Sunday, December 19, 2010

Spoke Too Soon

Yes, I know that I said the previous post was my last post, but I take that back. This is my last post. And I will attempt to explain (quickly, as I hate reliving this experience) why exactly the last post did not end up becoming a reality.

As many of you know, I had a flight to leave London this morning at 10:15 am. As I post this, I would have been landing in Chicago had everything gone according to plan. As you may know, if you've been watching the news, London got hit by a snowstorm yesterday, although their definition of snow storm and mine differ greatly. Basically all of the flights yesterday were canceled, and thus Heathrow became filled with travellers who had nowhere to go. People were sleeping in the aisles, and it was impossible to move. This is the situation that I entered this morning at 6:30 am, when I attempted to check in to my flight.

There were about 5 separate lines feeding into the American Airlines counters, which basically meant a giant mob of people waiting for something to happen. No one knew what was going on, and there were very few employees walking around. Those employees that you did manage to pull aside to talk to had no clue what was going on and were thus completely useless. People could barely walk through the airport, as there were just mobs of people everywhere.

Eventually, I found out that my flight had been cancelled. My parents have now gotten me onto a flight that supposedly leaves on Friday, but we'll see how that works out. According to the Heathrow website, there will be more flight cancellations and delays tomorrow, so I'm not too hopeful that I'll actually make it home in time for Christmas. I may not make it home at all this break. I sincerely hope that won't be the case, but I don't want to get my hopes up and end up nearly bursting into tears at the airport again.

This is ridiculous and I am utterly disappointed in the Heathrow airport. This is disgraceful for one of the most important international airports in the world, and especially now, during the busiest travel season of the year. They should have been prepared for this, and I hope they correct their stupidity as soon as possible.

That's about all that I can bring myself to write at the moment, as I am furious and don't want to get myself too riled up online. If I find out any more information, I'll be updating my blog. Until then, wish me luck.

Love you all
Emily