VACATION, ALL I EVER WANTED

How does one embark on a four month trip around the Asian continent? In my case, the answer is this: with a blizzard. Following a week of loose ends, tipsy goodbyes and frantic last minute packing, the departure date for my grand adventure coincided with a healthy dose of February snow. Naturally, since my travel plans were at stake, this was no meager dusting. Instead the weather gods (though I personally blame Al Roker, just because I can't stand his post gastric bypass face) decided to unleash a massive nor'easter, complete with blizzard conditions and hurricane force winds.

News of this storm broke on Monday, with my flight scheduled to leave on Wednesday afternoon, the predicted thick of it. By midday Tuesday, Bloomberg had closed NYC schools. The UN shut down. Newark Airport closed. Airlines were canceling flights left and right at JFK. My friends' flights were already canceled and rebooked for the next day. Cathay Pacific, however, merely bumped my flight by 2 hours and left it on the boards for a Wednesday 16:00 departure.

It was a curious predicament, but over the river and through the slushy Belt parkway to JFK we drove. The airport was a veritable ghost town, with only 3 flights scheduled for takeoff that day. Checked in, hugs exchanged, security screened, snacks purchased, celebrity flight companions noted (NJ hip hoppers Naughty by Nature), and it was time for boarding. The snow was so thick we could barely detect an outline of the 777 behemoth from the window, but onto the Jetway abyss we all marched, got situated in our seats and waited to pull back from the gate.

4PM departure time came and went. We waited for an announcement. My watch read 4:45 when we were told the pilots were “trying to figure out their options.” We waited a bit longer for clarification of that statement, though I suspected that just maybe the raging blizzard outside could possibly be a factor. We were shown dinner menus and given some water, and still we waited. 'Round about 5:45, we were told there was a fuel issue and something about the JFK grounds crew being ill prepared. We waited more, somewhat befuddled, in silence after that masterful tidbit of nebulousness. 6:30 rolled around and we were informed we did not have enough fuel to reach Hong Kong and would now be diverting to South Korea (!), where we'd refuel and get a new crew. That flight time would be about 13 hours, plus 2-3 on the ground (during which we were forbidden to disembark the aircraft) and there was no set departure scheduled from Seoul to Hong Kong. Speculations began on the fuel scenario (I found it highly suspect), babies began to cry, I tore into my salami and provolone sandwich and wrestled with a piece of fat lodged between my two front teeth for a bit. Some apple juice surfaced from the rear of the plane, the Naughty by Nature dudes in coach ran interference with Treach (NBN frontman and star) up in business class, but in all we were just relieved to know we'd be getting away from the gate and up in the air.

At 7:20 or so, the pilot told us that the delay had been caused by negotiating the airspace fees with Russia and North Korea, but assured us it had been settled and there was but one bit of paperwork to go. We pulled back from the gate and the deicing of the plane started, which should have lasted 20 minutes. After an hour and deicing completed, we were stopped yet again by an unruly passenger who wished to deboard due to inclement and unsafe weather. (Guess he was in a blind coma when he left his house, drove to the airport and boarded the plane in said inclement weather.) Pilot made a generic “weather is safe to fly in” announcement, copilot soothed the surly traveler and we were just...about...off...

But then we weren't.

Cathay fed us some more bullshit about China (now I know Hong Kong is still technically autonomous and likes us Americans, but Cathay flies all over mainland China every day.) rejecting our request to fly over their airspace AND JFK closing the necessary runway due to snow (snow? Really?) AND the crew having exceeded their workable hours limit. All at once. It was after 9PM. We had been sitting on the plane for over 5 hours.

They held us lowly coach people on the plane for at least another half hour, while preferential treatment was given to the folks up front. They were vacated from the terminal before we even deplaned. A minor uprising was narrowly averted when the crew tried to get the NBN posse out from the back of economy class before the rest of us. Sorry boys, but we were down with NO P.P. by then.

One stale turkey sandwich and treacherous bus ride back into Manhattan later, and I was sitting in a room at the Grand Hyatt with no info on my rescheduled flight at 1:30 AM. The traveler in me was understandably cranky and frustrated. The hotel bar was closed. So, instead of braving the streets around Grand Central in the middle of the night to find a martini bar, the publicist in me perked up. I called the news.

Today during flight check in, I gave the NY Post a story and got my fellow travelers to dish as well. You can read it all here. (Now I know how my artists have felt all these years when they called me freaking out “I was on the phone for 20 minutes and they ran one line!” ) Genius word twisters, maybe, but hey, at least I caused the airline some embarrassment and hopefully some hefty fines. More importantly, I kept my temper in check long enough to chronicle my first day of adventure while cruising over the polar ice cap at 37,000 feet, onto what I hope proves to be a most auspicious start of the year of the tiger.