Jet Blue

Did you read over the past week about the 1000 cancelled flights and thousands of stranded passengers?

Well that was me. Here is my travel story. I was scheduled to fly Wed night and arrive in NYC on Thursday morning. So I go to the airport on Wednesday and my flight is cancelled. So I rebook for the next morning. But the flight in the morning will send me to Long Beach California and then on to New York. So whatever, okay, I can do that. We will miss our Broadway show but that's okay. So I arrive in Long Beach and start looking for the gate says JFK and I cannot find one so I asked a gate attendant and they look at me like I am crazy and tell me that, that flight had been cancelled last night. So yeah, that flight had been cancelled before I ever got on the plane in SLC to go to Long Beach. So this starts my adventures in Long Beach Airport.

This picture is a lil hard to see but the point I am trying to make is that the parts in blue were pretty much the only places I could go. This is basically a bus terminal that they put airliners up to and call an airport. It was no TV, two small little news stands that only have political magazines and papers, and a crappy little cafe. So any way, back to my story. So my flight is cancelled. OH WAIT! Let me go back. Here is where God comes in to play. While I was at the airport in SLC I saw Todd, Denise, and Grace get on the plane. They were on their way to Disneyland. So I knew some folks on the plane. So here Iam in Long Beach flight cancelled so Todd and Denise offer to take me somewhere and hang out until I can get another flight. I could have gotten a ticket on a flight back to SLC for Saturday Morning or a flight to NYC for Saturday night, remember this is still Thursday around 9am. So I talk to Jet Blue and they tell me that I can try and get on a stand by flight for JFK for later that afternoon and then they have another for the evening and then one more redeye, and a flight to SLC that I could get on standby for. So I decided to try my stand by options. I mean four flights I should be able to sneak onto one of them, right? So I let Todd know that I will be hanging around trying to get one of those and would keep them informed. Well, to make a looooooooong story short. It was the longest day of my life. All four of the flights were cancelled at the last minute. The redeye flight I actually scored a ticket on and thought I just may make it out, but they cancelled the flight after about an hour an a half of standing at the gate thinking that we were about to board. I had been without sleep for about 36 hours at this point. Little sleep and lots of stress are not a good combination. So I was done with Long Beach! I called Todd and he said he would come get me and I could stay the night at Denise's sister's house. I am so very grateful to them and thankful for God providing them in that situation. I also called my dad and sent him on a search for alternatives. He found me a flight on Delta for the next morning from LAX. Denise's sister was so very kind and said that she would take me to the airport in the morning. SO I was finally able to sleep and get away from Long Beach Bus/Airport. The flight in the morning went off with only a minor delay and I didn't mind one bit. When we arrived in JFK we spent about 45 minutes on the ground waiting for a gate. During this time Claire and I started text messaging and I found out that I would not be needing to ride the subway into town all alone. Claire was at the airport to surprise me! Oh! It was so good to see her. As soon as I spotted her the 18 hours at long beach and all the headaches of cancelled flights was nothing but a bad dream. Goodness I love that girl, I think I should marry that gal.