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.
