Flying the Friendly Skies When the Skies are NOT so Friendly: A True Story With a Happy Ending!

Wednesday night, July 13, 2016, thunderstorms caused 285 flights to be cancelled at Chicago's O'Hare Airport. 

Two-hundred and eighty-five flights full of humans who had no place to stay that night.  The hotels were full.  Connecting flights were missed.  Some were unable to reschedule for the next day. 

The airlines set up cots.  Cots and cots and cots.  Hundreds of cots so the passengers would have a place to sleep that night.  Even if the airlines were willing to pay for hotel rooms, there were none available. 

Yes.  You guessed it.  My flight on United Airlines was scheduled to leave Chicago's O'Hare airport at 7:35 PM that night to arrive in Charleston at 10:55 PM.  I was expecting to get home by midnight at the latest.

Having read about recent TSA security checks at O'Hare taking hours and hours, I arrived at the airport around 5:00 PM that evening in order to have plenty of time to make it through security.  

Then I discovered that I had been chosen to be one of the few people to get to go through the TSA Precheck security lines instead of regular security!  Took two minutes if that.  I remember thinking that was almost as easy as in the old pre-9/11 days.  Then I thought  I might have to go through another security check somewhere later on my way to the gate, but nope.  That was it!  Yay! 

So I was there early, all checked-in, boarding pass in hand on my phone, found the correct United Airlines terminal and original boarding gate.  I even found a seat with a plug to charge my cell phone.  I was thinking, "Life is good!" 

I should never think or say things like that.  It tempts the fates.

The United Airlines app on my cell phone saved my sanity by the end of the night.  That app is GREAT!  I didn't even have to get in line for ticketing.  United just let me check in on my cell and displayed my Boarding Pass on my phone for scanning.  Easy peasey.  LOVE IT! 

That app also notified me every time there was a change to the time of my flight or to the boarding gate where I should be.  What a blessing!  My phone beeped and told me detailed pertinent information anytime something changed with my flight, which was often.  I never had to even look at a board for postings.  Thank goodness!  It would have been so much more stressful without that app. 

It wasn't long before I noticed other people's phones beeping at the same time as mine.  I ended up hanging out and talking to a whole group of people also trying to get to Charleston, whom I would not have met if our flight had been on time. 

All in all we changed boarding gates SIX times!  That is a personal record for me and I've been flying since the 1970s. 

The lines at Customer Service were ridiculously long.  At one point during the wait, someone announced that the Charleston flight was cancelled, so we all went to that Customer Service line to be rescheduled.  Then one of the passengers in our group overheard a United employee say he had made a mistake.  The Charleston flight was going to happen! 

Our fellow passenger came and got us all out of the Customer Service line.  What a nice person!!  I am very thankful someone told me before I had stood there worrying for an hour or more.  I'm sure the United employee would have told me when I made it to the front of the line, but it was a very long line.

Thank goodness for friendly travelers!! 😊

When we made it to the next current gate, I said, "I told you our flight is going to come and take us home!"  They all laughed because I'd been saying, "They're not going to cancel.  We're going home tonight," over and over and over all night.  At first they thought I was crazy.  They were skeptical, but by the end, they all believed me. 

The later it got and the more coffee we had the brighter the atmosphere was around our little traveling group.  We all told traveling stories and stories about our families. 

I discovered that one family had left San Francisco that morning at 6:00 AM and had pretty much spent their day in airline terminals.  They were trying to get to the man's sister's house in Summerville because the family had gone in together and rented an oceanfront beach house in Isle of Palms, SC for the week. 

Another woman traveled all the time for work and was headed home, etc. 

There were big discussions about which airports were the BEST and which airports were the WORST, as most of the people in the group were business travelers. 

We could see on the United Airlines app when our plane was finally in the air and on its way to us.  We all cheered its progress. 

We ended up having the best time in a bad situation.  We laughed.  We raised each others' spirits. It became a party.

Instead of grumbling because our plane was four hours late, we all just kept repeating how lucky we were that our plane was coming to take us home that night, and we weren't going to have to try to sleep on one of those cots.  We were so happy!!!

We finally boarded our plane at 11:37 PM Central Daylight Time, which was 12:37 AM for me because my body is on Eastern Daylight Time.  We landed in Charleston around 3:00 AM and I was home in bed by 4:00 AM or so.  I was very tired, but not nearly as stressed as I would have been had I not been prone to talk to strangers. 

The next morning I just happened to see this photo (below) that my friend, Sasha, had posted of a United Airlines plane in Charleston, SC the day my plane was so delayed because of thunderstorms. 

Sasha did not know that I was stuck in Chicago that day.  Sasha did not know I was flying United.  Nature just speaks to Sasha on a regular basis, so she takes fascinating and fantastic photographs that she thankfully shares. 

Sasha graciously gave me permission to show it to you.

As I look at this beautiful photo, I'm pretty sure God and my whole flock of Guardian Angels were on the job watching over me that day, and telling Sasha to take this photo to let me know I am never truly alone.  I am loved and miracles happen every single day if we only use our eyes and our hearts to see them.

This double rainbow is speaking straight from God to me, "Don't worry, Alice, United Airlines is bringing you home."

Blessings to you all!

Charleston International Airport, Charleston, SC
United Airlines - July 13, 2016
Photo Credit: Sasha Azevedo Photography