First Flight I Ever Missed: Part Three

As I woke up around 6AM I meandered down to the lobby to see what the situation is. Checking in with the hotel front desk I was alerted that there was still no info from WOW.  Perfect. WOW forced me off the plane, forced me to come here and now abandoned me and 45 other people in the middle of London. SOL, I do what any normal person would do, I relax, read the news and eat some free breakfast from their buffet.

During my breakfast I take a quick look at WOWs twitter. Remember that KEF-LAX flight that I was told already departed? Will it didn’t depart until 4 AM, a whole 6 hours after I was told it already departed.

The hours pass by and it’s 10 AM. Nobody has gotten anything concrete from WOW. I get tired of this and go to the train station to get a train back to LGW. There I would sort out my flight home with WOW directly.

I get to the station and tried to enter. HA, little did I know the train workers were on strike, so no train for me. I go back to the hotel and wait around longer.

Finally someone is able to get some info from WOW. 

So,  if you think what I just described is an adventure, then get ready for the story you are about to hear.

It is a little past 11 AM and we are all crowding around this one person who is on the phone. 45 of us. He says that WOW has put us on flights, and the flight leaves at 1:30. He says WOW has no transportation for us to get back to the airport. Perfect, how else is WOW going to mess with me today.

So we start grabbing taxis. The hotel staff are calling them like crazy, happy we will soon be out of their hair. 99 pounds to get to the airport. There is four of us in a taxi, in a Mercedes Benz. The car had a digital and manual speedometer. The manual speedometer was in KM, but the digital one was in miles. 

Now remember how the hotel was 1 hour and 30 minutes away from the airport? I didn’t think we would make it with enough time to get everything sorted, I was worried and nervous.

This is the point where my luck turned around. After being denied entry for my LGW-OAK fight and after being ejected from my LGW-KEF-SFO flight, and after ALL the other stuff, things were looking up.

Our driver pushed 90-100 miles an hour to get us to the airport. I’ve never gotten to an airport that quickly. We get to the airport and we have to pay. Out comes my Citi AAdvantage platinum select card, because even in cluster **** like this I gotta think about the miles. 

We get into the airport and quickly figure out that not all 45 of us are on the same flight. 18 of us are on one flight, 16 are on another and the remaining people weren’t on a flight. One of the 45 people starts reading through the first list of 16 and my name doesn’t get called. Then the second list starts getting read. 

With each passing name I become increasingly worried. At last my name is called. I’m on a flight to LAX on Norwegian. I got lucky that it was just me needing to get a flight. There were whole families that were on different flights. Kids separated from parents and etc etc.

** It is important to note that WOW got the terminals mixed up for the flight with 16 people on it and because of this many many of them were unable to make that flight**

Anyways, the flight is at 1:30 and it’s nearly 12:30. Now remember, I wasn’t allowed to get on the LGW-OAK flight a few days earlier because of this supposed “60 minute rule”. They announce that this rule will be voided. HA, so the “rule” – the whole reason I’m in this mess – doesn’t even really exist…. What. The. Heck.

So I get on the flight and get to LAX. What now? I don’t know! All I know is that they put us on a flight to LAX, how do I get to SFO?

We are still on the plane and starting to unboard. Well there was 18 of us on this flight LGW-LAX. It turns out this guy my age(20) had over heard someone who overheard someone else that supposedly we were put on a Virgin American flight from LAX to SFO. He has the flight number written on his hand. On his hand -not on paper- scribbled on his hand. 

My best chance at getting to SFO is all dependent on some letters written on a hand of some guy who over heard someone else overhearing someone else. I’m doomed.

As the passengers were deplaning I google the flight number and it turns out that the scribbled flight number IS a Virgin American flight from LAX to SFO. Only problem is it leaves in an hour and a half. We landed at around 5:30pm and the flight departs at 7pm. I should be able to make it. After all I only have a carry on and I should be able to get through immigration quickly, things are going to work out.

When I get off the LGW-LAX plane I start running. I’m getting to SFO,  yes I am. OHHH No I’m not.

Immigration was so backed up that they had planes full of people waiting wayyyy back in the hallways you use to walk to immigration.  I’m American and not British so I don’t queue for anyone. I cruise past hundreds of people, hundreds, to get to the front. At the front now, I’m still waiting in a hallway, not even close to immigration.

Why is immigration backed up so much you may ask?

Well, readers, refugees. Yes, on the one day I’m in a rush to make the impossible happen -refugees are here and apparently they need the whole immigration center to themselves for security reasons. They aren’t aliens(no pun intended), they are just people so I’m not sure why that was the case, but I welcome them as refugees of course, so I wait patiently. 

Finally they let us through and I run faster than I’ve run in a long time. I get to immigration finally! I get through quickly. Now I’m back on US soil, but in the international terminal of LAX, an airport I’ve never been in before. It’s 6:15PM. I need to get to terminal 3. I figure out where it is and just run. I’m jumping over things, dodging people, I’m Usain ******* Bolt. Finally I get to the Virgin America desk. Sweating and out of breath I try and explain the situation to this desk agent who has no idea what I’m talking about. 

He asks for my passport. He starts searching for my name.

1 minute passes, nothing from him.

2 minutes go by, appears he still hasn’t found my reservation. I know at this point I’m not getting to SFO, I’m stuck here in LAX. WOW Air has beaten me. I got this far but this is where I fall short, this is where I fail.

Then, just as I think all hope is lost  he says “ah ,yes, here it is”. 

“Ah, yes, here it is”. A phrase I was never more glad to hear. When he said that I wasn’t sure if I believed him. I mean could it be? Could I be heading to SFO? Is this the best WOW has to throw at me? 

I take my ticket and go through Security. Very quickly. Thank god there were only metal detectors and not the little air machine things because I always opt to get patted down. 

I get through, I run to my gate. They are already boarding. I look around. It is just me, then I see  two more WOW passengers come up. We board the flight. There were supposed to be 18 WOW passengers getting on this flight, and there were only three. 

Let that soak in. Out of 45 people that started the day with intentions of getting to SFO, Only three of us did definitively. Three. Only 6 percent of us made it. Numerically, I only had a 2% chance of making it to SFO. Sitting on the empty flight to SFO I reflected on how lucky I was to be getting to SFO, and to be out of the mess I was in. I beat the odds and beat WOW Air.

How I got compensation from WOW for this endeavor is another story all together.