1/5 Sunday, 2pm. We arrive at the airport and realize hundreds are stranded in the hall of the terminal. Realize a little later that this is because of the airspace closures in the Caribbean due to the “operation” on Saturday. Even later we would learn that the closures had already been lifted by Sunday morning, but the ripple effects were continuing.
Sunday, 5pm. Right before our inbound flight is about to land on St Thomas it gets diverted to San Juan because the airport is clogged with other planes waiting to get out.
Sunday, 8pm. Our inbound flight lands three hours late. The crew is nearing its maximum allowed working hours and if they want to get us off of St Thomas at all it has to be fast.
Sunday, 9pm. We leave St Thomas.
Sunday, 11pm. We get diverted to Fort Lauderdale because getting us to JFK is beyond the crew’s maximum working hours. They hope a replacement crew will be available to get us from FLL to JFK in the middle of the night.
Monday, 1am. There is no replacement crew. We need to get off the plane, get our luggage, and find someone to drive us to a hotel.
Monday, 2am. Fall asleep.
Monday, 6am. There is no news yet from Delta when our flight will continue to JFK. I text with support agents and get conflicting answers. There are no flights out of FLL until Wednesday. Our flight is not in the system because it is technically still the same flight as yesterday.
Monday, 8am. We get rebooked to a flight on Wednesday. It is unclear whether that is a glitch in their system and we could just go back to the airport and get back onto our flight from last night, or we will really not get out of here before Wednesday.
Monday, 9am. We decide to take matters into our own hands and rent a car and drive to Jacksonville (5 hours), and get an evening flight from there to JFK.
Monday, 11am. On the road to Jacksonville.
Monday, 5pm. Arrive in Jacksonville.
Monday, 7pm. Depart Jacksonville.
Monday, 9.30pm. Land JFK. (As it turned out later, our original flight had left FLL at 2.48pm and had landed at JFK at 5.25pm.)
Monday, 11pm. Uber to Upper West Side arrives at apartment. Exchange a few things in the luggage, get Jeep from garage, drive Jeep to Newburgh.
Tuesday, 1am. Arrive Newburgh. Put every piece of clothing and fabric into the dryer immediately to prevent infestation with any kind of bugs. Feed cat.
