Turminoil

Between the above dates I existed inside Concourse A of the Denver International Airport (DIA) while the eastern Colorado plains (including Denver) underwent what was described as a "ten year blizzard." You surely read and heard about it through all the media. (The Denver locals called it their "holiday blizzard.") Even as I began drafting this tome, the final standbys were at last departing from that spacious tomb, days later. I spoke to a number of people trapped with me who had previously been forced by weather into one overnight airport stay; no one indicated more than that. Let me tell you that two nights are far more than twice as bad as one.

On my way to Tucson, via Frontier Airlines, we left Indy at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday the 20th, my anticipation of spending the holidays in the warm, sunny Southwest palpable. We landed in Denver gently, with snow falling, the ground barely visible. After boarding Frontier's connecting flight to Tucson, we were "delayed" while decisions were made regarding de-icing the aircraft. Fortunately we remained connected to the jetway as periodic reassurances of an eventual departure inexorably turned more ominous. The snow outside my window was picking up wind gusts I hadn't seen earlier - to help the frolicking flakes along their capricious course. I could see some of them attaching to our right wing . . .

At 9 a.m. MST, we were told that "due to weather" the flight had been cancelled, and we were invited to process back into the concourse. About an hour later the DIA was officially closed. My first action was to check with the Frontier Service Center, located midway in the concourse. There I was confronted with two sets of humongous lines stretching out of sight in opposite directions. Amazingly, though, there were several Frontier arrival/departure gates with unbusy attendants; it turns out they can process you the same as the service-center people. I walked up to one and was told my first confirmable flight to Tucson would be Christmas Day (five days from then), but I could be a standby for the Thursday equivalent of my just-cancelled flight.

As the day painfully progressed, it was clear the outside maelstrom wasn't about to end; the DIA announcements kept extending their reopening estimate . . . right past my first Thursday standby flight. I inquired about lodgings at any of the local airport hotels. Of course I had been "anticipated" to the point that they were all booked solid. Later in the day, however, a printed message was handed to me stating that certain "downtown hotels" had rooms available, and shuttle buses could convey us to all of them at one or two explicit times later that day from the main terminal (the relevant Denver thoroughfares had been kept open). What to do? I was tempted.

It was then explained to me that if I remained at the airport, I would have first dibs at further standbys when the Frontier Service Center reopened Thursday at 5 a.m. - mainly because I was on the "secure" side of the security check. Furthermore, gossip was spreading that the hotels had jacked up the room rates for the stranded passengers simply because they "could." A Frontier attendant also told me that all the other airlines, including the larger United, had sent all their employees home, leaving their passengers wholly to fend for themselves-in the dark-regarding any outward passage. A PR plus for Frontier, a black mark for United - I decided (though United cannily must have saved lots of big bucks, putting their bottom line above customer good will).

As Wednesday wore on, more and more of the concourse concessions closed, to allow their employees to get the hell out of there and get home while the getting was good. In addition, there was some fear that many of them would run out of food as no new supplies were on the way while the whole city hunkered down. That did not happen; in fact good old McDonalds's stayed open the latest and opened the earliest both nights I was there.

As I moved, by degrees, from one end of the concourse to the other, sitting at various places in between (I have a leg neuropathy which makes standing uncomfortable for me - more than walking. I was in no shape to stand in any long line), I felt that monumental boredom which comes from knowing you’re trapped in a situation of no one's making that you can’t get out of, that only time will alleviate. But what time? How much time? It was the not knowing how long - how many days — I’d be held in this tether. For some, the situation produced intense agoraphobic anxiety, in turn causing angry exchanges with the Frontier people, who by this time were caught themselves. Others less neurotically disposed read paperbacks from the news stores; regrettably for me, that's never been my thing. Some of the kids were playing on the moving walkway--when their parents weren't looking. Two teens were throwing and catching a "midget" football.

There were, at the lowest, only some 1,900 people in the concourse, and reportedly thousands trapped in the terminal-on the other side of security. Thus, I had plenty of room to select my sleeping location. Frontier was nice enough to offer me a blanket, one of those paper thin, Navy blue ones that hold in the heat better than I had expected. I had my flexible leather, carry-on bag to use as a pillow. Then there was the hard, cold concrete floor covered by thin carpeting. As I tend to sleep on my sides, my hips proceeded to ache the longer I assumed those positions, the concrete biting into them. Furthermore, despite wearing all my outdoor garments plus my Frontier blanket, I just couldn't keep warm. Though the concourse’s conditioned air must have remained constant in temperature, my lowered prone-position metabolism couldn’t abide the constant draft; the cold was leaking through like a sieve. My guess is that I was in an interrupted sleep mode maybe an hour at the most. Besides, I had to keep checking the time--didn't want to be late for the 5 a.m. Frontier Service desk.

To help the trapped passengers over their frustrations, a Frontier supervisory attendant named "Mike" gave us continual updates from either the service center or a nearby gate. Mike was the model of patience, carefully explaining to the stressed out what was possible and what was not, regarding standby flights. The biggest concern to most of us was that following DIA's reopening, confirmed passengers had dibs on the seats--could, in theory, just walk in and right past those of us who had waited two days and onto their flight while we were staring at them with complete disdain and contempt. What is "fair" in a situation like this? (Later, like a mouse in a hidden corner, I overheard Mike telling a colleague that Mike's supervisor didn’t think he had "people skills.")

Another Frontier agent going well above the call of duty was "Sarah." An elderly lady from north Denver was to be picked up by a friend or relative, but she was snowed into her driveway. This was on Thursday, the storm abating (in the late afternoon the sun actually came out, streaming over the Rockies' magnificent Front Range). Sarah, who had been there since the storm began, offered to drive her to her home later that evening (Denver's major streets had been somewhat cleared) and was a model of gracious reassurance to the lady. Hearing that conversation from a nearby seat greatly elevated my estimate of what people under continuous duress are capable of.

It was Thursday afternoon when the final announcement came: DIA was to reopen at high noon on Friday. Instead of the Thursday 5 a.m., the Frontier Service Center decided to open at 4 a.m. Friday. The single (this time) line formed immediately following the Thursday announcement, the younger people camping out ready to sleep in the line -- rather like a "Star Wars" opening or the NFL (Colts) AFC championship game. Their motivation was that you're on a standby pecking order in Frontier's computer: The first entered are the first called, and so on. Mike tried to dissuade them from doing that, but this time he was going against human nature -- and lost.

Since I was incapable of line standing, I tried sleeping again off to myself and was less successful than the previous night. Yet, once again, I waited for attendants to reach the adjacent gates after 4 a.m. It turns out the Frontier people showed up in droves that morning, with Mike selecting 20 passengers each in-turn -- as "fairly" as he could -- in the main line to shuffle to the gates. I sneaked to the back of one 20-person line, justifying my weak legs as the fairness equalizer. I got assigned as No. 7 standby on a commuter flight to Tucson at 2:55 that afternoon. This meant that six people were ahead of me.

As it turned out, I had little to worry about. Not only did many of the confirmed passengers from Denver fail to get off their residential streets (Denver had amassed 20 inches of highly drifted snow -- 4 1/2 inches more than Indy’s great January blizzard of '78), but those who had made it to the terminal were caught in 3 to 4 hour waits to get through security checks — the unkindest cut of all. It doesn’t matter what the excuse: If you’re not present at the gate 20 minutes before departure time, you don’t get on if there are standbys there at the ready. How angry would a passenger with a confirmed ticket be after waiting hours in security only to find he's missed his flight? I can only suggest that those of us who waited a freaking two days to get the hell out of there probably didn’t have too much sympathy. In any case, at least 25 standbys made it onto that flight; I was never so glad to actually take off.

Two weeks later, I returned to Indy--also via DIA. This time I had less than a two-hour layover. The least I could do was to return the Frontier blanket I had been given, since in the earlier chaos I had forgotten to. The lady attendant seemed surprised!