Sylvia's Journal

Or to be more precise, AA and JFK. It feels like it was today but it’s past midnight, so it is yesterday. I am now in Miami. Not quite where I had intended to be but about halfway. I spent the entire day at JFK airport. Actually, that is not entirely correct; between 9:30 and 12:30 I was in a plane, some of that time on the tarmac, which I know really well by now, and some of that time in the air. About one hour into our very delayed flight to Port au Prince, we returned with a leaking fuel tank. I was happy that the captain decided not to risk running out of fuel before we reached our destination because there’s no place to land before you get to Haiti after you leave the North American coast.

The flight was full, noisy on the way out; very quiet on the way back – lots of praying going on all around me. But once on the ground the intense prayer turned into yelling and screaming to anyone who dared to disagree that this was unfair, a plot against Haitians (why would American Airlines put a faulty plane on the Haiti route?). One does not argue with a person whose emotional buttons have been pushed. The rationality of some people only put oil on the emotional flames. At times I had to put my fingers in my ears to hear myself think.

This is the second time on this double feature trip that I am arriving a day later than planned. In Ghana, in the end, it did not matter. It better not matter again. Maybe the universe is signaling me that such tight schedules are just invitations for delayed arrivals. It meant that, once again, I will have to make a running start, just like last week in Ghana. I can do that.

Yesterday’s travel day from hell also stood in sharp contrast to my pleasant flight to and from Accra in business class. As Axel remarked during one of my frequent phone calls to him (to vent), “you are out of your traditional corridor.” Indeed I was, and I’m afraid I still am.

Once back at JFK there were long lines populated with angry people and ground staff who acted as if this has happened before. They did their best but were very stingy with handing out anything that could make our life easier, such as dinner coupons or lounge passes (we couldn’t give lounge passes to everyone, imagine!). I have no frequent traveler standing with American Airlines so no special treatment for me; no special lines, no lounges. I had forgotten how bad it is to be part of the crowd of low status travelers.

I did not want to relive the experience of the early morning check-in for a flight to Haiti at JFK, which bad in itself, would also require getting up at about 3 AM. I wanted to get out of the NY airspace as quick as possible and try my luck in another airspace. Miami seemed like a good waypoint that would give me at least some sense of progress for an entire day of ‘travel.’ Retrieving the luggage took several hours which meant I missed the 4:30 PM flight to Miami. It was just as well that I missed that flight which arrived at the same time as my later flight, around 11 PM; all flights were delayed but some more than others.

Leaving JFK was once again slow going. It was my fourth long wait on the tarmac at JFK in less than a week. As a result we arrived so late in Miami that most flights to Latin America had left so there were more angry people, but less shouting. I suspect most people had been worn out by all the waiting. That included me.