Unfriendly skies - Part 2 of 2...

Continued from Part 1.....
Sriram waits for his turn at the ticket counter for them to give him an alternative flight. When he gets to the counter, the agent can almost see him plead to put him on the next available flight to SFO that will get him there by 2PM. The agent clicks away to glory for some time on his keyboard and comes up with an itinerary that will take him through Denver to SFO but will not get him there before 7PM. All hopes were shattered. He knew that the agent is trying his best to get him on the next available flight. So he resigns to the fact, gets the new itinerary and proceeds to the gate. His flight was at 12.45PM. He still had couple of hours left. He decides to wait at the gate and proceeds to the gate. He makes the inevitable call home to say that he is stuck at Frankfurt and cannot make home in time. He could sense the frustration on the other end of the phone. He felt helpless. He had no words to console. It was all his fault. He should not have planned it so close. He blamed himself for having so much confidence on the airlines and weather. It was a good lesson learnt.
The Denver flight begins boarding as scheduled at 12PM. Sriram had couple of hours for his connecting flight from Denver to SFO. So he was hopeful that he should be able to make that. He settles down and mentally prepares himself for the long 9 hour flight to Denver. The captain's voice confirms that they should be there on time. He looks out the window and sees that it was still snowing. The captain announces that they were next in line for de-icing the plane and they should be able to push back in 30-45 mins. So he starts waiting. With his MP3 glued to his ears and a novel in his hand, he kills minute by minute. 1 hour passes by and no sign of de-icing machine. By now the snow had increased and was falling at a faster pace. After about 90 minutes, the captain's voice is back on the PA. It was something that Sriram was fearing but did not want it to come for real. The captain announced that the Frankfurt airport has been shutdown indefinitely until the snow storm subsides and the aircraft cannot be de-iced until the snow stops. By now, Sriram was prepared for the worst. His fear of missing the connecting flight from Denver was slowly peeping up. The last flight out of Denver was at 8PM and he still had 4 more hours to make it to that flight. So the wait begins. 2,3,4,5 hours pass waiting for the snow to stop. It was the most horrible claustrophobic wait one could endure inside an aircraft. At the end of 5 hours, the snow had just started to subside and the aircraft still had to be de-iced. The passengers were given an option to get off the plane but their baggage cannot be removed. So everyone had to sit in the plane waiting for it to take off at some point.
At the end of the 6th hour, he saw a de-icing equipment pull beside the aircraft. One on each side. It normally takes about 30 mins to de-ice the aircraft. Halfway through the de-icing process on one of the side, the equipment breaks down. So the total de-icing process took about an hour to complete. After 7 hours of wait inside the plane, the aircraft finally pushed back. By then Sriram knew that he had missed the last connecting flight to SFO from Denver and he had to stay the night in Denver. By now, he stopped making any plans and decided to take it by the minute. He had been in the airport and plane for the past 15 hours and he is yet to take off from Frankfurt. He still has a 9 hour journey to Denver, a whole night wait in Denver, a 3 hour journey to SFO and a 1 hour ride before he could get back home.
Sriram lands in Denver around 9.30PM local time. Lufthansa was kind enough to put him in a hotel for the night and his flight out of Denver was at 6AM the next morning. By the time he got to the hotel, he was so exhausted that he could not sleep. But he still managed to catch about 2 hours sleep. The next morning, he takes the first shuttle to the airport and by the time he checks in his luggage, it was 5.15AM. It was a close call for his baggage to make it. He had to run to his gate and was barely able to make it to the 6AM flight. This was one of the first flight in his journey that made it to its destination on time. He was glad when the aircraft touched down at SFO. He calls home announcing his arrival and proceeds to the baggage claim only to find that his baggage did not make it into the flight from Denver and is stuck in Denver. He did not have the motivation to think or argue. So he walked to the counter, reported the missing baggage and took a cab home. Never did he imagine that he would take 40 hours to get home which was supposed to be a 14 hour journey. One can imagine how happy he was to step into his home finally a 10AM on Saturday. The missing baggage arrived at 3AM Sunday morning. Sriram knew that he could never make up for the lost time from Friday 2PM to Saturday 10AM.

On my dad's side of the family, I go by the name "Sriram" and yes this is my story.