{"id":49078,"date":"2012-11-09T11:31:19","date_gmt":"2012-11-09T18:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wend.ca\/?p=49078"},"modified":"2020-04-13T16:08:47","modified_gmt":"2020-04-13T20:08:47","slug":"of-swan-dives-and-sudden-stops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wend.ca\/?p=49078","title":{"rendered":"Of Swan Dives and Sudden Stops"},"content":{"rendered":"

This was a commute for the record books. It started with an earlier than normal trip to the airport. I had a feeling things would go badly… photos of Calgary snow started to appear on Twitter and Facebook and I wanted to see if I could get on the standby list for an earlier flight before the YYC airport closed.<\/p>\n

Ixnay to the tandbysay istlay. I made it all the way through the last check of security when the nice security lady stopped me and said, ummm, your flight was just cancelled<\/em>. I must have happened in the 20-seconds it took me to walk from the entrance ticket check to the security line. Still, I was better off than the woman behind me who somehow managed to lose her boarding pass in that 20-second walk.<\/p>\n

This is when the chaos started… and fortuitously, I was at the front of the customer service line when the mass of people from other cancelled flights started to rush over with their passive-aggressive sighs and frantic phone calls. Seconds later, the lady who was helping me suddenly exclaimed, oh shit<\/em> and frantically started typing. Moments later the printer spit out what she told me was one of the last confirmed tickets of the evening. Bless you counter lady!<\/em><\/p>\n

Obviously it was mad chaos on the cusp of this Remembrance Day long weekend. A few of my tweets sum up the experience.<\/p>\n

\n(7:04 PM)<\/strong> Oh yyc and your stupid snow. Flight passes don’t count for anything when your flight is cancelled…<\/p>\n

(7:14 PM)<\/strong> 430, 530, 630 flights all boarding right now… I’m 830.<\/p>\n

(8:56 PM)<\/strong> One more glass of wine before heading to the gate to see what mad chaos awaits.<\/p>\n

(9:06 PM)<\/strong> Well… there’s a plane attached to the gate. That’s one step further than my earlier flight.<\/p>\n

(9:13 PM)<\/strong> Flight seriously oversold and lots of upset passengers. My earlier insistence that AC give me a seat instead of standby was a good choice.<\/p>\n

(9:19 PM)<\/strong> And everyone rushes the poor person working the gate. She doesn’t even have her jacket off.<\/p>\n

(9:39 PM)<\/strong> Just witnessed an almost fistfight over overhead baggage space.<\/p>\n

(9:47 PM)<\/strong> And we’re leaving…<\/p>\n

(10:10 PM)<\/strong> And we’re sitting on the tarmac because yyc airport shut down again…<\/p>\n

(10:22 PM)<\/strong> Moving… and we’re off.<\/p>\n

(11:44 PM)<\/strong> Rough turbulence. We circled the city for 30mins, did a swan dive landing and slid to a spectacular stop. And I thought my job was stressful.<\/p>\n

(12:10 AM)<\/strong> Lotsa people in shorts and flipflops trying to unbury their car at the park-n-ride…<\/p>\n

(12:25 AM)<\/strong> Cabbie just told me that cab company is asking for 200 cars to head to the airport. All the flights are landing but there are no cabs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n