I Made It!

Well considering the events of the past 3 days and the rest of my history with airplanes and airports, I probably should never get on a plane again. Seriously. Whether I am flying halfway across the world or just up and down the east coast, I will always, inevitably, have some kind of delay or cancellation, caused by a mechanical problem, weather, or just my own stupidity.

It all started when I flew to New Zealand the summer before my junior year for a study abroad program. It was the first time that I had ever flown by myself and I was freaking out a little bit. I started freaking out a little bit more when massive thunderstorms over Dallas forced my plane to make a pit stop in Oklahoma City for 45 minutes... Needless to say that by the time I finally made it to Dallas both my sanity and my connection to LA were hopelessly gone. About eight hours later I finally made it to LA, three hours after my 9pm flight to NZ had left... One free hotel stay later, I finally made it to NZ on the next plane out of LA (another 9pm-er). And did I mention that in the process I lost a piece of luggage and did not get it back until I flew to Australia 2.5 weeks later... and the process of getting it back almost made me miss that plane too? Good times.

After an experience like that you'd think that I would try to steer clear of those huge metal birds that caused me so much emotional wear and tear, but since then I've sort of caught the flying bug. Seriously, I love it!

Of course, almost every time I fly something weird happens that makes me think that maybe my plane karma isn't up to par...

One spring break, my friend and I flew to London and Paris. The flight there was ok, but then when we were flying home, I was informed that the final leg of my flight had been cancelled, but I was rebooked. Then weather in JFK delayed my flight by about two hours. Then weather in Richmond caused them to load up on extra fuel on my teeny 48ish seater plane, in case we'd have to taxi in the air a little before landing. So, they gave us an ultimatum, five people had to get off the plane, or we wouldn't (couldn't) take off. Great. I did finally make it home although, when I did I thought that I had lost a piece of luggage... but it turned out that some idiot had just left it out on the tarmac and forgotten to put it on the luggage return belt thinger.

Over the summer I flew to Denver for a publishing program. It was right after Delta and Northwest merged. Without realizing it, I booked my Delta flight through Northwest's website, so when I went to print my boarding pass at the airport through the Delta kiosk, it wouldn't work. Through a lot of unfortunate circumstances and miscommunication, I missed my flight, even though I was at the airport over an hour and a half before it took off. That one really sucked.

My most recent airplane dilemmas occurred on Sunday and then again on Tuesday. I was supposed to fly to Vermont from FL on Sunday morning at 11. When I checked into my flight on Saturday everything was normal. When I checked the status of my flights before I left for the airport, everything was normal. When I checked in at the airport, I was informed that my flights had been delayed... until Tuesday. The result... two extra days in Florida! Woo-hoo! It was tough, but I managed. My only qualm was that on my rebooked flights, I only had a 45 minute layover... in my mind, that's just a recipe for disaster. And, surprise surprise, it almost was! Thanks to my plane's mechanical distress my flight out of FL was delayed by about 35 min, cutting my layover time to about 20 min. Since I had to switch terminals, lots of running was involved, but I made it!

Thanks to all the aforementioned experiences and many many more, I am now completely paranoid of missing my flight/any connections, so I always try to get to the airport between 2 and 2 and a half hours before my flight is supposed to leave (unless its god awful early one, then I just get there asap!) and I try to schedule my flights with super long layovers... anything less than 90 minutes starts to make my tummy rumble and my adrenaline pump, because (again) I am paranoid that I will miss my connection because of some delay or issue. Consequently I have learned to really love airports. I love exploring them and checking out the shops and then when I'm finished with all that I will curl up on one of those 'super comfy' airport chairs and read a book, while sipping tea or eating a croissant.

I love it! Unless, of course, my plane has been delayed... which it usually has.