Travel Jinx

As I posted earlier, two of my closest friends came to visit last Friday. One drove. The other flew.

I received a telephone call from the friend that flew early on Friday. There were delays in Philadelphia due to bad weather and she might miss her connecting flight. A few hours later I received a second call stating that she was now in Cleveland, but had missed the connecting flight. She was trying to catch a later flight, but might be stranded overnight. Later she called to report that she was on a flight arriving in Kansas City only 8 hours later than originally scheduled.

We picked her up at the airport late on Friday night and a good time was had for the weekend.

Sunday morning we dropped her off. The weather was perfect and all indications were that it would be a great flight.

She was waiting for her flight and the previous flight arrived on time. Then an ambulance crew arrived and quickly took one the flight attendants to the hospital. Apparently she had an adverse allergic reaction to something. Now the flight was delayed while they waited for a replacement flight attendant. My friend knew that she had missed the connecting flight, but on the way back she was flying to Washington Dulles, so she could take the train back home.

A few hours later it became obvious that a replacement could not be had. So they cancelled the flight. Mad scramble by all passengers to get on a flight. Any flight. My friend was desperately trying to get to any major city on the East Coast and planning to take a train back. But there were so many people trying to do the same thing and she stood in line for several hours.

Eventually she was able to get on a direct flight on a different airline to Philadelphia which arrived only two hours past the originally scheduled flight. But it was a harrowing weekend.

Perhaps it is best to stay away from my friend when she is flying...