Off to Istanbul, Turkey - Sort Of

Recently a good friend of mine got a job at Delta, and I was lucky enough to be offered one of his buddy passes for my trip to Turkey. That means that I only had to pay about half of the price of a normal ticket, and there's a chance that I'd get upgraded to business class which would be quite a perk on a 10.5 hour flight. The downside is that you have to fly standby, and with him only working at Delta for a year or two, I'd be pretty low on the list. Looking at the schedules and standby lists, we decided that the Monday and Tuesday flights both looked pretty full and risky, so we opted for a Wednesday departure. As it turns out, both Monday and Tuesday would have been great, as there were plenty of seats in business class available. Even so, I was still hopeful for Wednesday.

I started with an early morning flight up to New York City (JFK), and I didn't really know what to expect. It turned out to be very easy, as there were nearly 60 empty seats, so I was never in doubt. I got up to JFK at 9:30, meaning I had 7 hours to wait until my potential flight to Istanbul. As I meandered back and forth, up and down the hallways of the terminal, I chatted with a few Delta agents, and my chances of getting on the plane looked pretty good. Then, little by little, people kept checking in, and a few more standby passengers came, placed ahead of me based on their friends' tenure at Delta. As the time drew closer, our names were put up on the board, mine being number 4, still showing that 5 business class seats were available. Then the agonizing part began as my name fell to five, six and then seven. The only chance was then that someone who had checked in would not make the flight, which seemed unlikely to me. All the while, a small, older Turkish-American woman also flying on a buddy pass was chatting away, trying to argue with the gate agent that her name was on the list and thus should put her on the flight. (Sadly, her nephew had not even mentioned the very real possibility of not making the flight.) Frustrated with the agents, she began sharing her complaints with me, as I tried and tried again to calmly explain to her the process (which I just slightly understand). I was able to find one very helpful worker at the gate who answered my questions about where my baggage would be, what to do, etc. Although I thought all hope was lost, he kept saying that a few people were still missing, so we clung to that small shred of hope. The woman waiting with me also informed me that, "between you and me, if there's a spot on the flight, I get it, ok?" How nice of her.

At 4:19, just as the flight was supposed to be backing out of the gate, a family of four came running up, out of breath, claiming four of the final six seats on the plane. That would leave two seats for me and my new-found Turkish "friend," but our hopes were dashed just moments later as a pregnant Turkish woman in a headscarf and her husband came running around the corner, just before the gates were to close. So, that was it. We didn't make the flight. At this point, the older Turkish-American woman was becoming really concerned as she came up from Virginia and didn't know where she could stay and also noted that her two pieces of luggage would be way too heavy to move around again. Fortunately, the gate agent informed us that we could simply leave our baggage downstairs (it doesn't go on the flight unless we do), and we could just stop by tomorrow and tell them to put it on that flight (assuming we can get on). As I was pondering what I'd do, and if I needed to help this woman into town, the agent gave her pretty clear directions on how to get into town and find an area with some hotels, so she was in better shape. I contemplated leaving, but I decided I didn't want to deal with the hassle and cost of getting away from the airport, getting a hotel somewhere and then having to get back, so I just decided that I'd try my luck in the airport.

I also had suspended my cell phone in the morning, so I had to rely on a few overpriced pay phone calls to get in touch with Marcelle and my friend at Delta. Though Wednesday had looked promising, things just didn't turn out as planned, and we both contemplated my options. I could try again on Thursday, which also looked good, or I could also consider another destination. If Istanbul's flight was full again, I thought about possibly going over to Athens, Greece, Amman, Jordan or Cairo, Egypt, though I have no idea what I'd do when I got to any of those places. We scheduled a call on the pay phone for 2:30 the next afternoon where I'd get an update on the flights and try to make some decisions, and we were both amazed that you actually can still just call back the number on a pay phone, and it will ring at that phone.

Getting late into the evening, I had walked up and down the hallways many times, literally scouting out any potential place to spend the night. I was very tempted by two American Red Cross cots that I saw lying next to one of the gates, but I figured those were for emergencies, and I might get in trouble if I tried to use them. The next best option was literally the only row of seats in the entire terminal that did not have armrests preventing you from laying length-wise across them. Even better, this row was hidden in a little nook in the corner of a secluded gate, providing a quiet place for the evening. Remembering back to a few years ago when I slept in the Tahiti airport where the traveller sleeping 10 feet away from me had all of his money, baggage and even shoes stolen, I made sure I felt secure in my spot. I locked up my small backpack (my big one was still downstairs in baggage), and I was able to wrap it up on the back of the row of chairs, wedging it all up against the wall, so it would be literally impossible to get to it without moving me out of the way first.

As I was getting ready for bed, I saw that there was one other man that seemed to be planning on sleeping nearby. He was a small, Hispanic man on crutches, with only one leg (the other was an empty pant leg tied off above the knee). We exchanged glances, but that was the extent of our interaction. Then, minutes later, an agent appeared and dropped off three small blankets and two pillows (the airplane type) for him. I was about to ask the agent if I could also get those, but he was out of there before I had a chance. It wouldn't matter, though. I had decided that the semi-padded chairs and my book as a pillow would be good enough, as I was already really exhausted from the long day. Then, as I was drifting off to sleep around 10 pm, I heard the sound of the creaking crutches coming over. I looked up and saw the old man standing above me. He didn't say a word (he spoke little or no English), but he just smiled and handed me one of his blankets and pillows. I thanked him, and he was quickly back to his corner as I once again marvelled at the kindness of strangers in the most random moments all over the world.

My sleep was not great, awaking every hour or so to rotate between my left side, my back and my right side with the upturned seat edges jutting into my back and leg, but it was probably better than expected. I woke up around 6 am, as passengers filled the gate on their way to board a flight to Atlanta. Being hidden in the corner, laying on my makeshift bed and blocked by another row of seats pulled over in the corner that shielded most people from seeing me, I heard a few interesting conversations, first a cell phone call of a passenger making sure his friend brought the weed for the vacation, then a long back and forth about the sexcapades of two airport workers.

I again walked up and down the airport, talking with some workers, having a small breakfast and then deciding I should ensure that my baggage would get on the flight with me today. I went downstairs and was taken into a dirty backroom with some luggage, instructed to find mine. After double-checking, we confirmed that my bag actually wasn't in there. Back in the main room, we checked again and found that my bag is already in Istanbul (which it shouldn't be), so I'll have to pick it up when I arrive. The problem is that this obviously limits my possibilities of changing destinations, as my bag would probably have to be shipped back to New York and then out to the next destination, a day or two behind me.

So, as I sit here now, knowing the layout of JFK's Terminal 2 like the back of my hand, I'm hopeful that I'll get on the flight today, though I've already been getting mixed messages from some of the workers about my potential status for the flight. I'll have a better idea after my 2:30 call today, at which point I may have to make some big decisions. Who knows - maybe I'll be in Istanbul tomorrow...maybe Amman...maybe Athens...maybe back in Atlanta.

Travel is always an adventure.