AA JFK-BRU J
Getting to the actual plane was a bit of a hassle. First, I get to the Howard Beach AirTrain station and they’re waiving everyone through. “Fantastic, it’s free,” I thought. My next thought was, “wait, what’s the catch?” I soon found out that the AirTrain was broken down and that we’d have to take a shuttle bus to get to the Train’s [new] last stop.
I get to the airport and checkin went smoothly, per usual. I am happy to get my business class boarding pass courtesy of a generous FTer who had a few expiring eVips that I was happy to take off of his hands. As I approach security, I see a massive line. “Suckers,” I think, “Good thing I have Priority Access as a Platinum AAdvantage member.”
There is an AA employee standing at the end of the line asking the usual, “First/Business class?” “Yes!” “Right here sir.” Is my spoiling coming to an end? Okay, calm down…if this is the worst that happens, I think I should be fine.
The security line takes quite a while, but I finally get through and make my way to the new Admirals Lounge where the wireless internet is noticeably better. I could only stay for a short period of time as boarding commenced 30 minutes from when I arrived.
When I boarded the 757, I was surprised to see a little old lady sitting next to me as not 30 minutes earlier the seat was empty. Turns out she was a non-rev that had to be rerouted and I couldn’t be upset as an extra seat would’ve meant being spoiled again.
Pre-flight champagne was served, I enjoyed my meal and then it was off to bed for me. Many people complain about AA’s NGBC seat because of its angled sleep mode, but I was out like a baby. It should also be noted that at 6’3”, my feet were touching the ground and could very likely have been acting as supports.
After what felt like just a few minutes, I’m woken up by a flight attendant. Can it be that we’re already only ~1 hour outside of Brussels and it’s time for breakfast? Unfortunately, no. It turns out that there is a “seriously ill passenger onboard” (flight attendant’s words) and “we have to divert to Newfoundland, but it should only be about 15 minutes there and then we’ll be back on our way.” I don’t believe the 15 minutes, but it shouldn’t be too bad, maybe 1 hour to our total travel time, 2 tops. I begin to worry about my BRU-BUD flight as I checked the morning of this flight and I was on the later of 2 flights on Malev with a 2 hour layover in BRU. We should be fine.
After some commotion (apparently the passenger didn’t want to get off the plane because they “felt better”) the passenger is removed and they’re just unloading his bags and closing up the door. I fall back to sleep and in one of those dream-like awake states, I hear “folks, we’re just going to get our wings de-iced and then we should be on our way.” “Wow, it must be cold in Newfoundland if we need to get de-iced after just a few minutes here.” Back to sleep, awoken to take off, awake for what felt like < 30 seconds, fully recline the second wheels are up, back asleep.
The next time I wake up, it was for breakfast. Partially through my meal, I throw up the flight stats onto my AVOD and I see “Local time at Brussels: 11:00am” with 1 hour left to destination. I’m tired, my math must be off, weren’t we originally scheduled for 7:45am arrival? Wasn’t I supposed to arrive in Budapest at just before noon? This is not a joke and my math is right. My non-rev seat partner recounts the entire 4 hour ordeal that ensued in Newfoundland as I laid there blissfully unaware of what was going on. There was apparently an issue finding the “seriously ill passenger’s” baggage & a yelling match between crew and cabin that I had slept right through. And now it makes sense why they had to de-ice the wings…