15 Seconds

Who would think 15 seconds would make the difference between making a flight or spending the day organizing new flights. We knew it would be close but when our flight from Alaska was delayed 40 minutes we had only 20 minutes to get to our international flight to Tokyo. We landed and just ran from the North Satellite with three train rides and a run up the escalator in the South Satellite. I was out of breath when I reached the top of the escalator and tried to locate the gate for our flight. Thankfully it was the closest gate. I walked around the corner as I heard my seat announced. The airlines agent was giving my seat to someone who was on standby. I told her that was my seat and she was just about to swipe his ticket and give him my seat. She said--"Just a minute. I can give you the seat." I told her I had three others traveling with me. She told me, "Unless they are there they will not be able to make this flight." I was not going to split my team up and I knew one of my team members had recently had knee surgery and she could not run up the escalator like I did--but they were coming. I asked her to give them a minute. She said the door is closing. At that moment the rest of my team appeared. We got a lot of grace and boarded the flight. When I reached the plane doorway the steward said something interesting to me. He said, " I do not know what your story is but this never happens." I do not know what he meant I was just thankful to be on the flight now we wondered if our luggage made it.

Later we landed in Bangkok early in the morning. It was an adventure and another miracle to make our flight to Jakarta. It was two weeks later that this Bangkok Airport was in total chaos when anti-government protesters took over the airport and the roads in and out. I support we were blessed it could have been a lot worse. International travel is crazy sometimes.