As we emerged from Baltra airport, the sun was shining and a rare pelican was flying overhead, what a great start, wait, no that was a dream,,, instead…
we arrived 4 hours ahead of time to cleveland airport, with some thunder and rain on the way, but none over the airport itself, all seemed ok, and then we heard of the dreaded" east coast weather. our inbound plane was in newark where airport traffic meets weather in the perfect storm. 2 hours delay, but we have 3.5 layover in our next connection. no issues, there are no other flights to houston, and we can't switch airlines, we are stressed but have no choice but to wait as the 2 hours day soon becomes 3 and over.
we hear the plan has left the gate and waits at the run way for over an hours and slowly it becomes clear that we would miss the ONLY daily flight to quito.
we search for options and after plenty of wait, since the weather is impacting everyone, an agent reroutes us through Panama city, without a proper layover to enjoy panama city, but we are still in cleveland. finally the plane leaves new jersey. at one point we see the plane is scheduled to land 1 minute after our houston departing flight and sometimes its longer, the possibility of the maybe make it is exhausting. it would be better to know you miss it all together.
as the plane gets nearer, i ask another agent, if they next flight will wait. he checks the order and begins to report that everything is messed up in the reservation and his fellow agent made 2 counters over. he makes whatever adjustments and then begins to book us for the next day, morning flight to houston. when i mention that our flight is coming soon, he says there are no fights, he is surprised to see i am right. after we say we still want to leave tonight. he goes ahead and cancels the reservation!!! now he is pissed off since he has to redo it and quick since the plane is almost here. i worry most about the luggage.
for a very unknown reason, he becomes very rude and talks in a demeaning tones to Alla. at the same time, there is another traveller who cannot go to Atlanta, bad weather, and has to miss her sister's wedding the following morning. this person is very insulting and lashes out at the agents who clearly can't help. the whole terminal has an intense feeling that only bad weather can bring.
finally the agent prints out an itinerary as evidence of our new upcoming travel. but we overlook the upcoming night in Houston and the one to follow in quito, both unplanned and without luggage.
we arrive In houston and see that the flight has left, that plane was coming first from LA with annoyingly good weather.
we now wait for 30 minutes to try to pull our luggage, after we finally reach an agent, we hear that there are no pullers, have to come back the next morning.
since this is a weather problem, we don't get a hotel voucher. we had for the luggage area and talk to a helpful agent , to place a note to get our bags in quito, the note is placed and finally we call our hotel with the free shuttle at 1:24 am only to hear that shuttle service discontinued at 1 am..
taxi is quick, the hotel is close. we check in, then head for the room where we see a sign, "the elevator is not working" , travel gods are not with us this trip.
in the morning we had bad hotel breakfast, took the shuttle to the airport. we got our boarding passes to panama city, and none beyond, since those are other airlines. we tried pulling out the luggage. one luggage office informs us that the luggage are here , good. but since the weather and the fact that there are no pullers till 4 hours from now , we may have a 5 hours wait for the luggage , since the flight is 6 hours away… this is a big risk.
of course these agents don't see the note place by their fellow agents…. At this point Alla's stress level reach an all time high, we leave this office and return to the office across the luggage hall to the one from last night, they can't find the note either, but the lady there says that if she can't get a puller, she will go find them herself. so now we wait…. moving carousels are a form of entertainment, maybe a cage with a pelican will arrive or some other poor caged animal. at least they have wifi…
Sometimes you dream, and some of them are nightmares, but even nightmares are still only a dream...
cheers from Goerge bush airport,
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