Friday, April 7th, 2022 – Fort Mill
Apr 11th, 2022 by rallyadmin
A front came through overnight and kept the dog up from about 2 AM til 4 AM. The poor guy just can’t handle the thunder and with his enormous ears near thunder that is too faint for us humans. Out of a dead sleep he’ll start shaking. Needless to say, no one sleeps until he calms down. But the front passes, the storms die down and the dog falls back into a dead sleep.
By mid-day the rain has stopped and by 4 PM the sun is out. Of course that’s here. In new York where my flights leaves for Doha, United Arab Emirates, the front is yet to get there. The crap shoot about when or if the flight will actually leave has started.
Leave for the airport at about 5:30 for an 8:15 departure to Doha. Checkin is quick and easy. Security has a line but it moves quickly. By the time I get to the gate, the flight departure has been moved to 9:10. No problem. I have over 3 hours to make the transfer to the Doha flight at 1:00 AM at JFK. The front has made it to JFK.
The delayed departure time comes and goes. We finally get to load at about 10 and depart at 10:30 PM. Things are starting get tight for the transfer. At least, the arriving flight and the departing flight are both in the samed terminal.
On the flight to JFK, air traffic control puts us in a 30 minute hold. There’s a thunderstorm over the airport at JFK. After 30 minutes the hold expires and we fly on to JFK, for 10 minutes and we get stuck in another hold. This one is a bit shorter and we eventually move on to JFK.
The plane lands at 12:35 AM and the flight to Doha is supposed to depart at 1:00. I expect that the departure to Doha will be delayed. I seriously hoof it to the gate only to find out that the flight is delayed to 1:35 AM. The Doha flight is delayed again and finally departs at 2:30 PM. The delayed departure doesn’t really matter. The flight is 12 hours and 30 minutes. Got to settle down and relax. The total delay might be enough time for the bag to make it to the Doha flight.
The transfer window for the flight to Sri Lanka is almost 5 hours so the gate for the flight to Colombo isn’t yet posted. Ask at an info counter and they say gate A6. Head down there to an empty wing, find a seat and settle in.
The flight to Colombo loads and I meet up with almost all of the Brits on the rally. They’ve come in from London Heathrow and we’re all taking the same flight to Sri Lanka. It’s great to see them all again. I settle in and try to get some sleep for the almost 5 hour flight to Colombo.
We get to Colombo almost exactly on time. Clear immigration. On to baggage claim. Wait to the bags to come out. All the bags come out but mine. I had suspected that because the transfer time between my landing and my departure in JFK was officially so short, they didn’t even try to get the bag on the Doha flight. I doesn’t matter. I just hope they missed the flight and ahven’t lost the bag.
Find the baggage claim counter and set up a claim for the missing bag. I fill out the form while the Sri Lasnkan woman taps away on the computer trying to locate the bag. After a few anxious minutes she funds the bag and tells me that the bag is still in JFK but it will be on the next flight to Doha and on to Colombo. It will arrive on the flight it was supposed to be on just a day later. Shed gives me a doc with the claim number and a phone number to call for updates.
It’s good that they were able to locate the bag easily and have confirmed an arrival date/time for the bag. It’s just inconvenient. But these happen and you just have to roll with it. Tomorrow’s another day.
Obi