Aisle 15

The departures board announced that the flight was delayed by an hour and will depart at 8 pm. It did not bother me much as I had two and a half hours to connect to the flight to Halifax from Toronto. The delay gave me time to pick up early dinner at the airport. For a Thursday evening, the airport was full and buzzing with people. Not one seat was available by any of the charging stations, and there were many passengers in waiting. I circled around the terminal a bit and managed to find a comfortable place, and parked my laptop. I sat back and relaxed. The delay also gave me time to finish reviewing two reports that I couldn’t finish earlier in the day. A productive evening at the airport terminal, I chuckled to myself.

I enjoy watching the hustle bustle at the airport, and the landing flights. As I looked out of the huge glass windows, I was taken by surprise. Earlier when I was waiting for an uber to take me to the airport, it was sunny and hot. But now, the clouds were turning from grey to black and had begun to envelop the sky. What started as a drizzle turned into a heavy downpour in minutes. The board flashed a further delay of one hour – 9 pm now. The incoming flight was hovering somewhere up in the sky unable to land. I had not paid attention to the weather forecast this time, it was apparently thunder showers. Slowly the announcements started trickling in of delayed flights and a few flight deviations. I didn’t like the sound of it and my brows came together in annoyance. I spoke to the lady at the gate who was surprisingly very helpful. It didn’t look like I will be able to make it to my connecting flight, she said. There was a flight at 6 am the next morning to Halifax with just one seat left. I didn’t take time to decide and she issued me a boarding pass for the morning flight mentioning that I could still try my luck to get on the night flight. What I was going to do in Toronto overnight was something I was going to figure out later.

Soon the skies cleared just a bit as though for the flights to land and take off. The elderly gentleman next to me was constantly giving me updates on the flight position, and proudly showed off the app he had downloaded that evening ‘Flight Stats’. He was heading for a meeting to Toronto before returning to Israel, he said as a matter-of-factly. As we both peered into his phone, there were indications of the flight descending. We knew before the announcement that the flight was landing. Call it petty pleasures. The process of disembarking and boarding was quick and finally the flight took off – it was 9 pm. The flight touched down in Toronto Pearson at 10:30 pm, with still 25 minutes left for the connecting flight. I hated these situations, it was perfectly fine with me if I knew for sure that I won’t make it to the flight. But the touch and go situation irked me. I was restless and my heart raced, because I wanted to make my best effort to make it to the flight. Those are the moments when you feel everything is operating in slow motion mode. All queues move while mine stalls. Not to mention the passenger in front of me at the immigration counter had to have a problem. It was Murphy’s Law in action of course. But finally, immigration was done – 11 pm. I talked to my friend in Toronto debating whether it was a good idea to visit just to spend 4-5 hours, that too at that ghostly hour. Then I noticed that the connecting flight was also delayed by an hour. My hopes were raised.

A marathon walk gets me in 30 minutes to the security for the Connections – 11:30 pm. I was told in DC I didn’t need a boarding pass for the specific flight and I could get one at the gate. But at security, I was not allowed to pass through and was told to get a boarding pass for the night flight. Was this not in contradiction to what I was told before? Apparently, the rule holds good for same day flights, my boarding pass was for the next morning. It couldn’t get more jinxed. I was directed to aisle 2, it was a painful wait. There were 2 customer service agents at the counter and 10 people in the queue, me at the fag end. The agents were taking their own sweet time oblivious to the restless people in the queue. It was 11:45 pm. I was not going to miss the chance having come this close especially with the flight scheduled to depart at 12:15 am. I excused myself, jumped the queue to request for a boarding pass. For whatever reason in this world that I failed to understand, the agent told me that the flight had departed as scheduled at 10:55 pm!!! NO……it is to depart at 12:15 am, but her system did not bring that up. At that point, I gave up. Taking a later than 6 am flight the next day so that I could visit my friend was also not an option as the flights were full. So, I held on to the boarding pass on hand dearly and inquired about a place to rest at the airport. Aisle 15, she said.

I got to Aisle 15 at 12:30 am. It was not very crowded and I got a row of 5 seats to myself. I checked out the place for the nearest washroom and charging point, and settled. A couple on the next row of seats were obviously on a hiking/camping trip, and they took out their gear to get a comfortable sleep, minus the tent. There was a 24-hr subway and Tim Hortons at the airport. A hot chocolate was all I needed. One learns to be thankful for these little things. I stretched, backpack for a pillow, luggage for my legs and my shawl for a blanket. It was as comfortable as it can get when you have a spend a night at an airport terminal. I recollected with amusement the 12 hours I spent a night at Caracas airport many years back with just one lady for company, and to keep an eye on my luggage when I had to answer nature’s call. There was no airport hotel, nor a single store to buy something to eat until breakfast time. There were also many nights I have spent at Delhi airport coming from Kabul and invariably missing the connecting flight to Chennai (it was not worth the effort checking into a hotel for 3 hours). This was no comparison. Aisle 15 was going to my ‘adda’ for the next couple of hours. It was also here that I penned down this experience.