The Trip Back to Dominica for Second Semester

The flight back to Dominica was quite the experience.  Everything was alright until we reached the Antigua airport.   The airport lounge was absolutely packed, standing-room only status.  Passengers were squished shoulder-to-shoulder.  The past three times I have flown through the airport, the little "in-transit" lounge area has been relatively empty.  But this time it was pure chaos.  Four flights, including one trans-Atlantic flight, were trapped in the lounge, waiting for the airlines to announce the boarding of their flight.   What made me really nervous was that there was a trapped Liat (my airline) flight that was supposed to head to Dominica.  I was convinced we were going to have to spend the night in Antigua.

How crowded the Antigua airport was.
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Thankfully after only an hour delay, the boarding of our flight was announced. One mad dash to the plane later and I was on my way to Dominica.  While climbing the steps to board the plane, I saw my bags being placed aboard.  I was ecstatic !  I knew my bags were going to arrive in Dominica.  After all, I had seen the baggage handlers physically place them on the plane.  I sat back and relaxed, figuring everything would be smooth flowing from there.  

All of a sudden the captain told the cabin to buckle up and prepare for "a bit of bumpiness".  After saying that, the plane suddenly makes a sharp turn and the captain comes back on. He tells us that due to "extreme winds" we were not going to be able to land.  We started circling for what felt like an hour.  We went up and down, made sharp turns, and at one point, when I looked out at the water, I swear we were 30 feet above the white-cap covered ocean.  The captain comes back on again.  This time he says the dreaded words "Folks, this is our last attempt to land.  If we don't make it this time, we have to turn back to Antigua or run out of fuel." 

EEKK! I don't know what worried me the most.  The fact that I could see the runway and that we couldn't land or that we were close to having a fuel issue. I kept thinking that we were going to be a real life version of Castaway or Lost. On the final attempt, the pilot did some fancy maneuver and we got closer and closer to the runway.  The landing gear touched down and the plane kept zooming forward.  I don't think I have ever experienced a plane go this fast when it was landing.  But we made it thanks to our amazing pilot. 

Now I thought. Nothing else could go wrong.  I was on the island.  I knew my bags were on the plane with me.  I had a motion-sickness patch on, which meant I would survive the road to campus.  I even had granola bars in my checked bag, which meant I could have something for dinner. Boy, was I wrong.

We were ushered off the plane into customs.  While waiting in line to talk with the customs agent, they started placing the bags on the baggage claim.  And then they closed the door, which meant no more bags were coming.  Only 11 bags were placed on the baggage claim.  My flight had 50 people on it, the majority of which had at least one bag, if not two bags. This was not going to be good.

One of my bags made it off the flight. The Liat personnel said that they could not fully unload the plane because the plane did not have enough fuel to idle on the runway while it was being unloaded.  Since Dominica does not have any fuel, the plane had to take off right away and head for Antigua.  Liat promised that our bags would come in on the next flight. We just had to fill out some quick paperwork and then they would do the rest. 40 minutes later, my paperwork was filled out and I was headed back to campus.  

Saturday--All flights to the island were cancelled or delayed.  No bags. I am still zen at this point in time. 

Sunday--No words on my bag. I couldn't reach the airline. Still attempting to be zen. I kept telling myself that it was island time and that this is how things work on Dominica.

Monday (today)--I receive a phone call at 9am from Liat (and a call later from school) saying my bag has arrived in Dominica.  YAYYYY! Nope, not so fast.  It turns out because this was my second-checked bag, Liat felt that they were not responsible for getting the bag to me.  They wanted me to come to the airport to pick it up. (This would be at least a 5 hour trip that would probably cost me around $150 US, would make me extremely carsick, and would take me away from my studies.)  I told them that it was not possible for me to make it to the airport.  Then Liat said that they could have someone deliver it to my apartment by noon for 20EC (that is cheap!) So I headed home around 11 and waited for that knock on my door announcing that my bag arrived.

Around 6pm, my bag still had not arrived yet. Other people on my flight and people who arrived on Sunday flights had all received their bags. This was the final straw. I was no longer zen.  All I could think of was how I had wasted the majority of my day waiting for my bag to come, when I could have been doing errands and that my bag was most likely soaked because of the monsoon that was going on outside.  I called my school's housing department (This was the department arranging pickups from the airport and that had called me this morning saying my bag was in) and asked them if they knew anything.  They said they had no record of my bag and that they recommended I try calling the airline (which was closed at this point in time).

My envisioned mode of transport to the airport.
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I was beyond frustrated at this point in time. Ranting to my sister about how I was going to have to ride a cow to the airport to get my 50 pound bag (I wasn't making much sense at this point in time) and how all my Christmas gifts were somewhere lost in the Dominica hills, got a lot of my frustration out.  I decided to call the school again and ask if they had my bag. Within 5 minutes of hanging up the phone with me, I received a call saying that someone was bringing my bag over right now.  They even carried my bag up to my apartment!  The bubble-wrap and ziplock bags that I packed everything in did its job. Nothing was harmed!  

Everything worked out in the end (I just gained a few more grey hairs and another story for my blog).  After experiencing no major issues on all my previous flights, I guess Liat felt that I needed to have the true Liat experience.  (People say that Liat stands for Leave Island Any Time).

I guess I am lucky that my bags didn't end up in Europe (True story...This actually happened to one of my professors.  Dominica seems to be a very confusing destination.  My professor didn't get his bag back for months).  In retrospect, I am extremely glad that the pilot had our safety in mind while landing on Friday night.  Zen breaths got me through the experience and now I have lots of bubble wrap to use for stress relief during the semester!