Oh Delta Airlines, how I used to trust in thee....

(I stood in this line for 7 hours)
I wanted to blog this separately from my trip because it didn't ruin it, but it did cause a lot of frustration on my part. I arrived in South Africa, tired and excited only to find out that my bag never made it on the plane in New York. I arrived on a Saturday and the next flight from New York (the one that would bring my bag) wasn't going to be until Monday evening! I was very frustrated and unhappy that I would have to wait that long for my luggage, but I managed. They finally brought my bags to my hotel on Tuesday morning. 4 days without my stuff! I wanted to hug the courier service guy! So, I thought that this was the major mishap of my trip....not so. It wasn't until I was trying to go home that all the drama happened!

I went to the airport at 4 o'clock on a Saturday because my flight left at 6. I went through all the normal procedures that you would go thru and thought I was on my way back to the US. I was standing at the gate when they informed us that our flight had been cancelled! The pilot was really sick and they couldn't get another Delta pilot to Cape Town until the next morning. They told us that we needed to re enter the country and go pick up our luggage and they would try to find hotel accommodations for that night. The only problem is that the customs/emigration people have gone home for the night and they didn't have anybody to open the terminal to let us back into the airport! They ended up busing us back around to the front doors and then waiting in a really long line to get our passports checked again. I finally got my bags, and started to stand in another line for hotel vouchers. I decided to just go back to the hotel where I have been staying to forgo the craziness. There were 260 people on our flight and so people were trying to make a mad dash for the buses to shuttle them to hotels. They told us to arrive at 5:30 a.m. because our new flight was leaving at 8:30. I took a taxi from the hotel and arrived at about 6 a.m. only to find a long line at the baggage claim that was not moving an inch (refer to the picture above) The computer systems were down and so it was taking about 15-20 minutes to check each person in, and then sometimes it wasn't working at all! I stood in the line for 7 hours before they got me through. I almost didn't have a seat on the new flight, but they ended up bumping me up to business elite class. If you ever have to fly overseas, that is the way to go! It was the nicest flight I have ever had! I was spoiled. So 18 hours later.....

We arrived in New York City at 1:00 a.m. Monday morning. We all had missed our connecting flights and so they said somebody would be at baggage claim to help us out, nobody was there. We all proceeded to the Delta terminal (we had to take a train to get there) and the doors were locked! Everybody went home! They said that they didn't know that we were arriving. Our pilot had to end up calling the supervisor and some more big shots so they could let us in to the terminal and get more Delta employees out of bed to come help us out. I stood in another line for 3 hours to get my new connecting flight information and a hotel voucher. They had a bus to take us to the selected hotel. We started to drive and lo and behold the hotel was over an hour away from the airport! We arrived at the hotel at 5:30 a.m. I checked in and went straight to bed for an hour and a half and then showered and met the rest of the passengers in the lobby for breakfast. They gave us meal vouchers that worth 7 dollars and the breakfast at the hotel was $10.95. Of course! We were waiting for the bus to pick us up at 9:00 a.m., but it didn't arrive until 9:45. We finally got on the bus and then being in NYC and all we were stuck in traffic. By the time we got to the airport, most of us had missed our connecting flights again! I had to rebook another flight for SLC, but it wasn't leaving for another 6 hours! I really thought at this point that I was never coming home. I waited and then our plane was on time, yay! I finally arrived in SLC only a day and a half late! This was the most nightmare Delta situation that I have every heard of! (well, except for crashing)