"We Have A Situation Here…"

 

…is what the nice lady announced on her 2-way at 10:50 this morning. The check In supervisor was urgently ringing a higher authority. The problem  was we had 10 minutes to check in for our connecting flight from LA to New Orleans. And we had yet to make our way thru the Security area.  Our bags were tagged and on their way to N.O. – but we weren’t part of the deal. Something about not being allocated a ticket by Virgin Australia. Virgin had cocked up (sorry, I just had to say it). Delta just had to help us.

It was 9am in a warm LA sun – it was 5 degrees when we left Oz – looking for someone to blame, for someone to assist us as our bags were going one way, and we 6 another. “ No ticket for you, sir!” I uttered a few Aussieism’s in response, but that would get us nowhere. Delta said it was Virgin’s issue, but after jogging half the length of the LA environs to seek their urgent help, their counter was unmanned. 45 minutes later we obtained the help of a lovely Delta lady (you will quickly pick up on my frequent song references).

So we missed our flight. Alas, our bags didn’t, and we are stranded at LAX in 30 degrees wearing Melbourne winter woolies. Bizzarely, we don’t stand out from the diverse LA crowd. What a mixture of ethnicities, cultures and fashion. Interestingly, as we were watching our flight depart without us, as resigned to our fate as we were, and being 20 hrs awake with minimal sleep, a dreadlocked visitor sought us out to ask for assistance with his own travel issues. Must be that friendly and eloquent outlook we Aussies present no matter what shit we’re faced with.

We happily accepted some Delta food/drink vouchers as we were faced with a 7 hr delay til our next available flight to N.O. So we did what any intrepid traveler would do while faced with such adversity.

We adjourned to a bar for a few beers. Do you know what a couple of ales do to you when you’ve been up for 24 hrs and run around in the 30 degree sunshine? Yep, $200 later (US) we’re in la-la land and still have 2 hours to go til another 3-4 hr flight. (In a sense we are akready flying...) Then it will (hopefully) be a mad – nay - very mad rush to make Bourbon St for some Saturday night action.

Only in America.