Heathrow Goes Dark

“Heathrow is closed,” said the disembodied voice through the hotel phone receiver.

“You should check your flight.”

The call jolted me awake at 6:20am, but I could not believe what I was hearing from the driver I had booked to take us to Heathrow Airport.

Was I dreaming?

Having just completed a 5-day business trip, starting with a video shoot in London and ending with a second shoot day in Cambridge, I was looking forward to breathing a sigh of relief, relaxing in the sedan while the lush green English Countryside whizzed past on my way to Heathrow. Video shoots can be stressful and exhausting: requiring patience, quick decision making, and care for the client and video crew.

I put my head back against the pillow and contemplated the news I had just received. I then checked my United app, which is a wonderful tool for real-time flight updates. Sure enough, my flight had been canceled, and I’d been automatically rebooked on a flight home on Sunday.

But wait, this was Friday, which would mean staying in England for 2 extra days, not 1.

Could be a nice perk, but I was nursing a head cold and responsible for handing off media to our video editor over the weekend. With my heart thumping, I questioned what could close an airport like Heathrow, one of the largest and busiest airports in the world?

To my surprise, it turned out Heathrow was shuttered due to a severe power outage, caused by a fire raging at a nearby high-voltage substation in North Hyde. The story was already making headlines.

I was to find out the following week that the closure caused 1,300+ flight cancellations and stranded 200,000 passengers, with myself and my 2 colleagues among them.

It dawned on me, as a mild panic started to brew, that I would be one of thousands impacted by Heathrow’s closure and the sooner I made my own arrangements to fly home, the better! I texted my colleagues who were also traveling to their respective homes from Heathrow and let them know we would not be flying home today. The director responded quickly and suggested we take the Eurostar to Paris and fly home from there the following day.

By a miraculous stroke of luck, I managed to get through to an attendant at the United Premiere desk after only a 20-minute wait. She talked me through all the available connections out of Paris the following day and rebooked me on a flight that I couldn’t find on the App. My colleagues weren’t as lucky…they waited on hold for over an hour, only to be disconnected.

So, with my updated flight plan reserved, Paris to San Francisco via Frankfurt the next morning, I ran downstairs to meet my colleagues and iron out the remaining arrangements: how to get from Cambridge to London in time to catch the Eurostar to Paris, and where to sleep for our one night there? As the producer of this project, it was my responsibility to help them sort out their travel arrangements as well.

On the Eurostar website, I could see the train reservations literally fill up before my eyes. While I nursed my second cup of coffee and tried to tamp down the anxiety building in my solar plexus, we grabbed tickets on the next available train, leaving St. Pancras Station at 4pm, which gave us 8 hours to complete our travel plans and make it to London.

We anxiously made our way through the rest of our travel arrangements: booking a local train from Cambridge to London, with enough time to spare to catch the Eurostar from London to Paris. We were staying at a Marriott property, the University Arms Hotel in Cambridge, that graciously helped us snag 3 hotel rooms at another Marriott property, the Renaissance Paris Vendome Hotel a few blocks from the Louvre. In making same day hotel reservations, it was advantageous that I was a Marriott Bonvoy member.

And that is how a straightforward business trip to England transformed into a 24-hour whirlwind tour of Europe! On Friday, it was lunch in London and dinner in Paris at a lovely neighborhood bistro near our hotel. And to round out our 24-hour European tour, a Saturday morning continental breakfast at the Frankfurt Airport in Germany! This gave new meaning to: “If It’s Tuesday This Must Be Belgium.” *

Ah, but Paris…the City of Light! After a mouthwatering and well-deserved meal, my colleagues and I walked through the French drizzle to view the illuminated glass pyramids out front of the Louvre. The city lights reflected in the wet streets and created a dazzling abstract pattern of color on the sidewalk as the beam of light emitted from the Eiffel Tower swept across the night sky. The detour through Paris was well worth the chaos caused by the emergency delay! The day had been chaotic–but left us with a story we’ll never forget.

Helpful tips to make the most of a flight delay:

· Don’t panic! If you need to get home promptly, a cool head and creative thinking will help you spot workable routes faster than the crowds do.

· Airline & hotel loyalty programs: Even modest status can unlock priority phone lines or service desks when things go sideways. Elite status allows you to call the airlines’ Premiere Desk or hotel hotline and cut through long phone lines when an emergency strikes.

· Use the App: But don’t stop there. Apps are great for alerts; live agents can sometimes see flight connections and same day reservations that are not apparent.

· Make the most of an unanticipated itinerary: What can you do with those extra hours? A neighborhood meal, an evening walk or a new landmark to experience could turn out to be the most memorable part of the trip.

*Cartoon by Leonard Dove, published in The New Yorker (New York, N.Y.) of Saturday 22^nd June 1957.