I Want Out

I can't tell you how relieved I was when the JetBlue kiosk at JFK printed out a boarding pass for me when I checked in. When I walked in the terminal was absolutely wall-to-wall bodies and luggage, which wasn't a good sign. And the night before I saw a story on the local news that some JetBlue flight had spent something like 11 hours on the tarmac before they finally canceled the flight. So color me nervous when I walked into the airport.

My fellow traveler was going to a different destination, and his kiosk politely told him that he needed to get in an extremely long line for a reason it wouldn't reveal. Maybe my flight isn't completely fucked, I thought.

I didn't see my flight on the departures board, however, so I started to get nervous again. But I got through security and to my gate without a problem, so…. Of course, I also walked by several dozen people asleep in the hallways, and one area was just like a giant slum, with empty bottles and plates scattered among the sleeping or reading passengers and their bags.

It was when I arrived at the gate that I knew something was wrong. My gate wasn't my gate anymore, it was a customer service line at least 100 feet long. The departures board still didn't have my flight, but I did notice that the morning flight to Charlotte was scheduled to leave just a few minutes before my 5:25 flight was supposed to go. That can't be good, I thought.

So a call to Mary, who confirmed that my flight had been delayed for 5 hours. After an hour in a shorter service line at the other end of the terminal, I found out the flight number of the inbound plane for my flight, and it too was delayed out of Austin. So right now I'm doing the only thing that I can do — having a drink at the bar and trying to get on JetBlue's free wireless that it advertises as an apology for the mess of their new terminal construction. Looks like that's not the only thing that's a mess.