Starting a new life. Slowly.

This isn't so much something overheard in a private members club, as much as a nightmare that unfolded in front of me in the business class cabin of an American Airlines flight from Los Angeles to Heathrow. 

About a week ago I arrived at Heathrow for a flight to New York for a week's work in the US. On boarding the plane I was disappointed to find old style flat beds, and I was initially slightly concerned that I wouldn't be able to sleep well enough to avoid jet lag. I quickly decided that this was a bit fussy of me. 

Little did I realise at the time that this was to be as good as it would get by a long, long way.

I'll deal with the hilarious trip elsewhere, but for now I'll just say that I approached the flight home with a small degree of trepidation following an internal flight from New York to LA earlier in the week. It had been my first experience of American Airlines and it hadn’t been a good one. It wasn't helped by the woman sitting next to me. I’ll just tell you that she worked in interior design. But I could tell you anything about her life you wanted to know. So could anyone else within five rows of her.
Slightly more social awareness than my traveling companion showed
Anyway on the AA flight back to the UK I found myself next to a girl who’s primary benefit initially was that she ignored me, so the flight was better already.

When we went through the rigmarole of ordering food it became clear that she had ordered a special meal but they didn’t have it on the plane as she had been moved from another flight. I was surprised by her calm acceptance of all this. Little did I know just how calm she was being.

I can’t recall how we found ourselves talking to each other.

She was from the US and earlier that week she had sold her car, moved out of her house and was now on her way to live in Italy with her boyfriend. These were big events in someone’s life. 

On the face of it this all seemed good, but here’s the story of her journey so far. I may have got some of the facts prior to our meeting a bit wrong, but this is the gist of it.

It was never going to be easy: she was to go from Reno to LA to New York to Madrid to Rome. You wouldn’t think it could get much more complicated than that would you?

Well it could. After all, I met her on a flight from LA to London, which wasn't on that itinerary.

She had set off two days earlier from Reno Tahoe International airport to fly to LA.  Things didn’t get off to a good start. At Reno there was snow. Due to the consequent delays there was no crew for her flight even if it had been able to take off.
Dallas air traffic control had a busy few days


She spent some hours arranging a later flight to LA.


She managed to get one but due to the delay she missed the flight to New York, so when she got to LA she had to rearrange her plans again.


I don't know if you know LAX?

It’s a dump. The AA lounge fits in perfectly. In fact it’s barely distinguishable from the rest of the airport, apart from the fact you get a token for a free drink. I'm never going to complain about BA again.


But anyway, she eventually found herself being put on a plane to London, which is how I came to meet her. Things seemed bad enough by now but they had hardly begun.


I’m not sure what was to happen to her when she got to London.


That’s because we never got there.


While we were travelling across the Atlantic the weather in Europe was getting worse. Much worse. To the extent that Heathrow was shut.


And so we found ourselves going to Brussels, where I am writing this the following morning.


So far, not only had Aimee not got to where she had intended to go, but she also didn’t get to somewhere she wasn’t supposed to go to in the first place and now she found herself somewhere else she wasn’t supposed to be. (If you can follow that.)


During these events she told me that her parents were coming over to Italy for Christmas in a few days. I don’t think I helped matters by suggesting that they’d be there before her.


On landing in Brussels we were told it would be fifteen minutes before we could get off the plane. We were told this for 2 ½ hours. With the engines off. Which meant the heating was also off. The information screen informed us the temperature outside was 0 degree’s C. It was inside, too.


We were told that we would be spending the night in Brussels and that the airline had arranged hotels. Fortunately we could use phones so I had abandoned relying on the airline by this point and had booked a hotel and Eurostar ticket home the next day. She didn't have this option so she would be spending the night in Brussels before going to Heathrow, which, remember, was somewhere she had never intended to go in the first place.





Well, at least we finally arrived somewhere
To make matters worse, we were told that the luggage was staying on the plane, so she couldn’t get any of her things (in the unlikely event that they had found their way onto the plane in the first place.)  

I finally lost touch with her at passport control so don’t know what happened next, but I do know she’s been travelling now for three days, only been to one of the places she should have been to (LA) and is currently scheduled to get on a flight that takes her further away from Rome than nearer to it.

And I’ve just spoken to a disinterested woman at AA regarding my luggage who told me that there is currently no plan to fly any AA flights to Heathrow today. That won’t help will it?

Throughout all this Aimee showed a degree of patience and understanding that was almost saint-like.

I thought Nuala, one of my business partners, was the world’s most tolerant person (after all, she does work with me) but she may have met her match.

I wonder how Aimee’s journey will end? Maybe she’ll let me know.

She works in PR and will need a job, should she ever get to Italy. If anyone knows of one, I think she deserves it.

Simon


(It's a couple of days later now and she did let me know what happened next. Things didn't improve: here's an extract from the email she sent me: 

"....I was put on a Brussels airline flight to Roma. However it taxied out, was de-iced and then we sat there for 2 hours - then we were brought back to the gate where the flight was canceled! Two hours later, I was put on another Brussels airline flight bound for Roma.  We waited hours to board, then it was a blizzard outside, so we sat on the plane for 4 hours prior to departure! In the meantime (and I'm not inventing this), the mechanics had to replace one of the doors on the plane! It was quite an ordeal and I'm quite surprised that we ever took off. I arrived in Roma at 2 am."


"It was quite an ordeal" is a commendable understatement.)
Brussels, 19 December 2010
But there's a slightly more serious conclusion to this saga.


Aimee was evidently a worldly, capable person, who could cope with her experience. 


And all I had to do was ring my travel service to arrange my return home. (Although my phone did go flat during the call, so things might have gone a bit wrong had not Aimee let them call me back on her phone.)


But for some people I came across during the journey, things were very different. There were people in tears on the plane in Brussels, and when I eventually found myself trying to track down my luggage at Heathrow there were people in tears there too, their Christmases ruined.


Did I see anyone at the airline show any concern? No, I didn't. At one point, when trying to retrieve my luggage, I found myself at the AA arrivals lounge at Heathrow. There was a woman at the reception desk clearly distraught and crying her eyes out. She asked for a tissue. The receptionist gave her a sheet of notepaper, telling her that that was the best she could do. It probably was. Both practically and emotionally.