Another flight adventure

I’ve written about some of Kathy’s and my Adventures In Flight in previous columns.

Here’s one more.

My cousin Kay and her husband Boris live half the year in Washington, D.C., and the other half in Dingle, a charming little town on one of the green, hilly peninsulas of Ireland’s southwest coast. They invited us to come visit them a few years ago, and we readily accepted.

We planned to fly to Shannon Airport near Dingle, meet Kay and Boris there, and drive across Ireland with them to Dublin on the east coast.

From Dublin, the four of us would fly to Lisbon, Portugal, for a four-day visit there before returning to Ireland for another 10 days with Kay and Boris at Dingle.

The first leg of our trip was from Des Moines to Chicago. No problem. The next leg was from Chicago to Newark, N.J. Problem.

Our flight from Chicago was delayed two hours because of bad weather between there and Newark, and we touched down in Newark 25 minutes before our connecting flight to Shannon.

The connecting flight was to take off from a different terminal at the Newark airport, of course, and it took us 10 minutes to go from terminal to terminal. But American Airlines locked the plane door 15 minutes before the flight to Ireland took off, so we missed our connection.

Kay and Boris were planning to drive from Dingle to Shannon, pick us up there, then drive the four of us across Ireland to Dublin Airport on the east coast, from where we were to fly to Lisbon.

We tried to get tickets on the last night flight out of Newark to Shannon, but it was sold out. So we had no choice but to try to book seats on a morning flight the next day.

We called Kay and Boris, filled them in on our plight, and told them to go ahead and drive over to Dublin, where we would meet them whenever we could finally arrive there. They agreed.

So we tried to get seats for a next-day morning flight to Dublin. Continental Airlines (to which American had shunted us) could find one sure seat, but not two. There was a stand-by seat that might open up, but they couldn’t make any promises.

We decided to take what we could get.

We booked Kathy for the available seat, and I signed up for stand-by. If that proved impossible the next morning, we decided I would somehow make my way to Lisbon and meet them there.

We took a hotel room in nearby Elizabeth, N.J., for the night, and showed up at Newark Airport early the next morning. At our international gate, Kathy picked up her ticket, and I took a chair in the waiting area, unsure of what would happen next.

As the minutes ticked off leading to departure, I had pretty much accepted that I would be left behind.

But five minutes before boarding, the ticket attendant at the counter, who had been scanning his computer, looked toward me, walked over to me, and announced that I now had a seat on the flight.

Much relieved, we walked down the walkway and onto the plane. Our seats were separated, Kathy toward the tail and I down front. But there was a vacant seat next to me, so after takeoff, Kathy was able to come on down and we flew together.

Kathy was in the window seat and I was in the middle. In the aisle seat next to me was an elderly Irishman named (as I learned) Paddy Power.

He was over 90, but had carried his bag onto the plane himself despite walking with a cane. He looked like a leprechaun, and talked continually through the entire flight.

Paddy had been to Massachusetts and New Hampshire, visiting his daughter and granddaughter for three weeks. He was flying back to his home in Dublin. He had no luggage other than his carry-on bag, which he told me contained two bottles of fine Irish whisky, and that was all.

Soon the flight attendant started down the aisle to take beverage orders. Paddy asked if there was any Irish whisky, and the attendant said with regret that there was not.

So Paddy said he was willing to settle for single malt Scotch, and the attendant complied.     

“That will be six dollars,” he said.

Paddy looked up at him, eyes twinkling, and said, “Even for me?”

The flight attendant looked down at him for about 10 seconds, then replied, “I guess not,” and moved on down the aisle.

Paddy looked over at me with a triumphant grin, and I could tell that he had pulled that same “poor old man” scam many times before.

We arrived in Dublin a few hours later. Our luggage did not.

After waiting many minutes at the baggage carousel, as the bags thinned out, it became evident that ours were missing. By then the rest of the plane’s passengers had got theirs and left.

We were the only passengers still at the carousel.

So we walked over to the baggage counter where the agent had been patiently watching us.

We told him our plight, and he courteously assured us that he would trace our bags for us.

In a couple of minutes, he had located them. “They’re at Shannon Airport,” he said.

We were in Dublin, on the other side of Ireland.

“Where would you like us to take them?”

We couldn’t possibly wait for them to be hauled across Ireland; we had plane tickets to Lisbon from the Dublin airport, and our Lisbon plane would be leaving in about an hour with the four of us aboard.

When we returned from Lisbon in four days with Kay and Boris, we would be driving back across Ireland to Dingle to stay for another 10 days. It would make sense for our bags to be taken from the Shannon Airport to Dingle, a trip of an hour or so. But we didn’t know anyone in Dingle except Kay and Boris, and they were to be with us.

The only place we could name in Dingle, other than their home, was John Benny’s Pub, owned and operated by John Benny Moriarty, a good friend of Kay and Boris. So we told the luggage attendant, “Have them taken to John Benny’s in Dingle.”

“Will do,” he said.

So we went upstairs to the terminal area, met Kay and Boris who had been waiting for us, and took off for four days in Lisbon minus our luggage.

Fortunately, we (or rather Kathy) had had the good sense to pack a change of underwear and socks, “just in case,” in our carry-on bags, which we had kept with us from Des Moines.

So every night at our Lisbon hotel, Kathy washed out socks, underwear and my one shirt in the hotel room sink. They were pretty much dry by morning.

(A few weeks ago, we met Kay and Boris at Galena, Ill., for a two-day vacation trip. I wore my Lisbon shirt in memory of the occasion.)

We had a great four days in Lisbon, the least expensive capital city in western Europe, and returned to Dublin late in an afternoon.

Boris drove us back across Ireland to Dingle. We walked into John Benny’s about 11 p.m. and asked a barmaid about our luggage.

“Yes, it’s upstairs. I’ll go get it for you,” and she did.

We had a celebratory Guinness and went on up the street to Kay and Boris’ home, and spent 10 more delightful days there.

Our flight home was uneventful, but when we landed in Des Moines, our big red suitcase was once again missing on the carousel.

As it turned out, it had preceded us to Des Moines by a couple of hours. Weird.

But we’re ready to challenge the mighty skies again whenever.

And I’ll have Paddy as my seatmate anytime.