April 16: Baltimore, Md.
It is supposed to be a simple, overnight trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in my great nephew's christening (I'm the godfather).
Jeanne and I fly up to BWI on Saturday morning and are set to fly back Sunday evening. All goes as planned until we arrive at BWI at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday and try to use the automated check-in kiosk. It says we have no reservations. I go to the counter and the agent starts checking. He gets a very strange look on his face and says, "The Gainesville airport is closed. All it says is that there is some kind of emergency. All flights are canceled."
He sends us over to a bank of phones, direct lines to Delta reservations. They tell us a private plane has crashed into the terminal at GNV and the airport is closed until Monday. We've been rebooked for a 7:30 a.m. flight Monday out of BWI.
Since BWI is quite a way from anything, I ask them to go ahead and fly us to Atlanta Sunday night. They comply with reservations on a 6:30 p.m. flight arriving at ATL at 8:30.
Then, we stop in a BWI airport bar to make some phone calls and rearrange our Monday schedules. We call the Gainesville Sun where Jeanne works and find out a twin-engine plane crashed into the baggage-claim area and killed all three people aboard. There was no Wi-Fi Internet in the terminal, so we also got on the horn and made a reservation at an airport Best Western in Atlanta, then caught the 6:30 p.m. flight.
As it stands now, GNV is to reopen this afternoon, and we might make it home by 4:30 p.m.
Postscript, 9:45 p.m. Monday, April 17:
We did make it home at about 5:30 p.m. after spending four hours in the Atlanta airport and enduring a one-hour "maintenance issue" in Atlanta. We arrived at GNV to find a huge chunk of wall between the arrivals area and what used to be baggage claim plugged with wall board over two by fours. The place smelled of smoke, the carpets were soaked, and electric fans were everywhere trying to extricate the smell and the moisture. Baggage "claim" was a couple of carts parked on the curb in front of the airport.
It is supposed to be a simple, overnight trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in my great nephew's christening (I'm the godfather).
Jeanne and I fly up to BWI on Saturday morning and are set to fly back Sunday evening. All goes as planned until we arrive at BWI at about 3:30 p.m. Sunday and try to use the automated check-in kiosk. It says we have no reservations. I go to the counter and the agent starts checking. He gets a very strange look on his face and says, "The Gainesville airport is closed. All it says is that there is some kind of emergency. All flights are canceled."
He sends us over to a bank of phones, direct lines to Delta reservations. They tell us a private plane has crashed into the terminal at GNV and the airport is closed until Monday. We've been rebooked for a 7:30 a.m. flight Monday out of BWI.
Since BWI is quite a way from anything, I ask them to go ahead and fly us to Atlanta Sunday night. They comply with reservations on a 6:30 p.m. flight arriving at ATL at 8:30.
Then, we stop in a BWI airport bar to make some phone calls and rearrange our Monday schedules. We call the Gainesville Sun where Jeanne works and find out a twin-engine plane crashed into the baggage-claim area and killed all three people aboard. There was no Wi-Fi Internet in the terminal, so we also got on the horn and made a reservation at an airport Best Western in Atlanta, then caught the 6:30 p.m. flight.
As it stands now, GNV is to reopen this afternoon, and we might make it home by 4:30 p.m.
Postscript, 9:45 p.m. Monday, April 17:
We did make it home at about 5:30 p.m. after spending four hours in the Atlanta airport and enduring a one-hour "maintenance issue" in Atlanta. We arrived at GNV to find a huge chunk of wall between the arrivals area and what used to be baggage claim plugged with wall board over two by fours. The place smelled of smoke, the carpets were soaked, and electric fans were everywhere trying to extricate the smell and the moisture. Baggage "claim" was a couple of carts parked on the curb in front of the airport.
posted by Dave at 9:18 AM
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