The day is Wednesday, May 30th, 2018. The time is 3:30pm EDT and I have still yet to finish packing. This is just the way I am, always procrastinating, and of course, making my mother insanely nervous as we need to be at the airport in two and a half hours. This would make many people nervous, as packing two weeks worth of clothes and necessities in such a short amount of time leads to many a forgotten item. However, I was not bothered by this as I continued to sit on the couch and finish my episode of Futurama. Fast forward two hours, and I had completely finished packing, and was waiting for my sister to return from the store to pick up a few things she had forgotten to purchase since January when we planned this adventure. Thankfully, five minutes later she got back and announced that she had finished packing for the trip. Good thing too as we were leaving for the airport as soon as she had returned.
Luckily, my dad works for the Cleveland airport, and because of this, we live within a five-minute drive from the airport, and we always know the status of flights, weather, security lines, customs, the lot. Additionally, we do not have to deal with the hassle of the departures drop off section of the airport, as he has parking privileges near the check-in counters. We arrived at the ticket counter to see the one thing that we did not account for. Golfers. If you have ever traveled with a set of golf clubs as luggage, you may know of the hassles associated with it. Golf clubs are actually pretty heavy, cumbersome, and worst of all, expensive, so you are keen that the airline takes the best of care with them so as not to break any of the clubs. Because of these bags of clubs, an estimated five minute wait time for the line to the ticket counter was immediately bumped up to 25, and the stress began. The time is now 6:30pm EDT, boarding starts in one hour and ten minutes, and we haven't even gotten through one of the biggest nightmares in modern travel history. Security.
(If you are familiar with Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, you will know that it is not the biggest airport in the world, and after Continental was bought by United, it ceased operations as a major airline hub. This was bad news for the airport as its major customer had picked up and left within the course of two years. Revenue slowed, and because of this the airport started slacking on some of the major maintenance that had been planned, and was very much needed. After around five years of questioning whether the airport should keep one of its major concourses open, a new breed of airline arrived on the scene, and ultimately at Hopkins. The economy hoppers. Airlines such as Spirit, and Frontier which offered cheap flights and an a la carte method of pricing. These airlines were never predicted to last and were seen as the final hurrah of the airport before its eventual demise. However, once people started realizing that they could take cheap weekend trips around the country to see family, or have quick vacations, these airlines started to flourish, and more and more kept popping up. This gave the airport new money and allowed it to start working on projects that it finally had the cash for. Ultimately, this will be fantastic for the airport, and for its customers. However, currently is a different story as the airport is working at the fullest capacity it has had in 10 years while simultaneously fixing and upgrading itself for the newfound travelers.)
Security at any airport is always a... well... its a shitshow let's be real here. Security at an airport that is experiencing its highest traveler numbers in 10 years while working at the same time to accommodate them. Needless to say, Security took forever. As we are finally cleared, its 7:20pm EDT and boarding starts in 20 minutes. The absolute worst part though, in my opinion, was the fact that the gate where we were boarding did not have a view of the aircraft so we were not able to see if the airplane was even there. This was an issue, as the plane had been delayed the previous two days by 30 minutes. Granted, this was not terrible in terms of flight delays, however, our layover was only 50 minutes, and we had no time to spare.
There was a slight delay in boarding which caused quite a bit of stress, as the time of departure was supposed to be 8:20pm EDT, and Icelandair did not start boarding the aircraft until 8:10pm EDT. If you have ever been on an airplane before you know of the one thing that has stumped even the greatest thinkers of the modern age. Boarding. This is mostly because first class is normally boarded first to make them feel special, and business class is the next to board, to give busy men and women the illusion of doing things on time. and then everyone else basically boards at the same time and it's a crapshoot to get to the plane while inevitably being held up by either an old woman who can't lift her carryon to the luggage compartment, or a family trying to juggle three kids and the same amount of carryons. You've been there, you know how it goes.
Well, apparently, someone in Iceland has nothing to do and was able to come up with a solution that makes the most sense and takes less than 15 minutes. Why not load the plane from the back first? I know. It makes perfect sense, and who cares if rich people get snooty and the business types get stressed if everyone boards 20 minutes faster? Certainly not me, that's for sure. We left the gate at 8:22pm EDT and were in the air by 8:30pm EDT. Major crisis averted, still a little worried that we will miss our connection in Reykjavik, but at this point, it was out of our hands. As if he had heard my thoughts, an announcement comes over the loudspeaker, first in Icelandic, then in English: Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Today's flight is from Cleveland to Reykjavik. We will be cruising around 18 thousand meters. We should have a smooth flight, except for a few patches of turbulence over Greenland. Tonight's flight should be around five and a half hours. The stewardesses should be around shortly with refreshments available to purchase. Thank you for choosing Icelandair. Five and a half hours!? We might just be making this connection after all. As I swipe through the screen in the headrest in front of me, looking for something to watch, my sister turns to me and says "Did you bring the Eurail pass? Because I didn't." Well. Shit.
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