The Terminal

What's the movie that came out a few years ago... with Catherine Zeta Jones, and Romance movie stud Tom Hanks?

You know, the one where Tom Hanks' character finds himself stuck in the airport after his home country has a coup and changes leadership. Oh yeah, The Terminal.

Well, I wasn't stuck in JFK and I wasn't in transit between two countries, but I was forced by United Airlines to spend the night in Chicago at O'hare International on my way from Vermont to Seattle. A wary word of advice to all travelers between the East coast and West coast- If you can afford to, spend the extra money and take a direct flight (at least during winter months).

Learn from my misfortune. When I arrived at the airport in Manchester on Dec. 29th I was endearingly optimistic. Earlier in the day I'd checked my flight to see that it was on time. Then full of nostalgia I pulled myself and two carry on bags from my childhood home and headed out with my mom towards the airport. It wasn't until 15 minutes after I'd arrived at the terminal that United announced that my flight would be delayed an hour, at least. Again, my optimism kicked in and I humbly asked the agent at the flight counter about my connecting flight in Chicago. He re-assured me that all flights going in and out of Chicago were experiencing delays and not to worry about my connection. Trouble sign #1....

My plane took off a hour and a half after its scheduled time, spent 20 extra minutes in the air circling O'hare until they were cleared to land, and then took 15 minutes to taxi to the gate. By the time I made it off my plane and jumped on a bus across the airport to my gate, my plane had been gone for 15 minutes... Trouble sign #2.....

My optimism stayed intact, although significantly diminished, while I struggled through lines of people to talk to a customer service representative (trouble sign #3). The United representatives were extremely overworked and had no sympathy. They informed me that they couldn't book me on a flight for another three days (January 1), and that they would not help me in anyway during my stay at the airport (thank you United...). When I finally... and embarrassingly... threw a small fit they finally told me that they could put me on standby for a flight leaving the next morning.

Normally I would have looked at this as another adventure, try to make the best of it, and move on. But for some reason this bump in the road took a toll on me. You could literally taste the bitterness of everyone stranded in O'hare. The United representatives weren't discrete about taking out their annoyance on the waylaid travelers either. Tired and frustrated, everyone left in transit to their final destinations desperately tried to secure the last seats on already full flights. The man at the counter next to me struggled with United as they explained that he would have to wait 9 days to get on a flight home. The next morning I spoke with a woman who took her dog out for a walk at 11:30pm, only to find that she couldn't get back through the security barrier for the rest of the night, and had to sleep just inside the airport doors.

In The Terminal Catherine Zeta Jones was compassionate to Tom Hanks, and helped him through his confusing and stressful JFK experience. My experience with the United airlines representatives was very different.