A series of essays….
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AN AMAZING PLACE TO STAY IN NORTHERN DEVON - THE BONNICOTT HOTEL IN LYNMOUTH, U.K. |
….as seen through my eyes!
By: Jacqueline E Hughes
I will assure you, nobody likes being teased about whether or not their flight will take off, especially when it is at the very beginning of a well-planned, milestone marked, and highly promising trip (adventure). And, for certain, no one would choose spending the first night of this trip sleeping (basically sitting upright all night) in an uncomfortable chair at Gate 19, American Airlines, O’Hare Airport, Chicago, Illinois. Oh, yes…we did just that!
We were to take-off for London Heathrow from Chicago at 9:25 PM and, around an hour before boarding (with no plane in sight at the gate) we were told the flight was delayed by a half an hour. Okay, stuff happens. We generously conceded. Still no plane to be seen. Nobody was offering our rather large group of passengers any sort of explanation or even looking our way. Instead, five to six gate agents were entertaining one another with stories and bouts of laughter and disjointed camaraderie. What was that all about, anyway?
Each half an hour brought yet another posted delay until each delay turned into one hour increments. By now, families with young children had gone far beyond bedtimes and general comforting by relatives on all levels. Again, may I point out that even though many of us may have inconveniently interrupted the frolicking agents to inquire about our late flight, most of us learned of our dilemma by reading the boards that pointed out each and every delay or by checking our own devices on the American Airlines Website to gain any updates or information.
Finally, shortly after midnight, a large, dazzlingly white Boeing 787 emblazoned with American Airline symbols was positioned at our gate. May I say that loud cheers emanated from the weary crowd as children were awakened and belongings gathered. An agent, finally, came on the intercom to explain that we would be boarding in around twenty minutes. She would let us know for sure as time passed. The entire scenario still felt a bit questionable and surreal to us as we watched luggage, as well as commercial cargo, being sucked into the belly of this huge airliner.
The time arrived and we were being guided down the jet bridge, at last! Stowing our carry on luggage above us and personal items below, it was such an amazing feeling to be snuggling into our seats and buckling up for the long flight to Heathrow. All smiles were genuine and long, long overdue. Life always has its small setbacks and this was just another one that would be gladly forgotten once we reached our destination. Dan had already contacted the car rental company at Heathrow and The Bonnicott Hotel in Lynmouth, North Devon, to note our late departure from Chicago. All bases were covered.
Then the captain came on the intercom….
“Folks, the plane has been having some mechanical difficulties and in order to work them out, I must ask that everyone disembark from the aircraft and take all of your personal items along with you.”
Gut punch. How much can your system take before breaking down completely? You never saw so many sad and angry people dragging themselves back through the same jet bridge they’d recently been thrilled to maneuver going in the opposite direction. My instincts had been correct, unfortunately. The negativity remained swirling around all of us like a dark cloud on a stormy night with no relief in sight. And, the inevitable rain was soon to become our own monsoon mixed with the fury of high winds and a genuine dislike of a questionable airline that many travelers have personally avoided at all costs.
I’m no Sherlock Holmes or anything, but when something smells fishy that’s because something is fishy and even though we may not have had all the details leading up to this smelly predicament, the aroma may be all we needed to help us make changes or improvements.
Now our flight was delayed until 4:00 AM. At least that’s what the board was telling us considering not a living soul spoke another word to us as we diligently attempted to be calm and follow along with what information we could glean.
Mind you—they had us board a plane and then took us off that plane making us feel like lambs going to slaughter; degrading us without a reasonable explanation before pulling the plane away from Gate 19, never to be seen again.
Around the time Dan and I reasoned that our first full day in England was doomed, lost, and behind us, Dan took off in an attempt to secure another flight out of Chicago. We’d been emailed that another American flight would be taking off at 10:30 AM and arriving around 11:30 PM London time. The few seats left on this flight were gobbled up faster than Thanksgiving dinner and my stomach felt like it, too. Did I mention that our original flight had been officially cancelled via email around six o’clock? And, in all that time we heard only two voices over the intercom: one gate agent and the (supposed) captain of the ‘ghost flight’ on a huge 787 airliner that had disappeared from our gate soon after we disembarked.
We were left in the dark as we made our way over to the International Flight Terminal where our new departure was scheduled for 4:50 PM on British Airways, an affiliate of American. Dan’s hustle got us headed in the right direction, finally.
With one lost day behind us, we hoped that our spirit would keep us afloat for the rest of the trip and, for the most part, it did. Our time in Devon and Cornwall had been diminished by one full day so, we sat on this flight trying to rearrange our initial itinerary and counting our losses as in one, pre-paid hotel night at the Bonnicott Hotel, situated high up on a hilltop with a clear view of the Bristol Channel and Wales on the opposite shoreline.
In all our years of traveling and taking many different air carriers in order to reach our destination, chalk this one up as the worst experience we’d ever had. But, doesn’t this fit right in with our changing times, after all? Our world is different; the process of making people (customers) aware of what is going on at any given time and feel more comfortable if not knowledgeable, is gone, for now. Keeping silent is much easier than being honest and transparent.
Here’s hoping that a compromise will be reached within all facets of life and that we will relearn that kindness is the key word to making everything better and more tolerable no matter what hardships may arise in our lifetime. In the meantime, as the Brits always say, the best way to get through anything seems to be to Keep Calm and Carry On. For the most part, we did.
After landing in England, Dan and I learned about the computer hacking incident of the control operators at Heathrow and pieced things together. We became even angrier that flights like ours were used as sacrificial lambs and the passengers kept in the dark about the truth and played with for hours before they cancelled our flights! How many others lost an entire day of their vacations, let alone the money and time involved, before learning the reason behind it all? Email conversations with American Airlines are ongoing at this time. I will keep you posted.
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| MOVING ON…..2013-2023 |
Copyright © 2023 by Jacqueline E Hughes
All rights reserved
