If you’ve read the previous post you were left to believe that my travel trials were over - I was living large in the lounge getting ready for the hour flight back to NYC to finally go home.

The best laid plans of mice and men…..

I left the lounge to board the plane with impeccable timing, almost everyone was on, but they weren’t calling names of missing passengers yet. I grab 2 news papers and head to my seat.

I got comfortable in my seat, got the newspapers ready and sat back for the short flight.

The friendly flight attendant let us know there was bad weather in NYC so we were going to stay grounded until a bit later when they could open a window up for us and the weather cleared. No big deal, once everyone is on the plane and with a short flight this made a lot of sense as keeping the big bird in the sky is probably quite expensive. I read my paper and made friends with the two cougars beside me who were going to NYC for the first time and clearly were going to head out to have a party weekend; approximate age: 40-50. Normally I am a grumpy old man on the plane but they happened to be from Calgary so they had to be nice people .

Well Ms. flight attendant got on the microphone and let us know that for sitting still for the hour or so that we were going to be reward with a cancelled flight and once we got off the plane we should look for someone to help us. Holy Shit; mayhem is going to break loose - this plane is FULL! No only that this is the second time in a week my flight to NYC has been cancelled.

What occurred next was very much like a 5-6 year old hockey or soccer game.. Kids screaming and swarming together with little grace or purpose, but all running around together. I joined the swarming, expect I just needed to get on the phone to a Air Canada reservation desk and beat the rest of the mob who were new to this process as there would be a shortage for the remaining seats on the other planes leaving. I got on the 3:15 plane, although it was 3:10 when I got my ticket so it was going to be late.. I had the choice of that plane or the 4:15.. I figured they would land the next plane they could and not cancel 2 in a row so I grabbed the earlier one..

Okay, now finally I am going home… Nope, hold on to your horses.. delayed on the ground again for a while.. but then we take off. The plane has quite a few people that were on the cancelled flight so they think they are home free, I suspect we might have more in store.

As we get close to NYC the pilot tells us we are in a holding pattern. We circle for over an hour.. and then he gets on the intercom to let us know - We’re going to Boston! What the fsck is going on here.. I just want to go home. So we fly to Boston - and yup you guessed it, sit on the Tarmac. You see if anybody gets off the plane we all have to de-plane and go through security - there is some drama at the front of the plane as a pretty boy is making a fuss that he wants off and they can’t keep him on and he doesn’t care what happens he is leaving.. He deserved a punch in the nose.

We’re getting cozy now so they put a movie on for us while we wait in Boston - everyone is quite hungry by now and the flight attendants are from the old guard, so they are working as little as possible - although the lead flight attendant is starting to think she is a comedian and with a locked in crew she tries to be witty.. it doesn’t work for her. The movie is Robots - a cartoon.

Well we finally take off from Boston and take the 30 minutes flight to NYC. The sky was filled with planes, as you looked out the window you could see 4-6 planes at all times.

Even better we landed! So after 8 and half hours from boarding my first plane, I landed in NYC and get in a cab to go home, with 3 tarmac delays, 1 stop to Boston, 1 cartoon, and a hungry belly.