When luck conspires

Yesterday I was supposed to return from Detroit to Seattle via a ridiculously long hopping route. There were a total of 3 legs – Detroit > Phoenix > Spokane > Seattle. There was a one hour layover in Phoenix, and five hours in Spokane, from midnight to 5 AM. I would have started from Detroit at 6 PM on Thursday evening, and reached Seattle at 6 AM the next morning. How I managed to get myself booked on this itinerary is an uninspiring story that we will save for another day.

I usually check in for my flights in advance instead of waiting to reach the airport for completing this part of the travel ritual. However on this day that was going to contain a series of well-coordinated and fateful events, I was unable to check in for the flight in advance. US Airways website instructed me to check in at the airport because there were multiple carriers involved. My client meetings in Detroit had gotten over by 1 PM. I did not have anything else to do, so I returned the rental car after filling up the gas and reached the airport by 2 PM, several hours ahead of the 6 PM flight. Filling up the gas itself took a lot of time, because the pump did not accept the zip code associated with my card, and I had to go inside to make the payment. I chose to skip lunch since a terrible headache was more than bothering me. Just had some fruits and gulped an Ibuprofen tablet that I had picked up from the client office I had visited earlier in the day. When I checked in for my flight at the airport kiosk, I was glad to see an aisle seat assignment. 21 D, Zone 4. Eventually the boarding started and zones 1, 2 and 3 were invited for boarding. A lot of people entered the gate and boarded the plane as they normally would. Then the agent at the gate announced my name , ‘Passenger Bindal, please come up to the counter’. A couple was traveling on the same flight but had seats far apart. They just wanted to exchange my 21D with their 12D, so both of them could sit together. I happily exchanged the seat assignment, since it was a fair deal of an aisle for an aisle, moreover 12D meant I would get off the plane sooner. However there was one little problem. The flight was supposedly full, and the people in first three zones had already boarded. This meant that the overhead baggage bins at 12D would have been fully occupied by now, and I would have to go all the way to the back of the plane to find overhead bin space for my carry-on. I requested the agent at the counter to do a through check-in of my bag. She said she could check in only until Spokane, as I did not yet have the boarding pass for the Alaska flight from Spokane to Seattle. This would have required me to go through security again at Spokane and it was not something I was interested in signing up for. I explained her my qualms and thankfully, she understood. She finally did a gate check-in of my luggage, which meant I would collect it as soon as I exited the airplane in Phoenix.

The headache had gotten better by now, and I utilized the flight time in clearing up my emails. The flight landed at gate A17 in Phoenix on time and I got off the plane, expecting to see my black Samsonite suitcase waiting for me. But they had not unloaded it yet. I inquired with the ground crew member who was stationed there, and he dispatched another guy to get my bag from the plane’s belly. It took him five minutes before he came back empty handed, only to ask me, ‘what collar?’. I did not understand. He repeated, ‘what collar?’ I still did not understand. His colleague enlightened me, ‘color…’. I said ‘Black’. Off he went again on another trip to the plane’s belly, wearing huge headphones that would protect his ear drums from the perpetual ground noise. Another 5-7 minutes and he reappeared, this time with my bag. I exited via the jetway and entered the concourse. After freshening up in the men’s room, I looked around the concourse to select a choice of cuisine for dinner before my next flight to Spokane. First I hovered around McDonalds, but then decided to avoid junk intake. I quickly settled for a Mexican restaurant, and ordered a chicken quesadilla. The analysis of the presidential debate from the previous night was being aired on TV. The quesadilla was well made, but the portion was large and I was unable to finish it. I paid the check, clicked a picture of the receipt as required by our finance team, and lazily strolled out towards gate A21 for catching my next flight.

I reached the gate and the first thing that caught my eye was a red LED lit sign that said ‘closed’, and in uppercase, like this – ‘CLOSED’, and blood red. The time on the clock next to it was 7:55 PM. There were no passengers at the gate, just one agent at the counter. The gate was indeed closed, but I could still see the plane outside. Even the jetway had not been receded yet. I approached the agent at the counter, who simply asked me, ‘where have you been, you landed an hour ago on A17 which is next door’. I made an excuse that I did not realize the time zone difference, but requested her to let me board the plane as it was still outside and the jetway still attached. She made a quick call, perhaps to one of the crew members, exchanged some code language – ‘minus five’ – and reported back to me that the gate cannot be opened now due to security reasons. I requested her once again, but she simply said I need go and see the customer service desk for rescheduling. I was too tired to protest and started to walk towards the customer service desk. The gate agent had seemingly already informed these people about my case, but I still restated the time zone excuse and checked if any way I can get on the same flight. It did not take me long to realize that was no longer an option. I handed over my boarding pass to the customer service agent, and she began typing furiously some commands on the keyboard. She was trying to put me on another flight and was checking available options. Meanwhile her colleague, an older lady with white hair, butted in, ‘did you miss the flight due to our mistake’? I repeated the time zone excuse and somehow got into discussing last night’s debate with her. This kept her distracted from being a bad influence on her colleague who was trying to help me.

After about 7-8 minutes of clicking sounds, the lady at the keyboard announced to me, ‘this is the best mistake you could have made’. She had checked me into a direct flight to Seattle the same night, and was apologetic that it would land at 2:30 AM. Obviously this was great news from my perspective, as 2:30 AM was better than 6 AM, and also meant I did not have to spend the night in Spokane. How often do you miss a flight, get rescheduled into another flight, only to reach your destination four hours sooner? It was my lucky day and I was smiling to myself as I waited for my next flight, analyzing the series of events that led to this favorable outcome.

First, I was unable to check-in for the Detroit > Phoenix flight in advance because of multiple airlines involved. Second, because I checked in at the airport at a particular time, I got the 21D assignment. That particular time got ascertained by the fact that, third – I skipped lunch, fourth – the gas pump did not accept my zip code (which I later realized was my mistake as I was using the wrong card), and fifth – the traffic on I-94 was very slow owing to a car that had toppled over. Sixth, the couple with who I exchanged my seat must have checked in very late. They reached the gate counter at a particular time when the first three zones had boarded the plane. Seventh, my mind worked through the process where in I realized I wanted to avoid the security at Spokane, which led to me requesting a gate-check in of my bag. Eighth, the agent heeded to my request. Ninth, the bag itself arrived late after I exited the plane in Phoenix. Tenth, I was tired, had not eaten, and had lost track of time, which eventually led to missing the Spokane connection. This is not all. There were empty seats on the alternate flight, and there were not very many of them. Thanks to those who may have chosen not to take this flight. This is still not all at all. When I had left from Seattle, I had asked my wife Rikti if she could drop me to the airport. Usually I don’t ask her to do that, but on this occasion she said she would, though she later changed her mind because it was kids’ time to sleep. Because of this, I drove and parked my car at the airport like I anyway usually do, otherwise I would have found myself looking for a cab outside Seattle airport at 2:30 AM.

I am not a believer in luck, and definitely don’t like to rely on luck. So far I used to define luck as being at the right place at the right time. You are always at a particular place at a particular time partly because of something which you decided to do or not do in recent or distant past, and partly because of events in the environment outside your control. When a unique set of such incidents happen that decide a particular outcome, it becomes a coincidence. There is no right or wrong time, or wrong or right place. I thought I was a the right place (the gate) at the wrong time (got late). It’s just a matter of perspective. In the big scheme of things, our time is now and our place is here.