First Flight I Ever Missed: Part Two

I enjoyed spending a little more time near Gatwick. I went on picnics, made daisy chains, and had plenty more 50p sandwiches from the Tesco. Flight day rolls around and I’m not missing this one. No way! I had booked a flight that was LGW-KEF-SFO

I arrived at the airport with plenty of time(read:70 minutes). I got checked in and herded through security. The usual British airport security stuff, shoes off, one toiletry bag worth of 3oz or less liquid, laptops out. My bag got flagged for secondary inspection as I had left some toothpaste in my backpack. I got the usual stern reminder that I must put all liquids in one bag. They kindly let me put my toothpaste in the standard size bag that is provided. Then they put the ziplock bag through the X-ray machine once more. Now, with all my belongings deemed safe I was on my way again.

Waiting in the LGW airside terminal for your gate to appear next to your flight is never an enjoyable activity. There is plenty of seating and naturally none facing the large board that has the gate info.

My flight has some announcements over the loud speaker. Being unable to hear much of anything, I went to the WOW customer service desk and learned that my flight was en route from KEF but could not land on the runway at London Gatwick, United Kingdom because of rain.

Yes, rain.

Don’t ask me, because I don’t know why rain is a problem in a city where it rains 164 days a year.

 So the plane was diverted and landed 30 minutes north at STN. 

**These budget airlines don’t have gates predetermined, they just use what ever gates are open. Because of this they don’t tell you what gate to go to until the plane is in a gate.**

So I could only do one thing, wait. Luckily, I was given meal vouchers by WOW staff. I went and had some lunch at a nice sit down restaurant with the vouchers. After, I used the remaining nine quid to buy 50p sandwiches from the boots. I got bored, and tried to use vouchers for booze but no where would accept them, not even with a little luck was I successful.

When the plane finally arrived at LGW eight hours later they told us to go to XX gate. So we all go, and are ready to board. The gate agent announces that we are five minutes till boarding. 15 minutes later they announce that if our final destination is SFO that we need to follow some person and they’d put us on a plane the next day.

…What?…

HAHAHA, forget that, I wasn’t about to get trapped in UK after already being here for four days longer and missing work. Some passengers who were boarding the flight were heading onward to LAX on a WOW flight from KEF. Quickly, I called a friend who lives in California and we decided that if I make it on the flight and get to KEF and then get on the LAX flight, he’d drive down to pick me up.

The SFO bound passengers file off back towards the airside lobby we’d all just waited in. Not me, I waited because I was now an LAX passenger.

So when it comes time to board I talk my way onto the plane. I made it. Everything is good. Doors closed. I’m heading to KEF. Wrong.  

They reopen the doors and they bring big guys onto the plane and basically eject me. Back off the plane I beg and plead to get on the flight. I ask for a supervisor and the whole nine yards. I explain that I am fine being rerouted to LAX. The guy looks me in the eyes and tells me “The LAX flight already departed KEF”. He tells me that if I want to get a flight the next day that I MUST go to the hotel they provide me.

Now it doesn’t matter even if I made it to KEF, I’d have to get a next day flight anyways. I submit, I give in and go find the rest of the passengers who were headed to SFO. Finally I find them landslide in the international terminal. We are all waiting in a large circle on the arrivals level which is completely empty by now, as it is very late. We are issued another round of vouches and I buy some nice chocolates with it from the nearly closed convenience store. We are told that we will be sent to a hotel an hour and a half away in the center of London.

One by one a driver walks in and escorts four to five of us out to their vehicle. I was in the last group to depart. Our driver was a chap who looked very tired. Oh he must’ve been because he started to fall asleep at the wheel multiple times on that hour and a half drive.

Alive, we arrived at the hotel and entered the lobby to find everyone still waiting around. This wasn’t a good sign.

The hotel did not know all 45 of us were coming and never got called from WOW.

BIG OOF

The hotel put us up in rooms because they know under EU law WOW has to pay them for our accommodation, so they’ll settle the bill later. I take my own room since WOW is footing the bill.

As I laid in bed and began to fall asleep, I thought of the wild day and I figured that WOW must be scrambling to get everything sorted and that in the morning everything will be good.

Oh how wrong I was