December 23, 2006

• Trapped in the Airport

   

  
  

  

  
  

  Yes, hard as it may be to believe, it’s been six years as of today since I signed up for Xanga (here). Makes me wistful enough to actually try it again.

  
  

  Now, on to the news…

  
  

  In case you didn’t hear, a massive blizzard hit Colorado this week and shut down Denver International Airport for over 48 hours. Guess what? We had a flight to Atlanta scheduled at 10:25 a.m. Wednesday. It was snowing that morning, but not “blizzard” conditions yet… we arrived around 8:25, and the flight was listed “on-time.” We checked-in, checked baggage, and the flight was still listed “on-time.” We proceeded downstairs through security, took the train to the concourse, came up the escalator to the gate level and saw the monitor… CANCELLED. Less than an hour before departure, and now we were stuck.

  
  

  We waited in line to check with customer service about rebooking. We waited for around two hours, and then they told us lines were shorter back in the main terminal; and so there we returned. Though there were more agents at the counter, the terminal line was actually longer. We waited around another two hours, and finally got to the counter. We were told we were rebooked for Saturday night at 7 p.m.– and first-class to boot. At the time it sounded bad, because that would cut four days– over half the time– off of our trip. But we weren’t about to argue at that point.

  
  

  That was about the time that the airport officially closed. They tentatively planned to re-open the next (Thursday) afternoon. Later that was postponed to 7 p.m Thursday, then 9 p.m. Thursday, and finally to noon Friday. That meant that all the people who were rebooked on flights for Thursday or Friday morning would have to be re-rebooked– and made us feel lucky that ours was not until Saturday. We wouldn’t have to go through the process again, and would still arrive before Christmas, which quickly became a fleeting hope for many travelers.

  
  

  In the meantime, though, we were still stuck in the airport. Joyce (my mother-in-law) had driven us there that morning, but conditions had worsened significantly in the meantime– she had a white-knuckle drive back home, and several more hours had now passed. We could not, in good conscience, ask her to come back for us, being that she’s 65 and also would have three small kids in tow. We hoped that we could catch one of the SkyRide busses that would at least take us near our house, where it would be safer for her to pick us up; but we kept chasing out of the doors (not desiring to stand in 30-mph winds dumping several inches of snow an hour) to check each bus– and you had to get literally right up next to the bus to read the sign, as visibility was zero. We repeated this process for an hour, but the bus we needed never showed. Finally, around 3 p.m., we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to camp out in the airport for the night– along with as many as 5,000 other stranded passengers.

  
  

  It wasn’t too bad, all things considered. We grabbed a trio of seats facing the International Arrivals gate. Seated alongside us were three older gentleman who soon would become fast friends: Gene, Jeff, and George. When they started distributing “accommodations” for the evening, one of them managed to get a cot, but we did not.

  
  

  To be continued…

  • 1:53 pm
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