I woke up at 2 a.m. in San Francisco. My phone was blowing up with text messages from United Airlines. I was scheduled to fly to Newark, but that flight got canceled. They never rebooked me.
I headed to SFO at 3 a.m. The airport was busy. Video monitors were not working. Every red-eye had been canceled or postponed. No planes were arriving or taking off. After many failed attempts, I managed to get myself a seat on the 5 a.m. flight to Houston.
Unfortunately, by 4:20 a.m., there were still no United representatives at the gate. People were starting to get a bit surly—especially those who’d been up all night. Lots of folks were snoring on the floor. There were several families with small children. Parents were having loud conversations on speaker phone—for the whole world to hear. Kids were playing video games—sans headphones. Everyone in the vicinity had to endure the sounds of machine guns firing, intermittent explosions, and loud telephone chatter. Fun times. Great kids. Great parents. Every so often, their mom would look over and say, “Shhh.” They barely acknowledged her. The whole place started to look like a scene from one of those rom-com movies when thousands of unsuspecting travelers are stranded in an airport all weekend after a bad storm hits their town.
Well, the 5 a.m. flight eventually boarded at 7:30 a.m. As the plane was filling up, I noticed the middle seat between me (window) and the aisle was vacant. Just as my row mate and I acknowledged the empty seat between us, we noticed a 6’6” mute creature looming over us. Let’s just refer to him as Paul Bunyan. I knew Paul was in the wrong row. However, he just stood there (silently) and then somehow stepped over the guy in the aisle and landed himself in seat 10B. Paul sat there stoically—and then his mouth breathing began.
The hot-headed guy sitting on the aisle was fuming. He didn’t like what was happening. A flight attendant witnessed everything and politely asked Paul Bunyan if he was in the correct seat. He presented her a boarding pass with seat 9B on it. She explained that he was not in the correct seat. Paul just stared at her, mouth breathing and expressionless. The flight attendants were totally out of energy and patience. They chose to ignore Paul Bunyan and let him sit next to us, stuffed uncomfortably into seat 10B. Hilarious.
I noticed that every afternoon flight from Houston to New York City was delayed. The next plane was set to leave from gate D44. It took about 20 minutes to walk there. A few passengers were huddled around Liam, a young United Airlines representative who was helping a distraught woman trying to get to Australia. It became very apparent Liam was going to help me get out of Houston. I had spoken to two gate agents and had four unsuccessful chats on the United app, trying to get on the next flight to New York. The best any of them offered was a late-night flight to Newark that had already been rescheduled twice. Long story short, Liam deserves a trophy. He remained calm, cool, and collected while everyone around him lost their minds. Not only did he get me on the next flight to New York City, but he also gave me a very good seat. Thank you, Liam.
All things considered, today has ended very much the way it was supposed to. I am sitting at the bar in my Manhattan hotel. Found an awesome pizza place on 6th Avenue for a late-night dinner. The moon is full and the weather is warm. Feels so good to be back in New York, New York.
you have the plane thing down. I wouldn' t have braved the airport.