Stranded Overnight At Airport
What was suppose to be a quick fly in-fly out day trip to Washington DC last week turned into a really bad travel experience for me. A company considering on having me as their keynote speaker at their big meeting later in the fall wanted to have me come down to meet with them in person. The plan was to fly in during the morning, meet with them for a few hours and fly back home at the end of the work day.
When I boarded my 5:15 pm return flight, we were told that here would be a slight delay to wait for a lightning storm to pass by. After awhile, we were told to deplane and wait inside the terminal. The latest news came after 8 pm when they told us that other lighting storms are coming in and all outgoing flights north to Canada were cancelled for the rest of the night.
So I had to wait in this extremely long lineup for United Airlines customer service to rebook my flights for the next day. The best that they could do was to rebook me for a 9:45 am flight with Delta Airlines but instead of a direct flight, I would have to connect through New York JFK, which was fine by me since the next available United flight was not until 10 pm the next day.
At the same time, I was also told that all hotel rooms within a 25 miles radius of the Washington Dulles airport were completely booked. I confirmed this with a call to one of the hotel chains I use.
It was already about 10 pm and instead of having to deal with ground transfers to hotels located further away and back again to the airport to catch my morning flight, I made the decision to stay put for the night. So effectively I was stranded.
Sleepless Night At Airport
The airport chairs, while comfortable for sitting, are not great for sleeping. I for one cannot sleep while seated and since the arms of those chairs are fixed, there’s no way to lie down on them. There was a ventilation grill behind the chairs where some other stranded passengers laid down. As soon as I tried to sit on one of those things, I could feel the cold air coming out of those vents. So for me, that was not an option.
Although it was quite peaceful at the airport terminal overnight, it wasn’t exactly quiet. There was music on the PA systems, although not loud, which played continuously overnight. There were also cleaning staff with their equipment doing their duties as well.
A few people actually slept on the floor but it would be too hard for me and I was still wearing the same business suit too. So I sat around to listen to some music, go on the internet using the airport’s wifi and walked around like a zombie for the entire night.
At about 5 am when the security gates opened up again, I went through the security check and proceed to my gate. There was about an hour delay at JFK for the flight to Toronto but I finally made it back home at about 4:30 pm the next day. This was about 22 hours late past my original scheduled arrival back home the day before.
Throughout this entire ordeal, I was mainly worried about my two Lhasa Apso dogs. I had forgotten to turn on the air conditioner for them although I did leave windows open. They can stay on their own overnight like they did for my vacation trips but I had a pet sitter come in to feed them and check up on them twice per day.
This time around, I did not give any notice to my pet sitter since I was expecting to be home the same day. And even if I did contact my pet sitter from Washington DC, there’s no way she would have gotten into my home anyway since I had one set of keys on me while the other one was hanging in my closet.
But when I finally got home, both my dogs were just fine even if they missed two meals and their daddy for one night. My neighbours later confirmed that they did not hear them bark at all even when the windows were wide open.
My dogs did not leave any mess at home either since they are both indoor dog litterbox potty trained. They don’t have to go out to do their business since they have a designated spot right inside the house which they used.
Lessons Learned From This Travel Experience
I did have a few lessons learned from this travel experience which I will list below. I’ll use these if I go on another day trip that involves flights.
- Bring toiletries and extra change of clothing
- Have numbers of major hotel networks on cellphone
- Prepare for best alternative internet connections in case airport wifi fails or not for free
- Leave house keys with pet sitter just in case
Any future day trip that involves flights perhaps should be regarded as likely overnight stays and if I happen to get home within the same day because flights happen to run on time, then it should be considered a nice bonus!
