My Long, Crazy, Wild, Unexpected Journey Home From Milwaukee
Yesterday was supposed to be an easy day. I had a 2:50 EST flight home from Milwaukee, coming into New York-LaGuardia around 4:50 EST. An easy two hour flight. I grabbed an NFL preview magazine and boarded the plane. And things were going great early on. At about 4:20 EST, the captain came on and said:
We're going to be in a holding pattern for about a half hour.
All right. One more half hour can't hurt. Fast forward that half hour
We're going to be in a holding pattern for another half hour.
Weather was bad in New York, and that caused considerable air traffic. I wasn't annoyed. Yeah, I wanted to get home. But I could wait one more hour. But, it wasn't over.
The weather is bad in New York, and we need to refuel, so we're stopping in Allentown, Pennsylvania to refuel.
Crap. Who knows how long it was going to take to refuel. There were about 3 planes ahead of us. Once they went, we could go. But, remember, the weather was bad in NY. This was going to be awhile. We were also in Allentown, PA.
One hour passed. Still on the tarmac. At this point my phone died. I had gone through the Sky Mall magazine about 3 times ( I think the end total was about 10). The pilot kept coming on and off, saying he was debating whether or not to go to NY. If we didn't, there would be limited hotel and transportation in Allentown. He kept saying that he was going to land in New York. It was just a matter of when.
Another hour passed. I was getting hungry. They had food, but weren't giving it out. They eventually gave it to the two pregnant ladies. That was kind. I was starting to get restless. We were able to get a rental car. We were going to drive home from Allentown. That would've sucked.
Another hour passed. The pilot came on.
All right, folks. This is what's going to happen. We have a van. We're going to transport you to the terminal. We're gonna start with the folks who need it most, and then we'll go from there.
We were getting off this plane. I could imagine the jockeying to get off first, the mad dash to the rental car area. This could take at least two hours. The passengers got up at once, and started collecting their things. About 45 seconds later, we heard this:
Everyone, sit down, we're heading to New York.
I've never seen so many people sit down at the same time. After getting the engine started, we took off and were in NY about 20 minutes later. When we landed, the plane cheered. A crazy journey. A two hour flight took eight hours. We landed at 9:43. With the hour behind in Milwaukee, eight hours. Crazy. I enjoyed my tine in Milwaukee, I really did. But, I wish it wouldn't have taken me so long to get home. I also have a new respect for pilots. Our pilot had so many decisions to make. Should we stay or should we go? Can I make it to LaGuardia in the window I've been given? Too many decisions for me. Crazy journey. Unexpected. But I guess you can only laugh at it. When we got off the plane, the group of people waiting for that flight cheered. I guess that part was pretty cool.
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