Saturday, December 4, 2010

Travel Troubles

Long Airport Line
A piece of the crazy-long line at the Madrid airport.

Madrid – It's never a good thing when your mom sends you an e-mail about an air traffic controllers strike.

That's what showed up in my inbox the morning I was set to fly to Spain. On that country's busiest holiday weekends (more than two million people were expected to travel), I was scheduled to fly through the Madrid airport. on my way to Valencia – and eventually Denia.

Delta Assist, the Twitter account for customer service for Delta Airlines, was of no help and I had no indication (other than CNN) that trouble was brewing until I stepped into an absolutely jam-packed terminal. And did I mention that all the signs in the airport are in Spanish?

Thus began a nearly 90-minute wait in line to get a boarding pass for a flight that was first delayed, then took off without me. But the ticket agent (who thankfully spoke some English) was able to get me a standby seat on the next plane out. I spent the four-hour wait working on my laptop (there are NO outlets in this airport) and studying my French numbers.

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