What's Your Worst Airport Story? And Why Was It Ft. Lauderdale?

Personally, I've flown a lot in the last five or so years, and I have to say that I really haven't had too many bad experiences. I credit a lot of that to the fact that I fly out of Atlanta — many visitors seem to hate it, but I think Hartsfield is, for the most part, a well-oiled machine — and much of my travels have been to Juan Santamaría International Airport in Costa Rica, and things run smoothly there too. 

There is one incident that stands out in my mind, and I thought I'd share it with you all. But first, I wanted to ask: What's the worst airport experience you've ever had? Chances are, if you haven't been to Ft. Lauderdale, you probably haven't had it yet. 

I'm kidding, of course, but a quick Google search tells me that I'm not alone in my thinking. Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport often makes "worst of" lists when it comes to flying and airport experiences. Throw in a poorly managed pandemic and my own personal exhaustion, and, well, I guess it was the perfect storm. But let me start from the beginning. 

In 2019, I had two very sick parents, and I was handling it all on my own, 24/7, with no breaks. I'd already been taking my mom to and from dialysis three days a week for a few years, plus I spent months with her in the hospital after she had a pretty serious accident that required multiple surgeries. On top of that, my dad nearly died from sepsis and had to have open-heart surgery for a faulty valve. To say I was exhausted was an understatement. During that time, I kept joking about how I just wanted to relax on a tropical island, so a friend suggested we plan a trip to Turks and Caicos for my birthday in May 2020.

Well, taking a leisurely international vacation in the spring of 2020 was not an option — thanks, China — so we reluctantly rescheduled for spring 2021. By the time that trip rolled around, my dad had largely recovered, but my mom's mental and physical health had declined, and she wasn't the most pleasant person to be around. I felt bad taking a week away, but we both desperately needed a break from each other, and I had all the caregiving bases covered. Even so, she put me through hell over it, and it left me mentally drained. By the time we arrived in Turks and Caicos, I was so tired and defeated that I barely enjoyed everything the place had to offer. It definitely wasn't the trip we had planned. 

Rather than flying directly home to Atlanta, I decided to extend my trip a little bit and fly into Ft. Lauderdale. I'd rent a car at the airport, take a little road trip home to Atlanta, and give myself some much needed alone time before I got back to my caregiving duties. Or so I thought.

The flight back to the U.S. was smooth sailing. Getting through customs and finding my bags at Ft. Lauderdale was a bit of a hassle compared to other international trips I've taken, but it was nothing I couldn't handle. Once I did all that, I found a bench and plopped down with a drink and called my mom — who was finally speaking to me again — to let her know I was back on U.S. soil and would be home within 24 to 48 hours. 

The first thing that threw me off was that the car rental place at the airport was very far away from where I was sitting. The map made it look like I could walk to it, but I finally got lost and asked someone, and they told me I had to take a bus. I swear that bus took me halfway around South Florida to get to a building that was just kind of diagonal from the one where I'd been sitting. I'm not sure if it's always like this — there was a lot of construction going on — but I later learned that you couldn't get from some of the buildings to the next without going outside and taking a long walk (or bus ride) around half of the whole airport. It was rather confusing, but I made it.

I'd contacted the car rental place three times the week before my arrival to ensure my reservation was good. We were just over a year out from the start of the pandemic, and things were still very pandemic-y. I'd reserved an SUV, and I made it very clear that I intended to drive it to Atlanta and leave it there. That's just fine, they told me over the phone and via email.   

The line at the car rental place was long, and I spent most of the time talking to a man and his wife. The wife, who was maybe in her late forties at the oldest, was using a walker. She'd been a runner, they told me, but within days of getting the COVID-19 vaccine, she could no longer walk. There's something depressing about that airport, and I was already down because of the situation at home, but this woman's story had me feeling even worse. I just wanted to get my rental car and get out of there.  

Related: If Dems Are So Obsessed with Separating Families, Why Did My Mom Spend Her Final Weeks Alone?

When it was my turn, the guy at the counter greeted me with a big smile and looked up my information. First, he informed me that I couldn't rent an SUV because I'd used a debit card rather than a credit card to make the reservation. Fair enough. I'll take a car. He typed some more on his keyboard and asked me when I planned to return to Ft. Lauderdale.  

"I don't," I replied. 

"I'm sorry, but we're not currently allowing one-way rentals," he said. He went on to explain how there was a car rental shortage due to the pandemic and a bunch of other stuff that didn't make much sense. I explained that I had just called the company days before and confirmed all of this, and they told me that it was fine. "Our policies have changed," he said. Of course, they had. 

After much back and forth, I must have looked pretty upset because the guy pulled me off to the side and explained a way that I could trick a different car rental company into letting me get a one-way rental. It was extremely convoluted and required me to buy multiple airline tickets to this city and that, and it would cost me thousands of dollars. That wasn't going to happen, so I stepped away to book a flight back to Atlanta that night. The only problem was that the flights back to Atlanta that night were now sold out. The next one wasn't until around eight the next morning — about 13 hours away, and there was only one very expensive seat left.

I'm not one who cries a lot, and I'm definitely not one who cries in public, but I think the stress of everything with my parents had gotten to me. I found the nearest bathroom, went into a stall, sat down, and tried to hold it together. I just wanted to go home. I called my mom. After she'd been so mean to me for a month, she let her guard down and told me to calm down and just go get something to eat and find a safe place to wait for my flight for the next morning. 

I hadn't eaten since the hotel breakfast at 7 a.m., so that sounded like a good idea. I guess I'm used to Atlanta, where it feels like the airport is fully open 24/7. Ft. Lauderdale is no Atlanta. Most of the restaurants were closed, which I found odd for Saturday night, and many of them were under construction or in some building I was going to have to take another bus to. 

Finally, I settled on some M&Ms and a Diet Coke from a vending machine and found a group of benches. The minute I sat down, this woman across from me started coughing and wheezing, one of those nasty, congested kind of coughs that indicated that she was obviously sick. I'd forgotten all about COVID. I got up and moved to another bench and sat next to a guy who was charging his phone. 

As soon as I sat down, a homeless-looking guy walked up and asked the guy charging his phone if he wanted to buy some drugs. "Naw, man, I don't mess with that stuff," he replied. The drug guy looked at me next, and I shook my head. Even so, he decided to sit down next to me. There weren't many people around, so I made a pretend phone call and made a big show out of having to move to the next terminal to "find my friend." I guess I didn't want to hurt the drug dealer's feelings.   

When I arrived at the next terminal, I realized there were a lot more people around, but most of them were just waiting on passengers so they could take them home, and it emptied out pretty quickly. At some point, a man approached me and told me I looked like I could use a friend. He was wearing a badge, and stupid me wasn't paying attention, so I thought he was an airport employee and started telling him my life story. When I got to the part about the rental car, he told me that was too bad, but he'd like to be my friend. It was then that I noticed that not only was he not an airport employee, but the name he gave me didn't match the name on the badge. Suddenly, I told him I had to get up and go to the next terminal to "find my friend" again. 

The walk to the next terminal — the one where I was supposed to be — was long and outdoors, and by this point, it was dark and late. Earlier, the sidewalks had been filled with cops and airplane passengers waiting for rides, but now it was mostly just homeless people and random guys in cars asking if I needed a ride. My mind kept flashing back to all the signs I'd seen in the bathroom about human trafficking and only getting into the car with authorized drivers. 

When I finally arrived at the next terminal, I saw a woman wearing a Georgia State shirt. I'd finally found my people. Unfortunately, she also just waiting for her son's flight and left within about 10 minutes. I learned pretty quickly that Ft. Lauderdale doesn't receive many red-eyes, and I soon found myself mostly alone, aside from a guy who'd made up a row of seats like a bed and was brushing his teeth in the water fountain and another guy who was pulling all the hand sanitizing wipes out of a container and throwing them onto the floor.

A friend sent me some podcasts to listen to while I was there, but I'd left my headphones in the hotel room. My mom called to check on me again and told me to find somewhere safe to spend the next few hours. It was too late to go to a hotel, and nothing about this airport felt safe. After we got off the phone, I decided to Google the airport. I wanted to know if everyone else had such awful experiences here. But the first thing that came up was footage from the mass shooting that occurred there in 2017. I'd forgotten all about that. I clicked on the video, and what do you know? I was literally sitting in the exact place where the shooting happened. That just made me feel worse.

At that point I looked up and noticed a security checkpoint way across the room. Two older women were manning it, checking various airline and airport staff in who were arriving to work. I got up and hauled my bags that I'd been lugging around for 17 hours now over and asked if I could sit with them. I felt like a child at this point, but they shrugged and said "sure."  

About 45 minutes to an hour after I sat down, one of them got up and circled me suspiciously. "What exactly are you doing here? Are you waiting on someone?" she asked. 

"No," I replied and told her my whole sob story, about my mom, about the car rental place, about the drug dealer, and the guy who wanted to be my "friend." 

I guess she took pity on me because her demeanor changed instantly. Suddenly, she was more of a mother figure than an airport security lady. She showed me where the cameras were, where to get something to eat, etc., and a few hours later, before she left for her break, she told me how to get where I needed to go for my flight and what time I should start walking to get there. I could have hugged that woman. 

A couple of hours later, I got up and made the journey to get in line to check in for my flight. So did every other passenger. The problem is that no one from Delta decided to join us. We waited for at least two hours, and people got very upset, claiming we'd miss our flight. I remember a security guard telling us the plane wasn't going to leave with none of us on it. 

When the Delta team did finally show up, they checked us all in quickly, but when I went through the metal detector, it went off, flagging areas across my body from the top of my head to my knees. (It did the same exact thing to the girl behind me, so I think it was broken.) A female security guard explained that I was about to have to granddaddy of all airport pat downs and asked if I wanted a private room. 

"Nope. Just do what you gotta do," I said, ready to get it over with. I actually felt bad for her because I'd spent the last 24 hours in an airport or on a plane and walking miles through the heat and humidity of the Caribbean and South Florida; I'm sure I didn't smell my best. 

By the time I got on the plane, I passed out so hard that a flight attendant came by and asked me if I was okay. All I could think was that as long as I never had to spend another night in that Ft. Lauderdale airport, I'd be just fine. Within a few hours, I was home, eating real food and sleeping in my bed. 

And for what it's worth, the break ended up being great for my mom, as everyone but her knew it would be. I know she was just scared, but she actually ended up having a good time with family members she hadn't seen since the pandemic started. She only lived a couple of months after that, but she did so in good spirits with a new appreciation for all I did for her — not that I needed her to appreciate it. I would have done it all anyway, but it was much more pleasant.   

I know, I know. It's all first-world problems, and it could have been much worse. But I had nightmares about airports for weeks after that. Now, I'd love to hear your worst airport/flying stories. Let me know in the comments!