Dear Friends,

This past Saturday I left my house at 3 am for an early morning flight out of Albany International Airport. I tend to be an early riser, so it didn’t bother me plus I was excited about the conference I was attending in California. Hello, 80 degrees and sunny!

I was aware of the coming nor’easter and United Airlines had sent several warnings in the days leading up to my flight. My husband and I analyzed the weather forecast and decided that I would be long gone before the worst of it hit, so I decided not to change my plans.

Other than a light dusting and low temperatures, it was a typical winter day. After a bit of a hold up due to the long lines at security, I found my terminal and settled in to await my 6 am flight.

At the urging of my daughter, I recently began watching the show “Lost” (2004-2010). I’m not very far into the series but Rach was right, I like it. If you are like me and missed this 2000’s phenomena, here are the basics: A group of mostly strangers wake to find themselves crashed on a deserted island and are trying to survive and find a way home. That’s not a great rundown but I told you I’m not that far in.

So there I am, waiting to board my flight and thinking about the latest episode I watched and it hit me: what if that happened to us? What a crazy idea that you could be stranded with strangers and have to survive. Looking around the terminal at those who were also waiting for our early flight I couldn’t help but think about it. I’m pretty sure there’s no remote island between New York and California, but the concept was fascinating. To pass the time, I started analyzing my fellow passengers a little closer and thought “what if”?

The first thing I need are allies

Every group needs a leader who will bring the group together, will take charge and can make the difficult calls. Any doubt this would be me? Type A alert! I need a good number two; a close confidant and friend for support. We need someone with a good sense of humor and knows how to have fun. We’re gonna need some muscle. Yes, everyone will be expected to pull their weight, but not all will be able to and making a deserted island habitable will be hard work. We also need “The Professor”; is he still living on “Gilligan’s Island” or is he available?

Finally, every good dynamic has a villain. This is the grump of the group that a dark side. This is the person that always gets in the way of progress, is never happy and usually has an ulterior motive. You love to hate this person and sometimes they have redeeming qualities. Depends on the villain.

The hour or so we were waiting for our flight was not long enough to do a proper analysis on my fellow passengers. However, we got to know each other a little better because we spent the next five hours together.

After boarding the plane at our scheduled time, we taxied over to the deicing station. It seemed like it was taking a long time, but nothing seemed amiss yet. After thirty minutes of waiting, the captain came on to tell us that the deicer was deteriorating rapidly and it was unsafe for us to take off.

We headed back to the terminal and waited for further instructions and to see if we would be able to leave at all.

I need to give some props to the crew and staff of United Airlines and the Albany International Airport. They were doing everything they could to get all 80-something passengers the information that we needed to adjust our plans.

Nearly everyone had a connection that they were going to miss and schedules they needed to keep. I get it, it was a stressful situation. As the hours passed by we kept getting updates from the airline that our flight was delayed, pushing our departure time out further into the morning.

If you don’t have an app on your phone for your airline of choice, I highly recommend doing it. Within minutes of deboarding the plan I was sent an update from United and offered a new schedule, and my connection was going to be missed again because we still hadn’t left, I was quickly sent more options. Bottom line, they were taking care of us and worked quickly to get us answers.

My biggest concern at this point was, would my bags be there when I arrived and the very long day and extra connection I now had. I made the best of it and settled in for the day ahead.

You want to see how people really are? Put them in a stressful situation and watch them react. Since I was working on my “Lost” cast, I was able to get a glimpse of their real responses to stress and the unknown.

You had the impatient people who checked in at the desk every ten minutes.

I could easily spot the business-types who immediately set up their remote office and got to work.

The chill people were walking through the terminal, checking out stores, getting food or just relaxing.

Then there’s the villains. They were easy to spot because they were very mad and made sure everyone knew it! They kept pacing back and forth and shooting daggers at the airline crew as they waited for an update. As the hours increased their temperament decreased. To simply say they were being “unkind” is kind of me. Fun fact: the person I had originally cast as the villain was the loudest of our stranded group. Let’s hope their redeeming quality is humility and they look back and realize how horrible they were being.

Five hours after our original departure time we safely left Albany. Since I am here to share this experience, you can rest assured that I am not stranded on a remote island. There’s always the return flight. Oh, and my bags made it safely too.

Be well,

Kerri

The views and opinions expressed in this publication does not necessarily reflect the views and positions of any entity that this author represents.