---- Saturday 8/18, Ramada Crown Plaza Hotel, near JFK, N.Y. ------
I'm up & on my cell phone to LOT Polish Airlines again at 9:00am. Check-out for the Ramada is at 11:00, so I've got a couple more hours before I need to vacate the room. LOT Polish must only have 1 phone representative on Saturday mornings, as I'm on hold for about 20 minutes. I want to know what time their ticket counter opens, so I might plead my case face-to-face. The phone rep I'm now speaking to, now tells me the fare of $880 quoted last night, is now over $1200. At this point, all I want is to have confirmed reservations for St. Petersburg on Sunday night's flight at the absolute latest. There's still the fully booked flight leaving tonight at 10:20pm, that I might possibly be able to standby on, if I can only speak to someone face-to-face. The phone rep tells me she believes the ticket counter opens at 12:00 noon. This is good I thought, as I will now get to speak to someone face-to-face.
As it stands, I'm stranded in New York City, with no flight scheduled to get me to St. Petersburg, and only my Delta return flight to Florida scheduled, but for a week later.
I get back on the phone with Delta, and I'm back & forth with this so-called "coordinator". After about another hour, I learn that my luggage at least according to Delta, was transferred to LOT Polish the previous evening, but since I didn't board the plane, neither did my luggage, and it was in some sort of a lock-up. The coordinator offers to put me on Air France to Paris, but can't negotiate with the airline that she said could've/would've taken me from Paris to St. Petersburg. She states the price alone from Paris to St. Petersburg was $1,000-something dollars (I can't remember). She also says she can fly me to Chicago, where LOT Polish has a flight to Warsaw. Then on Monday, they have a flight from Warsaw to St. Petersburg. That doesn't really help me for the time being. The coordinator then politely but firmly explains to me that there's really nothing more that Delta can do. She states that I will receive an apology letter, and a lousy $75.00 voucher good for future Delta Airlines travel. At this point, I'm weary of griping my case to seemingly deaf ears. I decide to check-out of the hotel, and proceed to concourse 8 to await LOT Polish at noon.
--- Sat. 8/18, JFK Airport ---
Arriving a bit after 11:00, I decide to grab a danish & juice, and wait for LOT to open. At 12:00 noon, there's still no sign of life. One of the workers explained to me that sense LOT only had 1 scheduled flight for 10:20pm that evening, that they wouldn't even open until 2:00pm. Seeing that concourse 8 is kind of slow & boring, I decide to take the free shuttle bus to concourse 2 & 3, where Delta Airlines is. After several hours of phone haggling, and a couple counter reps later, I decided that there's not much else Delta is going to do for me,…so I call LOT Polish, and book the reservation to fly from JFK on Sunday 8/19. This would put me 2 days behind, but at this point, I'm determined to get there, even if I have to spend an additional $1200.00 to do it! The LOT agent tells me that I can book the reservation, but pay at the counter upon arrival. With only a little thought, I decided to book the reservation, so at least come hell or high water, I was flying out on Sunday night.
About this time, I hear a voice calling my name,…it's "Nelly", who's been booked on that evenings 5:00pm flight to Helsinki on Finnair. Suddenly, I'm thinking, gee, if I could just get to Helsinki, I could practically swim to St. Petersburg. I'm not exactly sure how she explained the resolution of her situation, but she sounded like Delta was responsible for getting her on Finnair. Just for laughs, I decided to approach the Finnair counter, and inquire if they had any sooner flights to St. Petersburg, and possibly cheaper than LOT might have. The reservation agent informed me that they DID have seats available, and a connecting flight the following day (Sunday) to St. Petersburg. This would've been fine with me, but their fare was much higher than LOT's. "Helga", I think her name was informed me that if I could get Delta to issue a "FIM" (flight interruption manifest), that they would accept my LOT ticket on their flight. She explained something to me about some kind of 2 hour FAA rule that she thought Delta should own-up responsibility for. She said that Finnair would do this in this case, but I'm not entirely sure if she fully understood the situation. Who knows, maybe I didn't.
However, now armed with this "FIM" idea, I headed back to the Delta area, and picked up a courtesy phone. I spoke with another agent again, and he stated to me what Delta has been sticking to all along. These were 2 separate contracts, and they wouldn't be responsible for my missed connection. He spoke with his supervisor, and confirmed there was nothing he could do. Since I was stranded in New York, and had nowhere to go (ticket-wise) for a week, it wouldn't do any harm in continuing my argument. Hey, when in New York, do what the New Yorker's do! So, I stood in line at the Delta ticket counter. When I explained to the agent (for the 5th or 6th time now), he immediately called over his supervisor. Denise, the supervisor seemed a bit agitated when she asked if I wasn't just on the phone. I stated I was, but since no one will let me fly out of there, I'm going to continue my griping. She worked the computer for 15 or 20 minutes, and AGAIN came to the same conclusion. There was nothing she could do! I asked her if she would at least issue me some type of written confirmation that their flight from Atlanta the previous day (but already seems like a week now) was delayed, and that it was of no fault of my own. She printed-out for me a "military excuse" card that stated that Delta indeed had a delay, and it was none of my fault that caused me to miss LOT Polish flight 7 from JFK to Warsaw on Friday. At least now, I had something in writing that points the blame to Delta Airlines. If the Polish are truly going to make me purchase another full fare ticket, then "the joke" is on me.
At 7:00pm, the LOT Polish ticket counter finally opens promptly. I have been camped-out there, and unsurprisingly, I am the first in line. I explain the situation to the lady, and she informs me that I'll have to do my explaining to whoever will be there later to work in the adjoining office. After explaining this situation (again!), I showed her the document from Delta Airlines that absolves me from any responsibility. She seems to accept this as a viable excuse for being a "no-show" and inquires if I want to keep my newly-placed reservation for Sunday night, or fly "stand-by" for that evenings 10:20pm flight. Either way involves a hotel stay, either in New York, or Warsaw. Initially, I'm leaning for New York, as I know about 3 or 4 phrases total of Polish. On the other hand, I ask myself, wouldn't it be better to fly tonight, stay in Poland the next day, just in case there's more problems in New York? Anyway, I request to stand-by the Saturday night flight, and as I'm hanging out by the gate, I'm checking out a cute Polish girl who's been reading the paper for a half hour or so. The lady at the counter tells me to straighten out the situation when I get to Warsaw.
End result for this evening is,…I'm able to get a seat on the Saturday night flight at the last second, as I am the very last to board, and everyone else is already seated, ready to go, and eyeing me as I find my seat near the rear of the cabin. At last, I'm finally on my way to Poland, but this slightly eerie feeling creeps over me,…probably because everyone on the plane is speaking Polish, stewardesses & passengers alike and for one of the very few times in my life, I know what it feels like to be a foreigner in a strange land!
--- To be continued ---
