My husband stood in a puddle of someone’s urine in the 4th hour of a 7 hour wait at the Emirates counter at the airport in Dubai. He didn’t blame the person responsible. When you’re among 6 hundred in a crush to reach 5 staff members you can’t afford to lose your place.

April 16, 2024. Dubai was under water and we would spend the next 46 hours wondering why the airline allowed us to get on a delayed flight from Heathrow knowing we wouldn’t make our connecting flight to Sydney. For reasons, not the least of which: they didn’t have airport staff or flight attendants or pilots. Or planes. Seating for 40,000 stranded passengers? Nope. $1100 cognac? Sure. $1200 perfume? Absolutely. Diapers for the little ones? Not so much.

In our surreal 46 hour experience there were only two announcements. The first was a boarding call, comfortingly normal. The second was “There is a fire in the building.” I kid you not.

I have never been so happy to board a 14 hour flight. Even though we were seated in the penultimate row and not the seats we paid for.

The good news is I don’t have PTSD because my nightmares didn’t last long enough.

Dear Emirates, I didn’t receive the long awaited phone call you promised. I did however receive your email. I’m sorry to hear you won’t be refunding the money we paid for upgraded seats. And thank you for the 14 paragraphs explaining why none of this was your fault but that the fault lay with the weather.

And Dear Mr. Sir Tim Clark, I want you to know that I hold you responsible for just about all of it. But not the rain. No Sir, never the rain.

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