Just like any other student intern who is on budget for their
internship, I too was looking for cheap international flights. I got a
reasonable price from goibibo for Qatar airways from Kolkata to Chicago. Just a
week before my flight an executive from goibibo calls me and tells me that my
flight time is changed by 20 minutes and that my flight will take off earlier
than the given time. The flight was supposed to take off at 4:10 am but now it
would at 3:50 am. For any sane passenger this change is highly insignificant
and it was obviously fine by me. What the dumb executive did not inform me was
my connecting flight from Doha (Capital of Qatar) to Chicago is changed by a
day! I reached Kolkata via Indigo’s domestic flight from Guwahati at about 7 pm
on 30th of May. I waited there at the airport till 1 am and then
began my check in. At the check in I come to know that my Doha to Chicago
flight is not being reflected. I get the boarding pass for Kolkata to Doha and
I start filling the immigration form. Suddenly I realized that my baggage tag
was just till Doha and so I went back to the check in counter and inquired a
little more into this. It was only then I realized that had I boarded that
flight on the 1st May from Kolkata to Doha I would have got stranded
at the Doha airport for more than 24 hours. That meant I would need to have a
transit visa (Doha requires passengers with a transit time of more than 24
hours to have a transit visa), which I obviously did not as my transit time was
supposed to be an hour and a half only, which meant that I would be deported
back to India! What a mess it would have been. Luckily I was cognizant enough to
help myself out of the trouble by delaying my Kolkata to Doha flight by 24 hrs
rather than get stuck in a foreign country. Thanks to goibibo I had to stay 24
hours in Kolkata without any accommodation provided by Qatar as it was not
their fault.
The delay continues..
Somehow the 24 hours passed and now on the 2nd of
May I boarded the scheduled flight for Doha from Kolkata. I had a transit time
of just an hour now to board my connecting flight to Chicago. Thanks to Qatar
airways now, this flight got delayed by 45 minutes and thus the Chicago flight
took off. When I reached Doha they rerouted me through Houston and then via American
airlines to Chicago. I was supposed to reach Chicago at 2 pm but I reached at 10
pm on the 2nd of May. Thus, I miss my bus to Purdue
University from Chicago Ohare International Airport. Luckily this time I got an
accommodation and got to stay in a grand hotel at Chicago for a night. Finally
the feeling of being in the States sunk into me as I sunk into the soft cozy
bed of that hotel. Then a light smile spread across my face and I heard myself
saying "you’re in US!"
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