The Scramble

O’Hare Airport: The Ultimate Test of Patience, Part 1

Everyone has a horror story or two about travel, and I usually don’t bore people with mine, but after 34 hours in the O’Hare airport recently I feel compelled to “share the love.”  (The irony that this experience occurred in the month I am meditating on patience is not lost on me, BTW.)

Andrew and I got up at 4am and drove to the airport, planning to hop on a flight to Chicago, and then take a connecting flight to Savannah, on our way to Hilton Head, SC for a long weekend conference and getaway.  Things went according to plan from Eau Claire to Chicago, but we arrived to relative chaos at the O’Hare airport which was jammed up after three days of bad weather.  When we checked in at the gate for our connecting flight to Savannah, we were immediately told of a delay because our crew lacked one flight attendant. We waited. And waited. 2 ½ hours later a cheer from the passengers greeted the arrival of our substitute crewmember, and we started boarding shortly after.  I scheduled dinner reservations in Savannah, and texted friends we were to meet up with, informing them of our delay.

With everyone seated, we rolled onto the runway, in a long queue of planes waiting to take off.  And then we waited. And waited.  The pilot gave us periodic updates.  Some kind of trouble with weather, and then something with air traffic control.  A fire.  The control center had to be evacuated. After two hours on the tarmac–we were #2 for takeoff– the pilot’s voice over the intercom regretfully informed us that we had exceeded the legal time we were allowed to sit on a plane.  We would have to return to the gate, and deplane, and then re-board a little later.  No one could believe it!  Sure enough we turned around, headed back, and shuffled off the plane.  Two more hours went by, and then they announced we were about to re-board. Finally. We all gathered our things, dug out our tattered boarding passes, and moved toward the gate.

Suddenly our flight was cancelled!  Really?  Really?? We had a plane. We had a full crew. We had a room full of road-weary travelers. But what we didn’t have was a working radar to guide us safely into the air.  Details, details.

Everyone launched into action, scrambling for a new connection, no easy feat in an airport crammed with fellow travelers on a similar mission.  Armed with cellphones and dragging bags, everyone rushed to our airline’s help desk, where the line snaked ominously down the terminal.  Folks were surprisingly calm, joking about our shared dilemma, although you could tell the ones who had already spent at least one night at O’Hare—they had kind of a haunted look.  I cancelled our dinner plans, and texted our friends and told them to go on to the restaurant and change the seating from 4 to 2.  Andrew called and reconfirmed our hotel and car reservations. The airline booked us on a flight out the next afternoon, but told there was a good chance we could catch the last flight out at 7:20pm that night flying standby.  We hurried across the terminal to the new gate, and grabbed a quick dinner before boarding time.  We might not get to see the sunset at the beach that night, but at least we had a decent chance of walking along the shore under the moonlight.

Our friends texted us from Savannah.  The restaurant was A-MA-ZING.

About 20 min before the evening flight was to board, it cancelled.  In fact, we were told, no further flights would be leaving O’Hare that evening.  By this time, of course, every hotel room for miles was booked.  We decided that since there was an early flight the next morning and we were numbers 2 and 3 on the standby list, our best option was to spend the night at the O’Hare airport.  We headed to “cot city.”

What would you have done? Tell us below!

Click here to read O’Hare Airport: The Ultimate Test of Patience Part Two – Cot City

By Lydia Floren