Moscow Part 2 and Unscripted

We were scheduled to leave Moscow's Domodedovo airport (DME) at 5pm on Saturday to connect in London for our flight to Chicago. Our driver picked us up at 1:30 although we didn't get out of the hotel until about 2pm due to some delays with a package we were expecting. The traffic was quite terrible and we were anticipating a run for the gate. The news reports indicated that Heathrow Airport was closed until 5pm due to snow. The early morning flight from Moscow to London had already been cancelled along with the late-night flight out. As we checked the status online we knew that our 5pm flight was already delayed twenty minutes.

We got to the airport and unloaded quickly. We found the British Airways counter and checked-in. Our connecting flight in London was the next day so we made sure we were able to pick up our luggage to take to the hotel overnight (assuming we would get through passport control since E does not have a visa to enter the U.K.). We checked our bags and made our way to passport control to leave Russia. There were no issues getting out and the officer stamped our passports and we were on our way. The gate was quite full in anticipation of the only flight to London. We found two seats and waited. The first delay was twenty minutes. Then another twenty. The next notice said "more information available at 6:10." Then 7:00pm. Heathrow was scheduled to open at 8pm Moscow time so we waited until then. At some point a worker opened the door and everyone stood up to get in line. We quickly grabbed some seats and waited for boarding. Except there was no boarding. An announcement was made in Russian. One of the passengers translated for us: the flight was cancelled, rescheduled for 1pm the next day.

There was not much we could do at this point so we sat and waited. I quickly called our London hotel to cancel our reservation. The locals made their way out and I assume they went home. There was a small group of English-speaking passengers who milled around waiting for an official update in English from British Airways. The BA agent came out and advised us about the cancellation. We had to proceed through immigration to have our exit visas cancelled. Then we needed to go to the BA desk for further instructions. The flight attendants brought out some food while we were waiting and once we had everything settled we made our way back from the terminal to the main airport area. It must have been past 10pm at this point and the kids were struggling.

We were escorted through security and immigration (keep in mind, we were going backwards, there is no exit route from departures). The line at the BA desk was quite long and we weren't sure what to do next. N and the kids found a place to sit while I checked into what was going on. A few English ladies kept tabs on us and made sure we knew what was going on. There was a 5:30am flight on Sunday and BA would know by 1am if the flight was going to be cancelled or not. We decided to wait at the airport to try and catch this flight because it would still be possible to catch our connecting flight to Chicago in the morning. BA gave us some food vouchers to Sbarro and we ate. DME has a nursery (a great find, by the way!) and N and the kids went upstairs to sleep. When I returned to the BA counter the 5:30am flight had already been cancelled. BA was arranging transport and a hotel for those passengers still there to return for the 1pm flight on Sunday. I added our names to the list and waited for BA to make arrangements.

I decided to call American Airlines since we would not be able to make our connecting flight in London. We ended up booking a Tuesday morning flight on Iberia to Madrid then to Chicago. Otherwise the next flight from Chicago to London was Dec. 29. I returned to the BA counter to check our hotel status and was informed the shuttle would be there in five minutes! We had nowhere to go so we would definitely still take the free hotel. I ran upstairs to the nursery to get everyone out. We made it back downstairs and onto the shuttle to the hotel. We were packed in there quite tightly and C fell asleep in the arms of another Russian grandma. We drove for about thirty minutes to the middle of nowhere. It was so quiet and looked more like a winter retreat setting. We had two rooms with two single beds each and a private bathroom. It was at least 1:30am before everyone was sleeping.

We were to be picked up at 10am to return to the airport. The included breakfast included some porridge, a hot dog (a "sausage") and one hard-boiled egg. There was also some tea. The shuttle was on time and we made our way back to DME. While our UK friends were in line to check-in for their 1pm flight I spoke with the Iberia counter to confirm our tickets. Once this was done I checked back with the BA counter to see what the next steps were. the 1pm flight had been cancelled and they suggested we keep our receipts for further hotel reimbursement (good luck with that, I thought). With no immediate departure in sight we called our Moscow facilitator P to arrange transport back to the city. We made it back to the Renaissance Moscow to be greeted by some welcome faces (who remembered us by name). Two more days in Moscow, we leave on Tuesday.