Here is a fun story about what happened to us in the airport.
We were in an Asian airport waiting for a transfer to Newark. Upon arrival in the departure gate area, we learned our first flight was delayed by seven hours or so, which would make us miss our flight ultimately home.
We called the airline to see if they could do anything for us. Amazingly, they found us another flight route so that we could arrive home at about the same time we would have originally. Thanks! But…it left in an hour or so. My wife went to find out how to get our new boarding passes, and the news she brought back wasn’t good. By this time we had 45-50 minutes to go out through immigration, take a train to a different terminal, check in, take a train back to the gate area, go through immigration, go through security, and run to our new gate.
What followed was potentially the most intense 45 minutes of our lives! Every moment we were either running or frantically figuring out what our next steps were. When we got off the first train, I left my wife with our carry-on bags, running ahead with our passports to check in, thinking I could come back to where she was. As I ran out of that area to find an elevator to go up to the fourth floor, I realized I had left her in a baggage claim area–I could not get back in. I called her; fortunately she had already realized it and was coming with our two carry-on bags and a heavy backpack to meet me.
I got to the counter; we now had 30 minutes before take-off. My guy wouldn’t check us in. Not enough time, he said. I argued with him as precious minutes ticked away. He finally asked his female supervisor, who not only gave the green light, but also went the extra mile to arrange for our checked luggage to make the switch last minute.
We were a go! But my wife hadn’t found me yet! I frantically scanned the people coming toward me. Where was she?!
As my wife rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, she realized she couldn’t find her phone. As a shady looking man exited the elevator on a lower floor, her heart sank — she knew she would never see her phone again. A very long minute later she heard her phone ringing from her purse–it was me calling to find out where she was. She answered with relief in her voice, and before long we were reunited.
We grabbed our passports and boarding passes from the smiling supervisor who, wanting a visual on my wife, had come out to meet us as we flew by. We took the train, made it through immigration and then security fairly quickly, and then ran all out for 3-4 minutes to gate E32, the whole time scanning signs to point the way. We arrived with 1-2 minutes to spare!
When we arrived at the gate, we found out our flight was delayed by a half an hour.
The rest of our trip home was, thankfully, relatively uneventful.