Voltaire wrote in his poem “La Bégueule” that “Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien”. Sometimes perfection is the enemy of the good; and in my attempt to arrive in Chicago at a perfect 1pm (waking at 4.30 and connecting through 3 cities), I ended up in Frankfurt, delayed for 6 hours.

It’s a common story, but frustrating nonetheless. A relatively tight connection, a slightly delayed flight, and UTTER INCOMPETENCE from ground crew, and my productive day turns into a waiting game.

In this case I was first off the plane, and could have run to the gate with no trouble. Instead we were told we would be accompanied to the gate – a process that took 50 minutes to complete :

1. They had no list of which passengers were connecting, so we had to wait until the entire plane had disembarked.
2. One of the 4 transferring passengers was disabled, and we all had to shuffle along at her pace.
3. We had to take 2 buses, and walk for miles, stopping every few yards to unlock the doors that blocked our ‘privileged’ route.
4. When we arrived at the final security check, the family of 6 from Jamaica ahead of us had brought maxi bottles of every island specialty available in liquid or gel form in their carry ons.
5. Each one of us was scanned, patted down, tested for explosives.  Our shoes were removed and tested.  Our bags were all opened and searched.

The only upside was the 30 Euro lunch voucher, which I spent on 30g of caviar.  In this case Voltaire, salty creamy perfection is most definitely the good.

• Chicago
• travel