Finally, Finally Home

Yesterday Luke showed me a news article titled " Americans hoping for European vacations this summer should prepare for one thing: Chaos". At the time this was hilarious as I could not sum up my experience trying to get home in better words. After passing through security at the Berlin airport seamlessly, our flight from Berlin to Frankfurt was unfortunately delayed 25 minutes. This led to both of us sprinting down terminal Z of the Frankfurt airport to barely make it to our connecting flight in time. There was just one problem: we made it to the plane in time, but our checked baggage did not. We were told we could not board the plane and were instead directed to the Lufthansa service center. Now the fun begins.

After taking our place in line at 1:35 PM, we slowly crept closer and closer to the service desk over the course of 4.5 hours. This was when two men wearing Lufthansa suits began consulting other people in line behind us about what was in "the passenger's best interest". We were informed at 6:30 PM that the service desk would close abruptly at 8:00 PM, and that those left waiting in line would be just out of luck. They then told us that since we were American citizens, we could receive a voucher for a hotel room and could comfortably rebook our flight using Lufthansa's phone help number. The only condition: we would need to give up our place in line. This information sounded unreliable, so we proceeded to call the help desk while still in line. The call was dropped and all other "resources" the men provided turned out to also be unresorceful. They then tried to convince us to leave using an emotional argument. Supposedly, if we received a new plane ticket from the help desk, we would be preventing someone else from receiving help who would not be legally allowed to leave the airport due to visa restrictions. That person would therefore have to sleep on the floor of the airport with their luggage, as all overnight beds were full. In spite of this, we remained in line, and at 7:30 PM finally received help rebooking our flight for the next day.

The next morning I ran into a couple from El Paso that had stood behind us in line. They informed me that the help desk did not close at 8:00 PM, but remained open until all people who did not give up their spot in line were served. The men had apparently been lying to reduce the number of people who had to be helped. I am so happy that I was able to board the plane yesterday and will not be flying again as long as I can help it.