Within five minutes of walking into the Dallas airport I had already gotten in a small disagreement with another person over who was first in line.
I vowed to keep my cool on my next leg.
So when my Raleigh to Philly flight was delayed, I kept calm and waited patiently. Delayed for an hour. Then another hour. Then another hour. 6 hours later, our flight took off.
While I was waiting patiently, most everyone else on my flight shouted and screamed and got transferred onto other, earlier flights.
Learned my lesson. If you want to get your way at the airport, you need to be a monster.
The only good thing to come from my long delay was — for those of us who waited out the delays — all racial and age divisions melted away and we all shared our travel war stories. We literally went around the room and talked about how long we’d been in the airport, how the hotel messed up a reservation, how many hours we’d driven in a rental car, etc. I, of course, couldn’t stop laughing.
Common goals bring together uncommon people.
oh, I dunno–I was stranded at O’Hare for hours and hours and everyone was screaming and freaking out–and when I called on one of the “red phones” to change my flight, I was so chill about when I needed to fly out, the lady stuck me in first class bulk head free of charge–without even telling me! I didn’t realize it until they took my new boarding pass at the gate that I’d been bumped to first class. So, sometimes being chill can pay off!
Yes, chill is that way forward – you do have to make yourself heard though!