On Strike

In late July after nine fabulous days in Ireland, Michael and I headed to the Dublin airport to fly to Minneapolis and then home. I didn’t think I was ready for the trip to be over until we arrived at the terminal and suddenly longed to be home sleeping in my own bed. Upon arrival that Friday morning, we were funneled into a long, snaking line to check our boarding passes. The line moved at a fairly quick pace until it suddenly didn’t and we came to a screeching halt. We watched frequent and serious conversations among airport employees with head nods and concerned looks as the queue grew and grew. Within minutes the buzz making its way from person-to-person like an old-fashioned game of telephone was that there was a global computer problem affecting flights.

After a long while where the panic over missed flights hung over the line like storm clouds, we began moving and were on our way to security and immigration. Things were understandedly backed up and a wee bit tense at each stop but we had arrived in plenty of time for our flight. We headed to the duty-free shops to get some Irish whiskey and chocolate to bring home because priorities. I crammed my sealed bag of spirits into my backpack, Michael took the chocolate, and we headed to the gate. By this point we had looked at our phones enough to know this was a much bigger problem than we thought and its name was Crowdstrike. Were we worried? No, there was a plane sitting at our gate that may as well have had a banner saying CONGRATULATIONS, WEARY TRAVELER, YOU GET TO GO HOME UNLIKE THESE OTHER POOR SUCKERS.

We waited and waited and then waited. The flight got delayed over and over. The terminal started to fill to capacity but we found a small table with two chairs to sit and people watch while the covidy respitory particles of hundreds of people filled the air. Then suddenly it was announced that our plane sitting at the gate, our plane with our banner was going to be used for a flight to New York and we were like BUT WHAT ABOUT US? WE WERE HERE FIRST!! Mr. Irish Lad Gate Agent who was understandably stressed said calm down peoples the next one coming is going to Minneapolis. After two hours had passed with frequent alerts from Delta giving us new departure times, Michael said we may as well have some lunch and since there was a restaurant right next to our gate it seemed like a good idea. We could easily ditch our crappy airport sandwiches when our flight started to board.

Hahahahahahaha……

After a couple more hours had passed and on my way back from getting our third bag of Peanut M&Ms, I looked for our flight on the departure board and in red it said CANCELED. I made my way through the sea of travelers to tell Michael who said that couldn’t be because he hadn’t gotten a text message from Delta and thirty seconds later his phone dinged. By then Mr. Irish Lad Gate Agent, who had every bit of customer service wrung out of him, could only point and say, “Go that away” so we followed everyone else down a set of stairs. And who was meeting us at the bottom of the stairs? Delta employees who were taking our duty-free purchases for safekeeping because we wouldn’t be able to reenter the airport with them and we were like WE’RE NOT LEAVING THE AIRPORT YOU DOPES. WE ARE FLYING HOME TODAY.

We had no idea what to do next and no guidance from the airlines so we followed people who looked like they knew what they were doing which is how we ended up in baggage claim – luggage back in hand. We rolled our vacation life to the Delta counter where a very cheerful agent said, “I am here to help you,” which we took to mean rebooking our flight. She smiled and said, “No, you silly gooses, you are going to be in a hotel tonight, a lovely hotel with comped food for your troubles.” We said, “Thank you so much but we are wanting to get home,” and it was as if she didn’t hear a thing we said. “We are waiting on the next bus to take you to your hotel,” she said, “and you can get on the Delta app when you’re there and rebook your flight.”

We were first in line for the next bus which arrived at the curb and the driver disappeared. Nobody could find him for at least fifteen minutes which is probably as long as it took to enjoy a ciggy in peace and quiet before driving a bunch of cranky travelers somewhere they didn’t want to be. We boarded and arrived at the hotel which was quite nice and took the sting out of wearing the same unwashed clothes one last time. We got a room and immediately worked our phones, Michael’s laptop, and the universe to get through to Delta to rebook our flights with zero luck. In desperation, Michael emailed his admin for help on her end and after some back and forth between them we were booked on a United flight for the next day.

The next morning we packed up and headed to the breakfast buffet before taking an Uber to the airport. We sat down next to a couple about our age from North Dakota who asked us if we were on the Delta flight to Minneapolis which started a lively conversation about our previous day’s travel. They were surprised we got a flight out as they were part of a tour group and their agent was trying to rebook 43 tickets which seemed like a nightmare. It was a friendly back and forth and then the woman said, “Dave and I read our devotional every morning and today’s was perfect.” Did we ask what it said? We did not but Fargo plowed ahead and I don’t remember it exactly so I will paraphrase it. Yea, though thou walks thru the shadow of death known to thee as THE AIRPORT, thou shall not want because I have given thee a thimble of patience. Nay, scratch that, my beloved, that’s too much. I have given thee enough patience to fit in the eye of the needle and so thou should go forth in the name of the Lord and call upon me in times of flight troubles for I am your rock. No, it’s wings, yes, definitely wings.“When we read that this morning I said to Dave well of all the things we needed to hear today. Isn’t that perfect? I mean we’re going to need patience, aren’t we?” I had an oh-for-chrissakes look written all over my face as I sipped my coffee and then Michael said, “Welp, we better shove off now,” and we shoved off very very fast.

An hour later we were in the Dublin airport for our flight. It was calm and quiet unlike the day before and we went through security and immigration and picked up our confiscated whiskey and chocolate. We took the escalator upstairs to our gate which was void of frustrated faces, crying babies, or the elderly trying to manage a walker through throngs of people. It was civil like traveling used to be once upon a time. Seven hours later we arrived in Newark for a four-hour layover before boarding our next flight. We sat at a bar to get something to eat and a glass of not-fine-wine that cost $22 a glass. Grossly overpriced? Why yes it was, and we didn’t care.

We made our way to the gate area where Newark airport decided to put long tables with chairs so one could sit upright like they’re at their job and write a letter to their grandma while they waited to board. This seemed like a major design flaw as weary travelers merely need a decent slouchy chair with a charger so they can doom scroll until they hate their life a little less or can get out of Dodge. But nobody asked me and at the packed gate it was announced that though it was time to board one of the flight attendants had gone to the wrong gate and we would have to wait for her to arrive at our gate.

We waited so long I wondered if the flight attendant was at the wrong gate at the wrong airport. The gate agent at one point had enough, walked away, and took a seat (on one of the few comfy chairs) to bitch about work with another gate agent and I was like SHOULDN’T YOU BE OVER THERE DOING YOUR JOB???? When the flight attendant finally arrived everyone started clapping like that was a normal thing to do when an employee shows up an hour late for work. We boarded and sat while a minor mechanical issue was addressed and by minor I mean we didn’t move for another hour. Michael and I didn’t sit together, stuck in the middle of different rows like the white part of an Oreo cookie. I couldn’t sleep because I was distracted by the four-year-old in the row in front of me who kept punching his mom when anything didn’t go his way. When we arrived in Kansas City, close to midnight to an empty airport, we had to wait for a gate and by that point I believed we had moved from the passenger category to hostage.

Five weeks later we went to Canada for another meeting for Michael. It was a fast flight to Detroit and then to Montreal – easy and uneventful. We stayed at the Doubletree Hotel which was where the meeting was being held. Our first night we took a long walk in search of a place to eat and ended up at a fantastic Indian restaurant The next morning we had breakfast in the hotel then came back to the room to gather our stuff for a day of sightseeing. I tidyed up before leaving saying to Michael, “I don’t want the housekeepers to think we’re lazy, American slobs.” Hours later we returned to our room looking exactly as we had left it. That’s when we learned that the housekeeping staff was on strike. Was this city wide? No, just at Doubletree hotels.

On our last full day in the city we walked to the Ritz-Carlton because the retired owner where I work said it had the most beautiful bar in North America and we had to check it out. That might have been a bit exaggerated but we went and as soon as I walked in the first thing I noticed was that the Ritz didn’t smell like mildew from hundreds of unwashed towels. Since it was only 11:30 in the morning we each had a mocktail that was spritzed with a little geranium which I didn’t even know was a thing and had a lovely conversation with the bartender who didn’t seem stressed and ready to snap like everyone working at our hotel.

Later this fall Michael has a trip to Omaha which I took a pass on because I’ve already been there and I’m feeling a bit striked out. I did, however, discover you can buy an oil from Amazon that smells like the Ritz Carlton. It came the other day and it’s so lovely – a fragrant mix of well-paid employees, impeccable service, and clean towels.