The Terminal - A Journey of (Mis)adventures

The Terminal - A Journey of (Mis)adventures


It all started with my backwards journey from Toronto to Mumbai, a journey that I expected to be straight as a stick but turned otherwise. It was raining right from morning and the sub zero temperatures made matters worse from the start of my journey. I reached the Toronto airport, the customary three hours before my flight. As a norm I started by standing in the queue to get my luggage checked in. It was when I asked an Air France lady there about the Mumbai flight, I came to know that the same was Cancelled !!!! I was told to go to ticketing counter for the re-issuance of another ticket. So now here I stood on an alien airport with my entire luggage, with my flight cancelled and talking with a person who was speaking English in a French accent. Duh… if things weren’t already bad !! But not all was so bad. As I was standing in the line my concentration was divided by a beautiful figure (no pun intended) approaching the air France ticketing desk. Wow… didn’t she look pretty… yes she did and why not, she was the Miss World Canada Contestant. I got to know this after I saw the thing that she wore over her clothes that had it plastered all over it. You see, it’s not every day that you get to see a Miss whatever contestant standing right besides you. Lolzz

I was told that I won’t be going in by any Air France flight and they made alternate arrangements for me in an Air Canada flight from Toronto to Zurich and then a connecting Swiss Air flight to Mumbai. I was quiet happy that at least they managed this quiet well and gave us a quick alternative. Amid this confusion I met a parsi youth named Percy on the airport. We got along well probably because we had the same destination and he was going…or rather coming to India for the first time. Now we both headed towards Terminal 1 to check in for the Air Canada flight.

Wow…. What a queue !!!! So many people wanna see the Swiss mountains. If things weren’t bad yet, the lady there told me to weight the luggage I was carrying. Full of confidence I loaded my first bag on the scale and there shot the counter to 17.2 Kgs. I saw an affirmative smile on the attendant’s face. With same confidence I loaded another bag, the counter swiftly shot to a staggering 26 Kgs. The smile had now become more sarcastic on the lady’s face and if was right in reading her mind, she had found her bakra for the over weight luggage. Damn !!! I just took both my bags to a corner, fiddled with the contents from one to another and again weighed both of them to get a weight which was ok with them. Stage 1 cleared.

We now reached the check in counter and meet another pretty French lady who gave us a boarding pass sans the seat numbers. Our Jaws dropped at this sight and when we asked for clarifications, we were told that we are standby passengers. Now what on earth was that !!!! She told that we will be able to travel only if we get seats. Duh… But still with positive thought, we went and sat near the boarding gate. There we both struck conversation with another German lady to pass our time. Cultural exchange you know.

Trying to figure out whether out names were called or did we miss out, we approached the air Canada desk and to our dismay they told that the seats were full !!
Another blow for both of us. They said that Air France did not book the tickets in the correct way and hence they can’t do much about it. We were told to go back and contact Air France. So we headed back to terminal 3 and to our surprise there was no one there. No air France representative at all. Finally we got hold of a very pretty KLM airline lady who offered us help in best possible way she could. She told us to get our luggage back and she will try arranging something in the KLM flight for us. It was 8:30 PM.

So now we both rushed back to terminal 1 to get our luggage and returned after a grueling 1.25 Hrs. So now we came back to terminal 3 and the KLM lady says that its too late and there are also no seats available!!!! Another shot in the head.
This was the time when I felt myself being in Tom Hanks’ shoes (Ref: Terminal), just that I didn’t meet any Catharine Zeta Jones here

So now at 10, full 7 hrs after I had arrived, in the night we both were stranded on Toronto airport not knowing what to do and where to go. Now comes back in the picture the KLM lady who sympathized with us and offered to book us in a flight the NEXT DAY !!!!! Boom..... so we had to spend a night at the airport, came a thought in my mind. But no, things weren’t that bad.

This lady booked us both in the adjoining Sheraton hotel and also gave us coupons for dinner, breakfast and lunch. Now it’s not everyday that you get to stay in a five star hotel that too with free food thrown in. Felt like a king J. We were glad that we did not get a flight late night since we had been exhausted like anything.

So we made ourselves comfortable in the Sheraton and enjoyed good food at the bar. Also used their in house complimentary internet service to get connected.

Day 2
Right in the morning we made ourselves available at the Air France booth to get our tickets re issued. Now a whole 5 hrs to spent we just roamed around in the airport doing window shopping in the Duty Free lounges and having a look here and there (pun intended) Finally checkout of the 5 star luxury at 3 in the evening to catch a flight which was scheduled at 6. Finally reached Mumbai, after a delay of 24 Hrs but with an experience to talk about.

It was sort of blessing in disguise for me at least since I avoided the travel through same route (Paris) as I had when I came. I had plans of buying Swiss chocolates from Paris when I return home. But as destiny would have thought, it got me right into Zurich, Switzerland to accomplish my task The flight experience was really great especially for obvious reasons (chuckle). Moreover I got an opportunity to have a bird eye’s view of the snow covered Alps mountain ranges, Palm Beach Island and Al Burj Hotel in Dubai. Top it all with Miss Canada, that’s icing on the cake. Now that’s what all I gained in this one of a kind of experience, something I would never forget, lest I go through a better (or for that matter worse) that this.

Merci*


*French for Thank You

Amid this confusion I met a parsi youth named Percy on the airport. We got along well probably because we had the same destination and he was going…or rather coming to India for the first time.