04 July 2007 – Flight to New York

 

Customarily this is date most popularly know for the celebration of the Declaration of Independence, but I will always remember this date as the start of my journey into the wider world… and a day at Heathrow Terminal 4.

 

Having landed a position on the Technology Analyst Program (TAP), I was very excited to be taking off to NYC to start a 9-week training program with 120 other graduands before being sent out into “the real world”.  Taking off however was something that was going to have to wait a while.

 

Terror alert and subsequent evacuation of Terminal 4 on Tuesday meant that Chaos had become our new master on the Wednesday morning.  Waiting to get into the Terminal building with my parents and Sarah became somewhat akin to waiting for the gates to open at Reading festival, only there was less mud, people didn’t smell so much and I had to settle for a tea to pass the time rather than a beer.  “Tea solves all”, on this occasion, was not going to work either.  I was soon to realise that, despite the fact that half the people had not been given a chance to check in, my flight to JFK was taking off on time anyway.

 

Having wallowed in my own self pity for a few minutes it was time to pick myself up and start skulking around what seemed to be a never ending queue of people waiting to rebook their flights.  Deciding this was definitely not the course of action I wanted to succumb to I went in search of the higher powers.  This was of course to no avail.  Finding a member of senior BA staff that want to talk to the great unwashed in these situations is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow.  Fortuitously however I found a nice young lady who appeared to have the power of booking people on a later flight that day.  I think word of this godsend was spreading fast though. There didn’t seem to be any discernable system around her.  People were starting to close in fast. Bits of paper, that were presumably booking confirmations made invalid only hours ago, were frantically being waved in the poor girl’s face to get her attention.  I needed to be faster and presumably needed a larger piece of paper.  Whatever happened I managed to elicit the services of the angel being and took my chances at pushing my luck by asking for a club class seat.  Dad’s advice here paid off.  10:25 Missed flight to JFK.  12:00 got new booking for a flight later in the evening in Club.  At that I bid my parents and Sarah farewell and found a nice spot to read and wait for my new flight departing at 20:00.  On finally boarding the flight I am told I have been upgraded again.  Off to the big apple.  Off in style.  1st Class.