the most chaotic airport experience ever
The time I took a 55 minute flight to Edinburgh, Scotland.
😣 pre-flight complications
Near the end of my term in England, I booked a quick trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. My flight was booked for August 20th, at 9:15pm. I had booked a train ticket from Cambridge to London Stansted (a ~30 min ride) for 6:15pm. When it comes to flights I always plan to get to the airport insanely early (and usually end up waiting in the airport for 2 hours or so) just in case there are any complications.
On this particular day, when I arrived at the train station, I found out that all trains directed to London Stansted for the rest of that day had been cancelled. Confused, I asked the train personnel and they let me know that the London Stansted train station had been shut down and evacuated.
I was suddenly very glad I booked the train ticket obscenely early because my new predicted travel time would take more than double the travel time I had originally planned. I then took a train to some station halfway to the airport where I could then take a rail replacement bus to the airport. When I arrived at the train station, I saw possibly one of the longest queues I have ever seen for a bus. Turns out fitting 3 trains worth of passengers onto coach busses is a much bigger feat than I had imagined.
I actually felt really bad for the police and rail personnel because they had to deal with so many people who were angry that they were going to miss their flights. There was a lot of yelling and general hostility which wasn’t fair because it wasn’t the fault of any of the workers.
Once I got to the airport (an hour and a half later), I still had about just over an hour to get through security and to my gate. Unfortunately, because of the railway complications most passengers arrived late for their respective flights so there were a lot of people crowding everywhere and getting frustrated at each other.
I also had made an assumption that I had to check in at the desk like I did for my flight to Madid earlier that term. I hadn’t considered that it would be different because I was flying domestically. So I waited around for the check in desk to open but it never did. At this point it was 50 minutes before the flight and the displays still said that my flight’s check in desk had not yet opened. I was getting concerned because the gates close 45 minutes prior to the flight.
When I eventually checked my flight tracker, I saw that I didn’t actually have to check in at the desk. I realized I had messed up and was going to miss my flight because I hadn’t even gone through security yet, which was super backed up because of the train delays. So I got up and started running towards security.
When I got to security the first thing I see is people shoving and yelling at each other, and crowding around the poor security personnel. As I got into the security line my gate closed and here is where I started to really panic. The next flight was at 6am and I wouldn’t have the time to go home before then, which would leave me stranded at the airport for the next 8 hours. What’s even more stressful was that at this point I was too deep into the security line that I couldn’t leave to ask the desks for help, so the only thing I could do was get past security and figure it out from there. To add to my stress, my phone was also about to die and there were no outlets anywhere near security.
After a very stressful security experience, I got past security 2 minutes before my flight was scheduled to take off. Weirdly, when I checked my flight tracker on my phone, my flight number no long appeared on the tracker.
I started running towards my gate and arrived 1 minute after the flight was scheduled to depart. By some miracle the flight happened to be stalled for 10 minutes because of runway traffic so they let me on. When I sat down in my seat I was so relieved but still feeling the delayed stress of almost missing my flight.
✈️ during the flight
Because I had arrived late, when I boarded the plane and started walking towards my seat everyone was staring at me. I was worried that the people seated next to me would be annoyed that I had “stalled the plane” even though I knew they were already stalled regardless of me.
Luckily, seated beside me was a nice old man, who introduced himself as Brian. He asked me (in hindsight, probably jokingly) if I was in a rush. I told him the story of my commute to the airport; I guess I find oversharing to strangers kind of fun🤷♀️.
After breaking the ice, for the rest of the flight we talked about so many things. He told me that he as a band manager for a Scottish band based in Edinburgh, where he lives with his daughter and grandson. They had just finished touring Europe, the last destination being Finland. He did a layover in London on his way back to see some friends, which is why he was on this particular flight.
He started showing me pictures and videos on his phone of the tour (the band members wear kilts!). I asked him if he had always wanted to be part of a band, and he told me a very interesting origin story of the band. Apparently he had never been that passionate about music, or even had much of an interest in it.
The whole reason he got into it was to support his best friend, who was the lead singer in the band. Honestly as he was describing his story it kind of in some ways reminds me of myself. Recently there have been many situations where my friends have started a passion project they want to pursue and as a way to show them how much I love and care about them, I volunteer to help them by doing as much as I can offer. I think what I really admire about Brian is that he had no intention of pursuing it initially but seeing that his friend desperately needed the help, he treated this dream as his own because that’s how badly he wanted his best friend to succeed.
Apparently, some 40ish years ago his best friend approached him with the dream of starting a band. At the time, his best friend only had the music skills, no connections or business skills. Brian leveraged his connections to find his best friend all the other band members, who have been with the band for the past 40 years. He took on this band managing as a hobby while still working as a therapist full time.
He then told me about his therapist job, and how as a very reflective person he would often write down his thoughts and emotions in a journal, share them with his best friend, and these journal entries would end up inspiring original songs.
As I’ve been travelling, I’ve been getting random strangers (and friends) that I’ve met to sign my travel journal by replying to the question “what is one lesson you’ve learned that you wish you knew earlier?.” The journal has now become a collection of lived experiences and fun stories from so many people around the world!
I showed him my book, and he loved the idea. I then asked him what his answer to the question would be and he told me that the biggest lesson he would tell his younger self is to not worry so much and just let life happen.
“No amount of regret can change the past and no amount of worrying can change the future”
I felt like that day in particular I really needed to hear that lesson. Life has a funny way of working out. What started out to be one of the most stressful flying experiences turned out to be the best flight I have ever been on. Very rarely do I land and wish the flight had gone on longer. In the end, he wished me a good stay in Edinburgh and as we arrived at the airport I saw him reunite with his daughter and grandson and it made my day.