The Cluster
>> Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Yesterday morning, my parents were due to arrive from Seattle. I was expecting them around 11am. What I wasn't expecting, was a complete mess due to the recent snowstorm down the east coast.
It started in New Jersey. The flight from New Jersey to Seattle was delayed due to the snow storm which spiraled. Seattle was late going to Anchorage which was late going BACK to Seattle to pick my parents up to take them to Newark New Jersey. Because of this, they will missed morning connection to Albany from Newark. Great. Perfect. It is 4 days before Christmas, half the flights have been canceled while they other half are delayed and no one knows what they are doing.
At nearly midnight PST, they are on the red eye to New Jersey.
Standby.
Having missed their connection, my parents were automatically put on the first standby flight list to Albany at 12pm. No luck. They were shipped from one terminal to another terminal back to the first one and so on.
They were put on the next standby flight list to Albany at 4pm, which happened to be delayed 2 hours. Finally, they were ON the plane and landed in Albany nearly 12 hours late.
Arrival.
A little after 10:30pm EST they finally arrived at my house. Over 36 hours without sleep but save, warm and very hungry.
They are here. Yay!