I just got back from a great vacation in New Mexico, visiting my brother and his family. More on that soon, including lots of photos. For now I want to tell about my adventure getting home.
Like Santa without Rudolf we left Albuquerque flying blindly into the heart of a massive snowstorm, heading to Denver to make a connection to New York.
Our flight out of Denver pulled out from the gate on time, but as we were waiting for our turn to take off, the rain turned to snow. We taxied off to the de-icing station and back, and by the time we were at the front of the takeoff queue again the pilot decided we needed another de-icing. The snow turned heavy and we taxied back to the de-icing station a third time. By this time an army of snowplows had been dispatched and it looked like they were only landing planes. After three hours of back and forth they finally closed the airport for takeoffs. Then there was a queue to get back to the gate so that took another hour and a half before we could get off the plane. By this time it was dark and the snow had turned back to rain.
Meanwhile the pilot was rather unhelpful with infrequent and inaccurate updates, and the chief stewardess, who was a dude, grew hostile and insulting to the passengers as time went on. After the second de-icing the announcement came for everyone to get back to their seats immediately, breaking up a long line to use the one and only bathroom in coach. But then the plane sat there for another half hour or more. From then on people just ignored the crew and things got a bit chaotic. One stewardess was nice and took a little extra concern over whether the kids are alright, which they were (thank you).
When we finally got off the plane our flight was canceled (although the plane took of bound for L.A. soon after) and there was no one from the airline to help us. We couldn’t really go anywhere because the kids were exhausted. The line at customer service about a quarter mile away already had hundreds of people waiting anyway. Luckily Jeannie was really heads up on the phone as went off in search of food. United was offering to rebook people on a flight on Sunday, but she pushed and got us on a Delta flight for the next morning to Kennedy. Then we got a hotel room, a cab, and finally we got to crash for the night close to midnight. I guess we were pretty lucky. By the time Jeannie got off the phone, the Delta flight was full. By the time we got to the hotel, there were no more rooms available.
Saturday at dawn we were on the bus back to the airport thru raging wind and snow and our prospects looked pretty bleak. Luckily the snow turned to rain and then that lightened up, so when the plane took off on time it was a huge relief. When we got to NYC, we found out that our luggage was waiting for us at LaGuardia, so we swung by and picked it up on our way home. So all’s well that ends well.
But the most exciting part was landing at Denver in severe gusts of wind. Literally seconds before were about to land, the plane hit a huge air pocket and lurched down and to the side. For a moment I thought it was a particularly bumpy landing with a big bounce, but by the time I realized what was happening the plane was in a steep climb. We never actually touched down, although we came within a few feet or maybe even inches. It’s no exaggeration to say we almost crashed, and the quick reaction of the pilot probably saved us. About 45 minutes later the airport had changed the direction of the runways around and we did a second, successful landing. The whole cabin broke into applause.