Everything started out going so smoothly with an easy luggage check-in and a hopeful excitement to get out to Quito to begin my vacation in earnest! Little did I know how deep the rabbit hole would go on day 1 of my trip… At BOS, after making it through security, I bought a couple of croissants and a bottle of water at a small store and wouldn’t you know they only charged me for the water… Free croissants, sweet! I went to go sit down to eat my free grub and proceeded to get hit by a plastic baseball… some kids were hitting around a baseball with a foam bat! I thought to myself “kids will be kids” and shrugged it off. I got hit again and started to wonder why security hasn’t asked them to stop. The ball hit on the next toss nearly went down the jet bridge which opened up a few minutes prior. Mildly irked the ball was not lost down the jet bridge, I finished my second croissant as boarding for the plane began. Soon I would be on my way to MIA as the first leg of my trip out to Ecuador! …Or so I thought.
The plane took off as expected with no issues and only smooth sailing in sight. At some point, there was an announcement made on the intercom about an unusual amount of turbulence, nothing I hadn’t experienced before so I thought nothing of it. A few moments later, the announcement that started the next 48 hours of hell came across the intercom. We were to make a “diverted landing” which was specifically stated multiple times as “not an emergency landing”. Wilmington, NC (ILM) was the destination. After touch down and unboarding, I waited in line at the counter to figure out how I would get down to MIA for my connecting flight when another announcement was made. Apparently the plane we were on was diverted due to a mechanical malfunction… Wonderful! After the proper checks were conducted and the plane was cleared, a notification was made that an unclaimed bag was left in an overhead bin and an additional inspection would be needed. The flight was listed with a 5hr delay expected to reach MIA at 10:10PM. I was supposed to get into UIO at that time, not MIA…
I called American Airlines customer support who were quick to help me reschedule my flight to UIO for 9:25AM the next morning with an arrival of 1:36PM. Another delay pushed the flight of ILM to 12:30AM while a new plane was sent from MIA to bring us to MIA… go figure. Annoyed but keeping a positive outlook, I went to grab food from the only restaurant on this side of security. They were out of pizza, burgers, wings, and only had two staff members for taking orders and making food for an entire flight’s worth of frustrated travelers stranded in ILM. After waiting for 45min, I finally got my 3 chicken tenders and some fries. Man, was that not filling…
I walked back to the gate and caught the end of the new announcement: the plane that was sent from MIA to bring us to MIA did not have a sufficient flight crew to fly us… WTF! They brought a plane but no crew… who does that…? Apparently American Airlines… Oh, and another notification came in, the flight is delayed until 4AM… no, wait 9AM, was I ever going to be able to leave Wilmington, NC?
The gate attendant said they would issue hotel vouchers for everyone and to come back in the morning. Unfortunately, the 24hr requirement for providing a negative Covid test would be up by then and there was no onsite Covid testing at the Wilmington airport. I decided to stay put… and I wasn’t the only steadfast traveler. We were the few, the proud, the ones willing to tough it out overnight in airport seats. Call us crazy and you’d be right!
I called American Airlines again to see what they could do about the 9AM flight leaving ILM which would miss my connection in MIA heading to UIO by 1.5hrs. They offered another flight over 24hrs later. Wonderful. I spent the next couple hours researching options that wouldn’t require missing the first 1.5days of my trip to Ecuador. I had been in contact with the most reliable person in my life throughout all of this: my father! He came in with the save just before midnight, a flight leaving MIA at 8:50PM set to arrive in UIO at 12:51AM, which while not the ideal answer I was hoping for, it would save me 12hrs. After all of this, I remained excited for my vacation. I needed this! I also needed a drink… it had been a day… yeah, it had definitely been a day!
No Regrets: The Only Way To Live 