Last we spoke, the Champ and I were holed up in her parents' Myrtle Beach condominium waiting to return home. Despite my hacking chest cough, I was still pretty sure I didn't have the virus - no fever, no chills, no headache...
Sandi's parents dropped us off at the deserted Myrtle Beach airport around 1 PM for our 3 PM flight to Atlanta. There were no other passengers in the check-in line so it looked like smooth sailing.
It wasn't.
We handed the agent our passports and, as he started tapping away on his keyboard, I thought I glimpsed a nearly imperceptible change in his expression. He continued to type away and attempt a poker face. Finally, he looked up and gave us the bad news. The second leg of our return trip, the flight from Atlanta to Toronto, was cancelled. In fact, we were told that WestJet had decided to call off all of its flights out of Atlanta.
Allow me to vent for a moment...
I usually like WestJet. When given the option, I will choose WestJet over Air Canada every single time. But, on this occasion, two things pissed me off about WestJet. First, they cancelled our flight without any notification of any kind. Even Air Canada sends you an email before they kick you in the nuts. Second, while they were pumping their own tires on every imaginable media source by proclaiming their commitment to get every Canadian home safely, they were cancelling flights because they were undersold. CEO Ed Sims released a statement claiming that:
WestJetters are known for our level of care and this situation is no different. While this is a difficult time, we now have the responsibility as a Canadian airline to bring our citizens home.
Well, you dropped the ball on that one, Ed. Not only did you cancel our flight without giving us an option to get home, WestJet's customer service was virtually non-existent. Despite offering flights to and from Myrtle Beach, they didn't have a single representative at the airport. And their telephone line suggested contacting a WestJet agent at the airport (there wasn't one) or our travel agent.
Anyways, did I mention that our flight was cancelled. And then the panic set in. How were we going to get home? The Canadian border was scheduled to be closed and the airlines were ceasing operations in less than a week. I honestly thought we were going to be holed up in a Myrtle Beach retirement community for six months.
Luckily, two check-in clerks saved the day. After a some tears (the Champ's), and more than a few curse words (mine), and about thirty minutes of frantic typing, we had a plan to get home. It involved a 5:20 AM flight to Charlotte. Then another flight to Newark before returning home. It was risky because we only had about an hour between flights and, not only is Newark the shittiest airport in North America where anything can go wrong, the Big Apple was the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States. Being stranded in New York/New Jersey would be about as bad as it could get.
The next morning we were at the airport at 4:00 AM, before the check-in clerks and TSA officers. We checked our bags and, when it opened, passed through security. When we finally boarded our first flight, the plane was pretty much empty. An Airbus319 has the capacity to carry over 100 passengers and there might have been a dozen of us in total. We took our seats and prepared for takeoff.
Did I mention that I had an alarmingly loud chest cough by this time? I did my best to hold it in, but every once in a while I had no choice but to release an earth shattering bark in an effort to clear the phlegm from my lungs. The other passengers noticed. I knew that my temperature was steady at 36.5C (97.7F) degrees, but they didn't. I drank as much water, and gobbled up as many Altoids, as I could to keep my cough at bay.
We made it to Charlotte and quickly connected to our Newark flight. The second plane was even more deserted than the first - five people on a plane made for 150. They offered us First Class seats but we sat in the back to keep my cough away from everyone else. Other than the stress of waiting for something to go wrong, the flight was pretty uneventful.
The airport in Newark was busy compared Charlotte and Myrtle Beach, but not nearly the zoo it normally is. We had to take a shuttle from Terminal C to Terminal A (you know, the one that they froze in time somewhere around the time of the moon landing). The waiting area was full of people trying to get back to Canada - from God knows where. There were rubber gloves and masks everywhere. This was not the place to be in the middle of a global pandemic.
After about 45 minutes (it took longer because every passenger had to answer a series of questions about COVID19), we finally boarded the airplane. It was a tiny plane and we were jammed in like sardines. The plane was old and dirty too - I could feel the germs crawling all over me. If I could just make it home to my apartment without the virus, I would happily accept my 14-day isolation sentence.
Just get me home.
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