On Spending the Night at Heathrow, Part One

Britain is unseasonably cold this Spring, so the walk to catch a speeding Nottingham city bus in late May feels like early March. Public transportation is plentiful in the UK, but not what you might call intermodally connected, so the bus leads to another walk, followed by a fast but crowded three-hour train ride north, to Manchester. Since the trip has been almost completely paid for through a generous grant from the University of Nottingham, I get to look out the window at rugged Midlands farms covered with herds of sheep instead of worrying about how much money I’ve spent.

The author, during a more sanguine moment of travel.

This long journey back to my home near Kansas City is the latest physical manifestation of an intellectual trip that’s lasted over a year, learning about the esoteric topic of the relationship of science to the public. Through a number of suggested readings and occasional conversations with members of a distinguished team of academic advisors, my preconceptions have been shattered and replaced by a bewilderingly complex sociological mind-hole I’d never imagined existed. When I occasionally glance back at my previous simplistic assumptions about it, I get a weird feeling of superiority combined with stupidity. Do scholars ever get that feeling? Do they seek it out like caged lab rats hooked on heroin?

This thought reminds me to prepare myself for unanticipated changes in my travel plans, a mental exercise I find useful on long trips. Looking past my reflection in the train window to where the aforementioned sheep are calmly grazing, I feel quiet confidence that I can endure whatever lies ahead.

The train deposits me at Manchester Airport, a relatively small regional facility which, despite everyone’s description of it as ‘friendly’ and ‘easy to navigate,’ involves 2 escalator rides, 2 elevator rides, and a rapid 10-minute saunter through a glass walkway that doubles as a wind-tunnel to get to the ticket counter. All this, combined with at least three stops for the purpose of turning completely around with a puzzled expression on my face.

In addition, Manchester Airport is packed with travelers – after all, it’s a bank holiday here, all the schools have just let out, and in the US, it’s the beginning of Memorial Day weekend. What I couldn’t yet understand at this point is that these conditions are gradually pushing against each other like giant weather cells to create a supercharged travel environment in which the slightest disruption will dramatically alter any plan a naïve traveler is foolish enough to harbor. And then some.

When I finally arrive at the British Air ticket counter, the line is already two hours long and growing like a mushroom in a pile of shit. The question on everyone’s lips is, “What’s happening?” and although BA has dispensed a representative to provide information, she and her clipboard are surrounded by a dozen concerned faces asking questions. Remembering to stay flexible, I move to the end of the ticket-counter line, where a middle-aged Australian woman informs me that there’s been “a runway incident” at Heathrow Airport in London, where most of us are heading. In the absence of further information, murmurs of terrorism and disaster percolate along the line at the ticket counter. But as things go among travelers banded together by the fear of death or inconvenience, by the time I get to the front of the line, I’ve learned the names of the Australian lady’s grandchildren as well as the fact that an emergency landing of a British Air jet has precipitated the closing of two runways and the cancellation of dozens of flights, including the one I was supposed to catch from London to Chicago O’Hare.

“Why cancel a day’s worth of flights?” a loud local man queries the people standing nearby. “Why not just push the one airplane over to the side and keep the others moving?” I patiently explain that if they don’t know the reason for the landing, officials must assume it’s a ‘crime scene,’ which requires they leave it where it is until a government safety team gives the green light. This twig of knowledge I’ve undoubtedly plucked from the back of a cereal box or a reality TV program appears to stem a tide of indignation that had been rising quickly and I feel relieved to have thought of it, true or not. The last thing we need now is a riot.

The ticket agent at the BA counter in Manchester has one of those impossibly affected manners of speaking one expects from a character in farce, but he’s nonetheless able to reroute me to the states on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London and then United to Newark. He’s having difficulty getting me to Kansas City or even Chicago from Newark and I’m tempted to tell him I can take it from there – just getting to the states at this point somehow feels like “home.” Astoundingly, on his final plunge into the data reservoir, he heroically retrieves a next-day flight from Newark to Kansas City. Fantastic – I’m all covered! Except for the fact that my Virgin Atlantic flight leaves in 45 minutes.

In spite of my headlong rush to the second ticket counter, followed by a slalom-run through security, Virgin Atlantic (inexplicably operated by Aer Lingus) is delayed leaving Manchester by over an hour in order to collect luggage from several other airlines. Passengers (including Chatty Australian Lady and Loud Local Man) continue the conversations started in the ticket-counter line as though reunited with old friends. I do my part to contribute, aided by snacks and drinks from the cabin crew, but my resolve to be at peace with the unexpected has slowly begun to unravel.

From Manchester to London is only slightly bumpy from the turbulence of a strong East wind, but our plane is late anyway. Desperately, horribly late. And upon landing, as the flight-time for Newark looms closer, the stakes escalate because by now every flight and every hotel room are undoubtedly booked. If I don’t make it onto United 115, I’ll likely be spending the night at Heathrow – a public facility which has evolved into one of the weirdest places in the world.  

(To be continued.)