They say that every journey begins with a first step, and this trip was no exception. Laura & I got to the Newark airport at about 3:15pm, plenty of time to catch a 5:40p flight.
We found the economy lot, parked, got to the terminal, checked in, and made in through security in short order.
We made our way to the gate and found a United MileagePlus club just steps away, so we sat and had some snacks before going out to the gate and queuing up for the flight.
After about 20 minutes in line, there was an announcement saying that we wouldn’t be taking this aircraft after all since they’d just discovered a crack in the windshield.
They moved us from gate 125 to gate 90 as they prepped a new aircraft, and pushed our departure time from 5:40p to 7:20p.
We walked to the new gate and sat. I also texted members of our group who were planning to wait for our flight at the airport and suggested we’d just meet them at the hotel.
The 7:20p departure became 8:05p as we were boarding. We all boarded, settled, and the aircraft pushed back from the gate. We had turned on the tarmac, facing the taxiway, when the pilot announced that a passenger’s passport had been left at the gate and we were going back.
We returned to a gate and retrieved the passport – but our aircraft needed a tug to push back from the gate, and they were all allocated to other flights. We sat, we waited, and eventually at 8:45p we pushed back and took off.
The flight was uneventful, the food was good, and the drinks were complementary. The pilot had topped us off with fuel and made up one of the three hours we were late.
We landed a little after noon – meeting the sun in Athens – collected our belongings and made our way to the Hotel Amalia.