How to act in an airport

First of all, don't be that person who insists that while everyone in the line is dealing with the fact our flight has been cancelled, his (or her) situation is unique.

"I can't wait. I have to be in Calgary this morning!"

What a tool.

Fortunately, I was far enough away from that guy that I could just ignore him. But I felt for the staff that had to deal with him.

As I write this, I'm sitting in the departure lounge at the airport, twiddling my thumbs (virtually) and waiting for another flight. The early-morning flight I had booked was cancelled when some wimpy pilots couldn't land their plane during the hurricane we have happening here right now. The announcement said something about wind gusts and the fact that they had tried to land twice and been blown off the runway, or something like that. Sounds like a feeble excuse to me -- and the obnoxious guy who just has to get to Calgary agreed with me.

Anway, kudos to the Westjet staff, who handled the cancellation with their usual good humour and whisked us through a fairly complicated rescheduling fiasco with a lot of class. I don't know who's in charge of their crisis training but it certainly paid off today. Oh, did I mention that while all this was happening, the power was completely out here in the terminal?

At any rate, I've got the better part of day to kill out here. I'm supposed to be on a later flight but so far, the wind is still playing havoc with the schedule here. The smaller planes seem to be able to land, but the larger Boeing 737's, like Westjet uses, are still not able to make it in.

Oh, I almost forgot -- today's incident gave me the perfect chance to practice my new best thing. It's just two words that go a long way to keeping us sane in situations just like this one -- "Hmmmm...that's interesting."

To see what I'm talking about, read Kathy Sierra's great post on Creating Passionate Users.

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