My nightmare airport story

478 flights out of Atlanta were cancelled. Ours was one of them.

We arrived at the airport at 6:30 PM for a 9:30 PM departure. The security line took us exactly 5 minutes. I thought we had it made.

The airport was icy, uncomfortably cold, so we sat there shivering while dark storm clouds began to billow. Soon it was raining hard, with lightning and thunder everywhere. We heard the gate attendant across the concourse telling the flight to Venice that the airport would be shut down as long as there was lightning, and to hang in there.

Then it started to hail. It rattled the skylights for what must have been 20 minutes. The storm barely moved for over an hour.

We heard the gate attendant across the concourse telling the passengers that their flight had "timed out," that it was so delayed that the pilots had to go off duty by law, and their flight was cancelled. Instantly a line formed to the Delta Customer Service desk that was so long it stretched for about a five-minute walk down the concourse aisle.

Meanwhile our plane still had not arrived. And it was 9:30 PM. The storm was mostly passed, but no plane.

They told us the flight would depart at 10:00 PM. Then 10:30 PM. Then 11:00 PM.

Then they sent us to the other side of the concourse where the Venice passengers had been. There was a plane there, and we were happy.

So we sat, still freezing to death, while they prepared the plane.

It seemed to take forever. Time of departure 11:30 PM. Time of departure 12:00 midnight.

A flight attendant came to tell us that there were only 7 crew members, the bare minimum for a legal flight, and that they'd be doing their best to prepare the plane for a quick takeoff.

The line to the Delta help desk remained full of people, stretching past our gate, inching along. Children holding weakly to the hands of their parents. Babies too tired to do more than wail in their strollers. Most people being patient and quiet and genial, but a few booming their displeasure as they moved quickly along the corridor on their way to what they thought might be a better option.

Time of departure 12:30 PM.

The flight attendant came to tell us that the back of the plane would not cool down, only the front, and they would board the front of the plane first. She said we had to cooperate to get on board as quickly as possible because there was a risk that our flight crew would time out, would not be allowed to fly because it was the legal end of their service day.

That's when I first started to worry.

They weren't really announcing Zone boarding, so much as muttering it. We got ourselves up and ready for our turn.

It finally came. We were on the plane about 1:30 AM.

We sat in our seats and listened to the sounds of someone doing some kind of vacuum maintenance below us, a heavy whining sound that raised pitch, followed by three gulping sounds. This was repeated again and again for an hour.

I tried to sleep. We were on the plane. We'd made it.

Around 2:00 AM the pilot came on and told us there was a risk they would time out, and that they were trying to get us out of here, that they had to be on the runway and in the air before a certain time, and they were doing everything they could.

The plane had not moved from the gate.

Ten minutes later the pilot came on and told us they only had about 20 minutes before they would be forced to time out, and they were going to start the engines now to get a jump on it.

A little later the pilot came on and said something was blocking the runway and they were trying to fix it so we could get out of there. We came to understand that the hail had caused havoc, had damaged a tower antenna, adding a serious problem to the already messed up landscape and delayed flights.

We held our breath.

A few minutes later the pilot came on and told us that they were unable to detach the ramp from the plane. By his calculations, they would not make it to the runway before they timed out. They asked us to deplane.

It was 2:30 AM.

Everyone dutifully got off the plane. I was behind a woman with two bags and a baby in her arms trying to move up the aisle. The baby had cried only a little during the hours we were sitting there.

Back in the gate, back in the cold, we heard the gate attendant tell us they were looking for a new pilot, and the estimated departure time was 3:45 AM.

Then at 3:00 AM the gate attendant told us the flight was cancelled. No further information was provided. 80% of the passengers made a mad dash for the endless line.

At this point, having been up since 5 AM with only a couple of cat naps during the intervening waiting period, I was a little loopy, and Teresa and our sons were just as bad, but hanging in there.

I got in the grim line, and suggested Teresa go to another concourse to see if there was a better line there. Meanwhile I called the Travel Company that had booked our flight to see if they could help us.

Teresa found that Delta had rebooked us on a flight to Orlando with a 5 hour layover before a connection to London. That flight left Sunday (it was Saturday) and got us to London Monday morning at 5 AM. Cecilia's recital was that same day at 4 PM.

We stood in our respective lines, and me on the phone, for 3 hours. The travel agent tried to help me, but because Delta had automatically given us a new flight to London for Sunday, arriving Monday morning (our original arrival was to be Saturday morning), they now had control of the ticket. The agent was kind enough to try to reach Delta by phone and sat on hold for an hour while Teresa and I waited in our respective lines.

The agent suggested an Air Canady flight leaving for Montreal at 8 AM that morning, with a 10-hour layover in Montreal and an arrival in London at 10:00 AM Sunday. Delta would have to arrange that flight for us, if it were even possible. Ultimately she never reached Delta by phone, and Teresa reached the agent in her line first.

Exhausted, in tears, Teresa told the agent we needed a better flight than the one we had been reassigned because our daughter was giving a recital on Monday and our arrival time might not be soon enough. The gate agent mistakenly thought we no longer wanted our rebooked flight and took us off it while she looked unsuccessfully for another. So for five minutes we were on no flight to London with no other options available. When Teresa found out, she nearly went hysterical.

Our sons were trying to sleep on the floor. Nathaniel was begging us to just go home, threatening to get a ride himself. That, of course, would have been disastrous had we booked a flight only to have him gone.

The agent, realizing her mistake, managed to get us back on our original rebooked flight but it was somewhat of a skewed booking, not as clear cut. No other flights were possible. We counted ourselves lucky and set about to figure out where our luggage was.

It was 6:30 AM.

I took my tired boys down to International Baggage Claim. Our bags were nowhere to be found. There was a line for the special requests office.

Teresa said our bags were rerouted onto the next flight.

I sent my tired boys home on a car. Teresa came down to meet me at the baggage claim. We got a ride home too.

We went to sleep.

This morning, Teresa got up to check our flight. She was able to confirm Zachary's ticket online, but none of ours.

We drove back to the airport.

We waited in line to talk to an agent, who told us that he could print our boarding passes. There was just one problem.

The flight from Orlando to London was a Virgin Air Flight, out of his control, and Nathaniel did not have a seat assignment on that plane. Just the rest of us.

He also said he only saw two of our three bags on the new flight.

I asked him to help us, and with some time on the phone to Virgin, he resolved the issue. We got everyone a seat on every plane going to London. Then we went downstairs to the now empty baggage office and I ascertained that because of the skewed booking, one of our bags was on one booking and two were on the other, but all three were ok and set to go.

We paid our $25 parking ticket for the hour and a half spent at the airport, and went home.

Two days later we flew to Orlando, then got on a plane for London. That plane was delayed due to bad weather, but it did get off the ground.

It could have been worse. Way worse. But it was bad, way bad.