Missed Flights Open Other Doors

I think arriving at the airport that morning my mindset was actually pretty neutral. There were a lot of changes going on in my personal life and even though I was travelling to a country that a lot of people would probably be excited about visiting, I'd sort of filed it in my head as just another flight and another job to do.

I've been fortunate enough in my life to travel to somewhere in excess of, give or take, 80 countries and generally I try not to let the excitement of travelling disappear on me. But I had a lot on my mind at the time.

As usual I'd arrived two hours early and I had no check-in baggage. I actually do those things specifically to avoid unnecessary complications at airports, so I couldn't really have predicted in any way shape or form what was about to follow.

Then I got to security. Apparently there had been a new regulation brought into this particular airport regarding the milliamps allowed in power banks. I had travelled with the same one for years without any problems but on this occasion it was suddenly deemed too dangerous to carry in my hand luggage.

I knew getting rid of it was going to cost me precious time so I jokingly asked the security worker if he wanted it as an early Christmas present. Unfortunately even that wasn't allowed. He was actually a decent guy and explained that because of their policies he couldn't take it, so my only option was to lodge it in lost and found, fill out the paperwork and collect it again when I flew back through the same airport a week later.

The problem was that lost and found wasn't exactly around the corner. It meant going down about three floors, sorting out paperwork and then coming all the way back and going through security again.

Before doing that I'd already voiced my concern about missing the gate and one of the security officers told me not to worry, that they'd simply take me through and skip me ahead of the queue when I came back…That didn't quite happen.

When I returned there was now a large queue and I made eye contact with the same security officer. They looked at me and then nodded towards their supervisor who was standing nearby. I don't know whether they were trying to avoid getting themselves in trouble or what the reasoning was, but I understood fairly quickly that nobody was skipping me ahead of anything.

Then just for the added bonus of being yo-yoed around the airport, I had to take my boots off going through security the second time. About 45 minutes earlier, at the exact same security check, I'd started taking my boots off and got shouted at and told to leave them on. Anyway, I eventually got through for the second time and made it to the gate. I could see the plane sitting there on the tarmac. The bridge was still connected to it.

I explained to the lady at the desk what had happened and why I'd been delayed. She didn't even really look up at me. She was rolling a cigarette and just said something along the lines of, “Yeah, well, there's nothing I can do. The gate is already closed.” I looked at her. Then I looked at the airplane. It was fairly obvious what I was thinking.

I asked her once more if she was absolutely sure there was no way I could get onto the flight. She was licking the cigarette paper to seal it as she got up and walked away and told me, “Yeah, positive. Nothing I can do.” And that was that. She just left me standing there staring at my plane, which for the added insult didn't actually leave for another five minutes.

So now I needed another ticket. I moved money from a savings account into my current account and selected the instant transfer option. What I discovered is that apparently the word instant carries a different meaning on weekends.

While I was trying to deal with that hurdle, the next one presented itself. I watched the €193 ticket for the next flight gradually climb its way up to €1,500 because the only seat left was in business class. Even if I could get the money onto the card there was no way in hell I was paying €1,500 for a plane ticket to sit in business class for a few hours. For that sort of money I could probably live like a king in Bali for a month.

At this stage I was starting to come to terms with the universe conspiring against me and I couldn't help thinking about Final Destination. I genuinely couldn't decide anymore whether I was supposed to stay put or whether getting on the next airplane was somehow going to lead to some catastrophic disaster.

One colleague I tried to call was asleep after working a night shift. Another colleague actually sent me money through another instant transfer, but apparently their bank had the same definition of the word instant on weekends.

I hadn't driven to the airport either. I'd come by public transport, so even getting home had now become another problem because I had no working bank card, no functioning payment app and a grand total of about €6.98 in cash.

So there I was with just short of €7 in my pocket, no viable way home at the time and no viable flight other than sitting in business class, which I'd already ruled out. I'd basically run out of any realistic options in the short term and my mind went to the most immediate thing I could probably tackle, which was my hunger. What the hell was €7 actually going to get me in McDonald's 

Before I could gather up the energy to go and investigate, a young girl walked over and plonked herself down beside me. She was wearing a red football jersey, red football socks, shorts and had her travel backpack with her. She looked like she was heading off to a football match or something. I usually tend to keep to myself but I thought, what the hell. So I asked “Are you having a hard day?”

It turned out she and her mother were after failing for the second time to get on a flight for their all-expenses-paid holiday to Fuerteventura. So after hearing about how uncooperative their last two days had been, I told her that my own day wasn't exactly going according to plan either. Then she went and got her mother. There wasn't really a discussion or some big invitation. She basically informed her mother that I was going with them and her mother was perfectly happy to go along with it.

And suddenly there we were, three people who had been complete strangers a short time earlier, heading towards the subway to get a train into the city centre. I was told not to worry about food or accommodation because they would take care of it.

I was extremely grateful but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't also a little skeptical of the whole thing. Given my background and how the previous few years had gone, having complete strangers pay my subway fare, bring me home and tell me not to worry about anything felt strange. Thankfully, not long after we got out of the subway, the so-called instant transfers finally decided to become instant and I was able to return some of the kindness by buying dinner for us.

We went back to their apartment and there was no grand moment in the story after that. It was all very ordinary. We shared pizza and soft drinks and talked about life and the different crossroads we all seemed to find ourselves at. There was only one room available for us to sleep in, so they had three separate beds set up in the same room and that was that. It was just easy going. Natural. There was something very homely about the whole thing.

These two people being kind to me mattered a lot on this particular day because of the crossroads I had reached in my personal life. I don't want to say I was bitter or felt everything was unfair because that's not really true and I'm not interested in playing any violins or having a pity party for myself. But I'd come off the back of a few tough years and some ongoing experiences and I guess it had touched a nerve.

In many ways I'd already reached the light at the end of the tunnel but life has a funny way of coming full circle with its ups and downs and swings and roundabouts and I was finding myself in one of those tougher moments again.

So I think on that particular day I actually needed to meet two people like that. They had nothing to gain from me. I was some random stranger they met sitting in an airport and they were just kind to me anyway. And given where my head was at with everything else going on in my life, it was a good reminder that actually no, not everybody is out to get something from you and not all of humanity is as bad as it can sometimes look. I suppose I still get to decide whether I look at that glass half empty or half full.

People can argue and debate the coincidence thing one way or the other and I can see both sides. I know on one hand human beings retroactively impose meaning on coincidences but I remember a senior colleague saying to me years ago that there's no such thing as a coincidence. Now in the environment he said that he meant it more from an investigation and operations point of view, so I know we could say I'm picking and choosing the application of two different meanings here.

But then I look back at this experience and other things that have happened in my life and I can't completely dismiss the other side of it either. Because just think about everything that had to happen that day. Had I been five minutes earlier somewhere, had the power bank been allowed through, had the bank transfer actually been instant, had I managed to get another flight or even just managed to get home, I'm probably never sitting on that bench when that girl comes along. And knowing how things subsequently played out with those two people after that day, whatever anybody wants to call it, coincidence or otherwise, I'm grateful it happened.

Normally when something goes wrong I want to know why it went wrong, what I could have done differently and what contingency I can put in place so the same thing doesn't happen again. That's just how my head works. But virtually everything I tried that day to fix the situation failed anyway. One thing after another. And eventually there wasn't anything left for me to fix.

The funny thing is I wouldn't change it now. If you gave me the option of going back to that morning and getting through security without the power bank problem, making the gate and getting on the original flight, I'd leave it exactly as it happened.

There's an old expression that what's meant for you won't pass you by. I don't know exactly how literally we're supposed to take things like that, but I know those two people could very easily have passed me by that day and because of a fairly ridiculous sequence of things going wrong, they didn't.

I'm glad they didn't.