I used to like flying

Two weeks ago I was counting down the days to go home, to go to Belgium to see Koen, family and friends and to enjoy the x-mas holidays.

Therefore, I checked the weather multiple times a day, since the whole month of December it snowed a lot in Europe and quite often airports had to close and airplanes would not be able to land or take off.
I tracked the origin of both of my flights (Boston – Newark, Newark- Brussels) two days ahead of departure and everything seemed fine. No big snowstorms were expected in Boston neither in New York and there would also not be a lot of snow any more in Europe. In Brussels Airport the deicing product arrived again as well so everything seemed to work out in the end.

On Thursday I was all set for a smooth ride to Brussels.
I made sure to arrive way ahead of schedule in Boston Logan International Airport. And waited patiently until the flight would take off.
About 10 minutes before boarding time a very unexpected and unpleasant time change was visible on the boards. Instead of a take off around 4pm it became 5pm. The responsible Continental Airline officer made the announcement that all passengers with a connecting flight after 6:45pm in Newark would make their flight. The others on the other hand had to present themselves to the officer. My connecting flight to Brussels was at 6:30pm! *sigh* I used to like flying... Then again 2 minutes later the take off time on the board changed again to 4pm instead of 5pm. The officer announced again to wait until they got confirmation about the real take off time and unfortunately 10 minutes later, I had to get in line and received the information that there was a small chance I would make the flight to Brussels and if I did not make it I would be on a 10pm flight from Newark to London.
I was already relieved to hear I would make it to the European continent that night, but at the same time I was still upset that for some reason unrelated to the weather I would possibly not make it home in time. Of course there is nothing you can do then try to stay calm and follow the instructions of the officer. They called me again to give me a seat all the way in the front of the aircraft so I could get out quickly and run for the flight to Brussels. I asked one of the officers what would happen to my luggage if I made the flight to Brussels, since I assumed that I could run faster than my luggage could be transported to the correct plane, but she replied me that if I would make the flight so would my suit case. And in case it did not it would probably be delayed with a day.

Another 20 minutes later the officer announced again that the crew also wanted to make it out of Boston ASAP and that they would start boarding and hopefully be able to take off sooner than expected. And so we took off in Boston a bit before 5pm and would arrive in Newark about 40 minutes later.
By the time the aircraft reached the gate it was 6pm. I had about 10 minutes to get form gate 96 to 116. This does not seem that far of a run but unfortunately in Newark it definitely is. I jumped out of my seat, almost ran over the responsible officer that had to open the door to the airport and felt like Forest Gump. I ran like crazy with my backpack bothering me, I was thirsty like hell, my mouth was extremely dry and I had to catch my breath regularly but could not take breaks for too long. I ran about half a mile to gate 116 when I heard the final call for the flight to Brussels. The lady saw me and asked me surprisingly whether I came from the Boston flight, when I confirmed she said: “wow you ran huh?” I told her “yes” and that it was a close call.

I got in my seat and started coughing non-stop for about 10 minutes, but felt extremely happy to have made the flight. I slept a lot on the plane as usual, refused the dinner as usual but got hungry at breakfast time. The croissant, juice and fruit tasted very good, considered it being airplane food. And then the pilot told the crew to prepare for landing. I was almost home! We could see the massive amounts of snow in Brussels and I thought this was the accumulation of the month of snow showers they had in Belgium. It also looked like there was snow on the landing track so everybody was kind of worried when the tires hit the ground and equally relieved when we did not slide but arrived safely and even 10 minutes ahead of schedule.
A lot of the people on board had a connecting flight to other European cities like the guy who was sitting next to me who had to go to Cyprus. For them everything seem to work out since we arrived a little earlier until the aircraft stopped moving, far from any gate. The crew announced that there was an aircraft that had to be deiced blocking our gate, so we had to wait until this deicing procedure was done before we could get to the gate. They expected this to take about 15 min. Some people started to get a little more worried already although with a small delay of 15 min they would still make their connecting flight. Another 15 minutes later the aircraft started moving again but stopped about 20 meters before the gate. The crew made a new announcement: we arrived at a new gate because the other one was still blocked by that aircraft, but at this new gate a lot of snow was piled up and had to be plowed before we could get to the tube. Another 15 minutes later we arrived at the tube but unfortunately this tube was filled with snow as well and had to be deiced before it could reach the aircraft. The expected delay was another 30 minutes. A lot of people started nagging and complaining, sighing and got frustrated. The guy in the seat next to me was already worried to miss his flight to Cyprus but then the crew announced that all flights got delayed because of a massive snow shower that morning in Belgium. It got even worse when the guy next to me found out his flight got canceled…

And so an hour after we landed in Brussels we got out of the airplane. I was extremely happy to have made it and I didn’t even care too much about whether my suit case did or not, although all the presents for x-mas were packed in those two bags. I got through the passport control, went to the baggage claim area and noticed a complete chaos. A couple of hundreds of people were waiting for luggage, and hundreds or maybe even thousand suit cases were stored in the baggage claim area and waited to be picked up by their owner. A guy speaking French got extremely upset with the SN Brussels Airlines officer because he was waiting for 4 days to get his luggage (at least that was what I could understand of the 'conversation') but this officer could clearly not be held responsible for this situation. Two cops came to calm the French speaking guy down and even then he kept on yelling at everybody. Another girl speaking English got evenly upset but instead of trying to hurt the officer she shouted and almost started to cry. I did understand the anger since I would have been extremely upset as well if I wouldn't have made it to Belgium this time but I still think those people behind that desk are not the ones to shout to. They just try to do their job and I must say they stayed extremely calm taking all these insults etc. In the mean time an hour passed by without any luggage of the CO 60 flight. The sign said:” baggage delayed…..Baggage vertraagd….Baggage en retard…verspäten gepack”. Some other passengers got impatient and asked employees of SN what the deal of the luggage was. One of them responded that it could take 2-4 hours before the luggage reached the baggage claim area because fewer employees were working outside that day because of the bad weather conditions.
I decided to call Koen with the pay phone at 11 am in case my luggage had not appeared by then. Around 10:30 am, the baggage finally started coming on the roll band and miraculously both my suit cases made the trip with me. I felt like running towards the exit but carrying two heavy suit cased prevented me from going any faster than 5km/h. I left the baggage claim area and quickly looked around. Hundreds of people were waiting for their loved ones. December 24th is one of the busiest days at airports. And then I saw somebody waving at me, a cute smile below the waving hand, I saw Koen, gave him a big hug, a sweet kiss, and another hug. I made it! Home sweet Home :-)

Koen told me afterwards that he heard about another NYC flight from AA that got diverted to London and was now stuck in London since Brussels Airport was closed since 8 am. My flight arrived at 7:50 am. I realized I had been extremely lucky and felt very sorry for all the other passengers on the flight that were suppose to take their connecting flight to their loved ones. So I was very thankful and enjoyed the feeling of those sweet familiar arms around me again…