to see that my flight wouldn't just be delayed in leaving, but had been cancelled. Because of Weather. What did I do now? I really had no idea. I asked the first United agent I could find who was not otherwise engaged; he checked his computer and said, with the usual United indifference, that yes, the flight was cancelled.

"But what does that mean for me?" "It means you'll have to overnight in Chicago, and take a flight out tomorrow." When I asked how I arranged that he directed me to Customer Service, which was of course clear at the other end of the concourse -- I walked there in a daze, envisioning myself spending the night trying to doze in an airport chair -- and where I found myself at the end of an excruciatingly long line of people, most of whom were on their mobile phones, either calling family/friends or the airlines, trying to make their own rearrangements while waiting to reach the agent.

After I'd been waiting about 20 minutes in the line, a woman came through encouraging us to go to the Customer Service stations at either Concourse C, or Concourse B (I was currently in Concourse F). She insisted there were "no lines there." I was skeptical about this -- could just see myself taking the 10 minutes or so it would take to get to either place, only to have to stand in yet another long line -- but finally made the decision to take the shuttle to Concourse C. There, sure enough, there was a line. It was shorter, but moved very slowly. When it was finally my turn, I got the incredibly bad news that they probably couldn't get me to Portland before Sunday. SUNDAY! It was 6 o'clock on Thursday! This was just so impossible for me to process that I went into a form of shock. All I could do was stare at poor, patient Farrell Williams and murmur, "I can't do this."

Quite simply, I have reached a point in my life when I am unable to handle this sort of curve ball being thrown my way. I have never been the most flexible, or resilient, of people, but I think I would have to say that these qualities may be at an all-time low. The Aging Body Syndrome? Or just a psychological withdrawal from the inevitable slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? I don't know, but there it is, another argument against air travel, which is full of curve balls these days.

This United agent worked with me for a very long time, trying to get me home sometime on Friday. I will say right now that he was the only United employee I encountered on either of my trips who impressed me with his courtesy, his patience, his frequently-expressed concern for my plight. Re that last: people need to hear that their situation is sympathized with -- it's like needing a good bedside manner from your physician. You don't just want the cold hard facts, you want sympathy.

But I couldn't get it through my head why people like myself who had tickets for today, couldn't get home before people who had tickets for tomorrow. "Why can't you bring out another plane, to transport all these people from today?" I wanted to know. Farrell patiently explained that it wasn't just a matter of more planes, that there was a limit on how much traffic you could put up into the air, into the various air lanes. This actually made a little sense to me, although I still felt (and still feel!) that the airlines, and air traffic control, should be prepared for these kinds of situations with just such emergency traffic, to keep thousands of people from spending days trying to get home, when they were expecting it to take them hours.

And despite my dismay at my own plight, I could look around and see lots of people I sympathized with even more, especially people traveling with small children. And it was the holidays: lots of people traveling with small children, on their way back from Grandma's house. Imagine having to cope with the news that it could be a couple of days before you reached your destination, with no luggage, but two tired toddlers on your hands.

Ultimately the best Farrell could do for me was get me on a 4 p.m. flight to Boston, whence, I knew, I could get a shuttle bus to the bus/train station in Portland, whence I could (presumably) get a taxi to the Portland jetport. Farrell then placed the phone call to the service that arranges accommodations for stranded passengers; I picked the one whose discounted charges I felt this Starving Librarian could afford (my delay ended up costing me an additional $138, since I also had to keep myself fed for an extra 21 hours, and anything you buy to eat in an airport costs at least $10). Farrell explained to me that because my overnight was the result of weather, something over which the airlines had no control, he could not offer me full payment for my room, but only a discount coupon. Yes, well.

And the fun still wasn't over...