by A. E. Radley
“Sorry about all the people shouting at you, it must really suck,” Rebecca said. She knew she didn’t have to apologise for someone else’s behaviour, but she wanted to.
The German woman left, blasting out obscenities as she went.
“It is a busy time of year,” Beatriz replied. “Many people want to get home. The air traffic control systems have been down since early this morning, and we have no idea when they will be back up and running. It isn’t just Faro Airport that’s affected, it’s many airports throughout the country. And in Spain, too.”
“Must be horrible for you to have to deal with it,” Rebecca sympathised. She fretted with her hair tie. She couldn’t imagine having to tell hundreds of irate passengers that news, over and over again.
“In all my years of flying, I’ve never seen such incompetence!”
Rebecca winced at the British voice. She turned to look at who had taken over from the German woman to be in the running for rudest passenger of the morning.
The woman was approximately in her forties and wore a black skirt suit. Her long, blonde hair was perfectly styled in soft curls that fell to her shoulders. Rebecca glanced down at the woman’s feet, noting a plaster cast on one foot, which looked at odds with the business attire. For a brief second, she wondered what had happened and felt a pang of sympathy towards her.
“I need to get back to London, now. How are you going to make that happen?” the woman demanded. She smacked her passport onto the check-in desk.
Rebecca’s eyes widened at the tone. Her sympathy at the woman’s cast evaporated. She turned back to Beatriz.
“Wow,” she whispered and tilted her head towards the loud woman. “Rude.”
Beatriz smiled and nodded in agreement.
“Don’t know why she’s complaining, she should fly her broom home,” Rebecca muttered.
Beatriz chuckled. She looked thoughtfully at Rebecca for a moment. She leaned forward, gesturing for Rebecca to do the same.
Rebecca stood on her tiptoes and pivoted forward. She wondered why airport check-in desks were often so high. She was hardly short, but even she struggled to see over them sometimes.
“There were two planes to London due before yours,” Beatriz explained, gesturing around the busy airport.
Rebecca turned around. She regarded the angry passengers standing around, most of them shaking their heads. The occasional tut could be heard.
“I can’t say when the computer system will be up and running, but even if it sprang to life right now, the two planes from this morning would take priority. We don’t have enough planes to take everyone today, and we can’t divert from other airports as it’s so close to Christmas.”
Rebecca’s heart rate picked up as she began to understand the reality of the situation.
“All of the other airlines will be fully booked,” Beatriz concluded.
“You’re telling me that my chance of getting home for Christmas is bad, right?” Rebecca guessed.
Beatriz nodded. “By plane, yes.”
Rebecca frowned. “Is there another way? What about the trains?”
“Altogether impractical, miss. To travel from Faro to London, you would have to get to Lisbon, then take a night train to the Spanish-French border. Then, you’d have to switch to travel to Paris, and then switch again for the high-speed rail to London.” The assistant frowned as if to emphasise her point. “A lot of transfers, and it could be expensive.”
Rebecca’s heart sank. “Not to mention the timing. I’d never get home for Christmas.”
Something about her plight must have resonated with Beatriz. The woman gestured for Rebecca to come a little closer. She did the best she could, standing on the very tips of her Converse All-Stars. “Very soon, these people are going to realise that time is running out, and they are going to look for alternative methods of transport. You can, technically, drive to London and get home for Christmas. But there will be a limited number of cars available for hire…”
The penny dropped. Rebecca slowly nodded as she understood. Beatriz smiled, picked up Rebecca’s passport and boarding pass, and handed them back to her.
“I’m sorry, Miss Edwards, there’s nothing I can do,” she said loudly.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” Rebecca whispered as she grabbed the items and hoisted her rucksack onto her shoulder.
“You better hurry,” Beatriz advised quietly.
“I will, thank you again,” Rebecca said. She turned and looked at the airport signage, searching for a pictogram of a car and her way home.
Published by Heartsome Publishing
Staffordshire
United Kingdom
www.heartsomebooks.com
ISBN: 9781912684199
First Heartsome edition: June 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
A.E. Radley asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Copyright © 2019 A.E. Radley
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.