It doesn't rain, it... well, I don't know

It's Friday, and usually that's great because I'm on my way back to New York to see my family. Well, it's not so simple this week. What a drama. Where do I start?

I was at the hotel last night having dinner when I got a call from one of the people on our project saying that the Partner on the job told everybody from the East Coast to get out of Chicago as soon as possible the next morning. He had heard that there was a snow storm approaching the whole North-East and there were likely to be problems flying home. I checked out the weather forecast and there was nothing major going on and I almost didn't do anything about it, but when the boss lets you see your family a day early, there's no point trying to convince him otherwise. So after dinner, I rang our corporate travel centre, and that's when the fun began.

The travel agent said that there had already been a bunch of cancelled flights (this is 12 hours in advance mind you), so there was absolutely no availability on flights to New York. I already had a 6:30pm confirmed flight, but he said I should get to the airport early in the morning just in case.

We (by we, I mean he) cancelled my flight and booked a different flight on United for 11:00am. That was a good move because it meant I had a confirmed seat to get back home. Just in case, I also had waitlisted reservations on two different American flights. Things were covered.

When I woke up this morning (otherwise known as "the smorning"), I jumped on the net to check whether my United flight would be on time or delayed. I didn't consider option three - cancelled. No problem - they had so many other flights I should be OK, so I checked out of the hotel and headed out to O'Hare airport. I returned the rental car with no problems and went to the United terminal. With United, you've got no choice but to check in yourself at the touch-screens. It told me that not only had my flight been cancelled, but there was absolutely nothing else available today. Would you like to check for tomorrow? Sure, why not? The best it could do was a stand-by ticket at 6:20 am. I asked the lady who was in charge of the machines and she told me to go to ticketing where a real person would help me out. After quarter of an hour of the line not moving, I knew that I was probably wasting my time. Even if I got served, having absolutely no status with United wasn't going to get me anywhere. I cut my losses and went to the American Airlines terminal.

When I got there, it turned out that all of the flights to La Guardia (New York's short and medium haul airport) were cancelled. Because of my Qantas status, I can check-in at the First Class counters. They're the same as the economy counters, but the queues are shorter and the staff are friendlier and happy to spend more time to help out. That's a good thing because I was in a bit of a pickle. Not only had all flights to La Guardia been cancelled, but they also had been to JFK (the international and long-haul airport) and there was a raft of cancellations and waitlisting for Newark (in New Jersey). Thinking outside the box, I asked whether they had anything to White Plains. White Plains is a bit of an obscure airport about 80km north of NYC. There's not too much that goes in an out of there, so I figured it was worth a shot.

Unfortunately, the next two flights were already on a waitlist, but I put my name down for them and got a confirmed seat on the 2pm flight. When you waitlist, your checked luggage goes on the waitlisted flight, so if you end up catching the later one, it's waiting for you at the other end. If you get the earlier one, it gets there early. The aircraft that go to White Plains are pretty small, so getting on the waitlist usually doesn't do you any favours. That was true for this flight. My bag left, but I was waiting. No problems. The next flight got cancelled, so there was just mine left after that. After hanging around the airport for about two and a half hours, they finally cancelled my flight too. It turns out that a plane had run off the end of the runway. I'd already booked a hire car to drive from White Plains, so I cancelled that and started again.

So I went to the counter and started thinking of other options to get home. I tried to fly to LGA (airport closed), JFK (no flights), Philadelphia (no flights), Boston (go home on the train, but flights were all full) and even Islip on Long Island (American doesn't fly there).

The lady even found a flight that went to some hick town in Carolina (she didn't even know whether it was North or South Carolina), but couldn't confirm the flight to New York. I gave that one a miss.

The only thing you could get to on the East Coast was Washington DC. So I made a couple of quick calls; one to Alicia to see if she wanted to meet in DC, and one to Marcel to see if he could put me up for a couple of days. It looked like DC was the only was I was going to be leaving Chicago this weekend, so I took it.

So now I've been at the airport for six and a half hours, and am likely to be here for another six. Because DC is the only thing open, the waitlist is bigger than the capacity of the plane itself, and my confirmed flight doesn't leave until after 8pm.

What a day. This just goes beyond anything I've ever seen. Every now and then, Sydney gets fogged in for a while, but this is huge. I'm sure I'll have a good impromptu holiday, but it's not exactly what I was planning!

Update: The entire East Coast has pretty much closed. The DC flight got cancelled, so now I'm flying to Norfolk, Virginia. It's the only flight on the entire East Coast of the USA, north of Florida, that I could get a confirmed seat on tonight. I've booked another hire car and have a 4 hour drive in ice and sleet ahead of me.

I've been ok all day, but right now, I'm just fed up.

Another update: They've just called for volunteers to get off the aircraft because it's been weight restricted. Great. I doubt I'll ever get there.

Final update: I made it. It was a long and tiring drive, but I got to DC in one piece. I didn't have my luggage, because that went to DC on one of the earlier flights. I went out to the airport this morning and I actually found my luggage. I was hoping to find it there, but after yesterday's disaster, anything could have happened. So now, I'm still not home, but I got somewhere to sleep and I have my luggage. If I ever have to go through that again, it will be too soon.