{"id":573899123,"date":"2026-06-11T20:09:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T00:09:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/?p=573899123"},"modified":"2026-07-19T00:10:29","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T04:10:29","slug":"our-second-flight-out-of-cape-town-was-also-canceled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/blog\/2026\/06\/11\/our-second-flight-out-of-cape-town-was-also-canceled\/","title":{"rendered":"Our second flight out of Cape Town was also canceled"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have set up citizenship here. It is a lovely place and you can fall in love with most places if you stay long enough. Or, if you stay long enough, roots just fill in around you, somehow. So this has become a necessity at this point. And also an issue of practicality. I’ll send for my things next week. Please forward my mail to … <\/p>\n

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Keep the bills. Or let them lapse. Who cares? I don’t care. No one cares. Maybe it doesn’t matter. We’re not ever getting home, anyway.<\/p>\n

Last night, Wednesday night, we tried again. My lovely bride, our former professor and I loaded into an Uber and trekked across Cape Town to the airport. I carried our friend’s luggage — she has so many bags — and that’s also how I know she isn’t feeling well, she didn’t even argue with me about it. We stood in an overly long check-in line. We were also there early. Before the check-in counter opened. Because we are ambitious. Also the line moved slowly. Delta has four people working in this airport. We got to know the people around us in the line because we were there for a while. <\/p>\n

There were regular couples. Professional acquaintances who were here for the conference we’ve just left. One family hauling around a U-Haul worth of luggage and boxes. They looked exhausted, the chore of it all exhausting. There was also a woman who was too eager. Too loud. Too demonstrative. Too much overzealous oversharing. Too much.<\/p>\n

Would you like to know who the stuffed animal she was carrying was for? I know who the stuffed animal is for. Ask my why I know who the stuffed animal was for. I know who the stuffed animal was for because she was telling every stranger she met. <\/p>\n

Her niece. <\/p>\n

Anyway, luggage checked. Boarding passes distributed. We stood and snaked our way through an incredibly long and slow-moving security line. Then the border control, which was somehow moving a bit more efficiently last night than the previous night. We did the long walk from all of that to where the actual terminal is. To the lounge, and then through a store or two. We did the boarding section queue, and then the secondary human security checkpoint. A young man looked through my bag last night, a bit more thoroughly than his colleague the time before. When he was done, I asked him why this layer of security exists. We did metal detectors and scanners, after all. It has something to do with whether you purchased anything in the terminal’s stores. If you do, the store has to escort it to your plane. I basically learned enough to learn I wasn’t particularly interested in it, but I was glad he told me. <\/p>\n

We were called to the plane. We took a long walk down a byzantine jetway to get to the plane, the loud demonstrative woman with the stuffed animal was just in front of us. She was so excited she was high-fiving strangers and hugging airline employees. I looked at my friend and said, “We’ll get down here, and they’ll have to take her off the plane because of her imminent medical emergency.” That woman was due to crash at any moment. <\/p>\n

We got on the plane. Got settled. Finished the movie I’d been watching the night before. Started and finished another movie. I have sat on the tarmac and watched two-plus movies while not leaving Cape Town. <\/p>\n

Over several hours of delays and messages the themes this evening were, “Ladies and gentlemen, from the flight deck. Welcome back. The fog is still here. Our co-pilot is still sick. We’re going to taxi out to the runway and if this fog clears we’ll be ready to be the first one out. Because our co-pilot is still sick we can’t make it all the way to Atlanta, so we’re trying to land in Puerto Rico.”<\/p>\n

Why we aimed for San Juan, which is to say what the rest of the plan might be, was never explained. It didn’t matter because San Juan was not interested in receiving a plane in the early hours of the morning. Something about ground crews and customs. Ahh, the American government. <\/p>\n

So we had some hope, but it was a fatalist sort of thing. We pushed back from the airport. We taxied. We got periodic updates about the fog. Still not clearing. <\/p>\n

And then, “We have to turn back to the airport because we have a medical emergency on the plane.” And then one of the other members of the crew called for a medical doctor to come forward. <\/p>\n

At which point the pilot told us, he had 17 minutes before he timed out. He timed out. So we went back. The ill passenger was escorted off by the local EMTs. We were asked to leave the plane. So, get your things. Again. Then get your luggage. Once more. Then officially enter South Africa through their customs and passport control stations. For a third time. <\/p>\n

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I have nothing to declare.<\/p>\n

Walk the full length of the airport, again with everyone’s luggage. See this sign, for the third time. <\/p>\n

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That’s the problem. This place has been wonderful, and now it has become a little too<\/em> welcoming. The Hotel California is actually a Hilton property in Cape Town.<\/p>\n

But, hey, the good news is the cats are in good hands and we haven’t had to postpone any plans. If you must be inconvenienced by weather and a passenger feeling unwell and a pilot making the rookie mistake of eating bad oysters, this is the right amount of inconvenience. <\/p>\n

I had a lot of time for that sort of perspective while we waited for our Uber having, once again, declined to wait for a Delta bus, the arrival of which no one could predict after 1 a.m. I felt confident that I could have driven the route across town back to the hotel this time. I knew all the signs and buildings as we sailed by. <\/p>\n

Which brought us to the first part of the next problem. It was technically June 11th by then, after midnight, local time. You can’t reserve a hotel room for the 10th when it is the 11th. My lifetime of living with time as a construct suggests that makes sense. We called the hotel and explained our issue. They said to rent the room for the 11th, and they can change it at the hotel. We did. We arrived at the hotel. The bell hops and doormen were surprised and disappointed to see us, but happy, too. We went to the desk which is when we arrived at the second part of the next problem. While the website recognizes we’re on June 11th, the front desk in the lobby of the giant, modern, upscale Westin Hotel, still thinks it is June 10th. <\/p>\n

This took … a long time to resolve. While that was taking place our plane’s flight crew came in and sat down in the lobby to wait their turn. I talked to them. Learned a lot. This is an Atlanta crew and they make this run regularly and most of them have been on the route for years and they all swore up and down and emphatically, that this was an unreal and new experience for them. I learned that the co-pilot will be ready for our next flight. I learned that one of the flight attendants is trying to get home to be present for the birth of her grandchild. I learned that the person that had a medical event was not the woman that we saw, but it was a gentleman with some sort of serious heart concern. (But they had no further updates.) I learned that, for reasons that were never explained, Delta doesn’t fly out of here on Thursdays. So we’ll try again on Friday night. I learned there are two flights Friday night. I learned that Delta is almost as bad at communicating with their employees as they are their passengers when it’s not going right. <\/p>\n

Here I’d like to make a brief aside. At one point, today, The Yankee was talking to Delta and they offered the following solution: You can fly out of Cape Town, to Johannesburg, and then fly to Cape Town, and then fly to Amsterdam, and then to the U.S. Listen, chatbot<\/em>, getting out of Cape Town is the problem. Why would I try that twice?<\/p>\n

So now we’re listed on our flight for Friday, and we’re on standby for the other flight on Friday. Our standby flight is before our flight. Also, why are these flights already<\/strong> listed as delayed? We’re not even on the day of the flight yet. <\/p>\n

Also, Delta, being a global logistics leader, is not very good at dealing with things going wrong. You’d assume they’d have experience and contingencies and a correct amount of staff for everything by now. They do not. <\/p>\n

But enough about that, for now. It’s funny, and mildly frustrating, but also hilarious. Or it would be if the hours hadn’t become weird. Not only are we getting canceled flights we’re getting canceled flights after midnight. <\/p>\n

Let us look at the positives, which do exist. How often do you get extra days in a lovely place, anyway? And because we seldom get to see our colleague — we are always ships passing in the night at conferences — it’s been a treat to spend time catching up with her. She is one of the best people in the business, after all. And now a mentor and friend. And because I am now in league with not one, but two busybodies — neither my wife nor our former professor can sit still very long long — someone will find something to do. <\/p>\n

So today we took a tour. As evidence of our friend’s need to always do stuff … she’s now a dean. \\When she isn’t deaning, she’s studying to be a sommelier. Why wouldn’t you do that? We visited a famous winery. And we also made two new friends, brothers from Australia who we spent the afternoon with. Nice guys. One is in finance. The other is a pilot. He is bemused by our troubles. We ended up having dinner and watching the opening game of the World Cup with them. <\/p>\n

We could be home right now, but instead we watched South Africa play on the global stage with a huge room full of South Africans, and a few Mexicans, who were their opponents. That was a lot of fun. South Africa sadly lost, which was to be expected, but the game is meant to be watched in a group, and there’s nothing like watching with a group cheering on their countrymen. This isn’t even South Africa’s most popular, successful sport (rugby and cricket usually stand out here) but most everyone I’ve talked to is excited for the World Cup. It was fun to see a little bit of that in person. <\/p>\n

And while there’s no point in writing about today’s weather, since we aren’t flying tonight anyway, this was the daytime visibility. <\/p>\n

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We will try once more, tomorrow, Friday evening, to return to the U.S. If we don’t, my forwarding address is above. (Seriously, keep the bills.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have set up citizenship here. It is a lovely place and you can fall in love with most places if you stay long enough. Or, if you stay long enough, roots just fill in around you, somehow. So this has become a necessity at this point. And also an issue of practicality. I’ll send […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10,116,15,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-573899123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventures","category-photo","category-south-africa","category-thursday","category-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=573899123"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899123\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573899127,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573899123\/revisions\/573899127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573899123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573899123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kennysmith.org\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573899123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}