Made it to Haiti!

Two hours before our flight was scheduled to depart we arrived at the Chattanooga airport (as all good international travelers do... or so I have been told.). We were at our gate about 5 minutes later, thanking our lucky stars that we made it through security in time! Close calls like that really get the heart pumping.

We sat at Chattanooga for the requisite hour and a half and then found our way to our seats! We were on our way! Except... just as they were preparing to close the doors all the oxygen masks (except ours) dropped from the ceiling. Normally this would be disconcerting. Since everything else seemed normal we felt disconcerted. Everyone on the plane (except us) was now prepared to breathe normally (don't worry if the bag doesn't inflate, oxygen is still flowing.) The flight attendant got on to let us know the oxygen masks had dropped down (in case we had missed every pre-flight briefing ever) and that they were checking with maintenance to see what the procedure for dealing with this was. Turns out the procedure is that everyone gets off, followed by a lot of waiting.

So we got off the plane, and immediately the gate agents became the most popular people in the airport. Pretty much everyone had a connecting flight and wanted to make sure they would be taken care of. We briefly considered standing in line that was moving about as fast as something really slow, but decided against it. Instead I called Delta and asked them if they had any options for me. They did not, but assured me that even with the delay we would have at least 30 minutes to get to the connecting flight. We were skeptical since it was 2:30, the maintenance hadn't begun, was supposed to take 45 minutes, and the plane still had to be re-boarded. We needed to be in the air by 3:10.

At 2:50 when the maintenance finally did start we crunched the numbers yet again and decided we needed to take action. So we visited the gate agents. The line had dwindled by now and the gate agents had a fantastic solution. We got put on standby for a flight that was supposed to leave by 3:10 (which also hadn't started boarding...) It sounded like our only chance, so we went for it.

When we took off at 3:40 we were nervous. The flight is supposed to take 1 hour and our connection departed at 4:40. Thankfully the pilot put the pedal to the metal (or the throttle to the stops?) And got us to the gate at 4:20. In D terminal. We had to make it to E terminal. Our flight was supposed to LEAVE in 20 minutes. We were so ready for this.

Some of our fellow travelers were nice enough to let us go ahead of them. We dashed out of the gate, into the terminal, down the escalator, and into the waiting tram which would take us to E terminal. The tram sped off, the doors opened, and we sprinted yet again in hopes that we were in time! The final boarding call came over the loudspeaker. They even called our names! It was going to be close! We rounded the corner to a beautiful sight! The door was still open! We had made it!

We collapsed into the plane, settled into our seats, and took a deep breath, followed by many more since we were still winded from running. Luckily we were in an exit row, so there was plenty of space for our legs and our bags! The flight attendants said their piece, the captain said his, and then we were off! Woohoo! Haiti bound!

So now here we are in Haiti, ready to work. If you want to know more and contribute to the efforts we're making in Haiti you can check out the link below.

http://gofundme.com/haiti-recovery-projects-2uhmqe4

Thank you for joining our journey!