Where in the World?

I finally arrived home, 46 hours after leaving London Heathrow airport on Friday, March 16th. I wrote about the first part of that saga yesterday. At that time I had no idea how today would play out in this adventure I was wrapped up in. The snow fell thick and heavy during the night. There were two foot snow drifts up against my hotel window when I woke up this morning.

Since my return was so full of craziness and adventure, I’ve summed up the events below:

March 16th

• Woke up at 3:00 a.m. in London on March 16th.
• Travel to Heathrow. No traffic at 4:00 a.m. in the morning.
• Relatively easy check-in with Lufthansa.
• Arrived in Frankfurt around 8:30 a.m.
• The 747 developed a fuel leak before we board. Flight delay of 2 hours.
• Left Frankfurt around 12:30 p.m.
• Toddler began screaming right before take-off and continues to scream for almost 7 hours. The flight to Boston was 7 1/2 hours.
• 60 miles out from Boston, we started flying in a holding pattern due to the snow fall at Logan. Total time = 45 minutes.
• We began our approach to land and at 1800 feet elevation, the captain aborts the landing due to a low breaking coefficient on the runway (e.g. ice and snow).
• We circle north and west of Boston for 45 minutes. As we began the approach again, the captain got the call that Logan is closed.
• Toddler was still screaming.
• Someone made a decision to fly us to Bangor, Maine where we land around 6:00 p.m.
• We waited on the tarmac for about an hour. The plan was to fly back to Boston as soon as possible. Unfortunately the weather keeps Logan closed.
• Still sitting on the tarmac, we learned that the crew cannot fly anymore due to the fact that they have reached their flying limit for the day.
• We were told that a fresh crew will be flown up from Boston. The plan was to fly back to Boston in the evening.
• The captain informed us that the fresh crew cannot leave Boston because of the weather. 350 of us had already figured that out.
• The toddler screams some more.
• We exit the plane at 8:30 p.m. and sat in a holding area for one hour so that the one baggage worker can unload our 747 in the snow storm.
• At 9:30 we got through customs, grabbed our backs and fought each other (not really) to get on the bus to take us to the hotel.
• I walked in the snow about a block to a convenience store to grab snacks for dinner.
• Sleep overtook me at 11:30, some 24 hours since I woke up in London.

March 17th

• Leisure morning while on hold for 1 1/4 hours to find out when our plane will fly to Boston.
• ETA was 4:00 p.m.
• Got to the airport at 12:30 p.m. and checked in. New time for flight to Boston was 2:30. Excitement was in the air.
• Grabbed some lunch and stood in the security line for 30 minutes.
• We were now back in our holding area from last night where we got to wait until 2:35. Apparently a 2:30 take-off was optimistic.
• The toddler began screaming again
• Everyone rushed to get on the plane
• We sit for quite some time. Finally the captain gets on and tells us how the baggage handlers don’t have experience loading a 747 and are taking longer than usual.
• 3 (Three) hours later the last piece of luggage was loaded.
• Toddler screams for about 2 hours during this time.
• Next step was de-icing. The engines were shut off and the crew (2 people) began spraying the hot chemical on the wings.
• It took them 40 minutes to de-ice the plane because 1 of the 2 de-icing machines broke.
• The temperature continues to climb to sauna levels which puts everyone on edge and makes the toddler scream some more.
• Finally we take off and land about 7:00 p.m.
• Our luggage literally dribbles out of the carosel because of a jam.
• It took an hour for me to get my luggage. It was now 8:00 p.m.
• The toddler stopped crying.
• I drove home and arrived about 9:30 p.m.
• The entire adventure had taken 46 hours since I left London the previous day.

I would say that 98% of the time, I was quite calm and took everything in stride. It made the whole affair much easier to deal with. Several things fascinated me about this entire event. #1- The majority of the people were in really good spirits. They accepted the adventure and just went with the flow. #2 – As I mentioned yesterday, a wonderful camaraderie developed that “glued” everyone together. #3 – The flight attendants were fantastic. This could have been a really stressful occasion for them. #4 – Everyone tried to help each other either by talking or giving a hand with the luggage.

But most importantly, as we were waiting for our luggage, lots of people were talking to each other as new friendships had been formed. Business cards and contact information were being shared. People were actually saying what a great adventure they’d had. I’d never seen anything quite like it. I really enjoyed watching the interactions unfold. The people on this flight will be telling the stories of their adventure for quite some time.

It’s good to be home though.

Michael