Travel Horrors : Our Second Annual Halloween Collection of Scary Stories About Trip-Ups : Travel Horrors: Europe : The Jet Set : It was to be a flight to London with felicitous, romantic stopover. Oh, the best-laid plans . . .

In 1971, at age 25, I was set to embark on eight months of anthropological fieldwork in an Alaskan Athapaskan Indian village. The first question was how to get there from New Haven, and in keeping with the spirit of adventure, I decided to travel via London on Japan Airlines, which offered a stopover. If I left JFK on Saturday night I could spend all day Sunday and Monday visiting my girlfriend Nancy, who had recently moved to England, and then on Monday I could proceed to Anchorage on the weekly nonstop.

The first sign that this was not the exotic international adventure I had hoped for came at the JAL check-in counter where a large sign enthusiastically WELCOMED a college tour of sheepskin-jacketed sophomores from Pennsylvania. Nevertheless, my seat pocket yielded, along with the traditional air-sickness bag and emergency card, dainty paper sandals, a “Happy Jacket” and a miniature fan. Dutifully, I robed myself like the airborne samurai I had intended to be, ignored the rendition of the Bucknell Fight Song that accompanied the firing of the engines, and awaited the hoped-for tea ceremony.

“Whereya from?” my seatmate demanded.

I thought of concocting a foreign accent and fabricating an answer like “Katmandu” or “Vladivostok,” but he barely paused for breath.

“Me, I’m from Staten Island, N.Y., myself. Unbelievable place. Ever hear of Tottenville High? No? Unbelievable football season.”

And then he recounted it, every game, every play, every player, including frequent mention of Ricky Tantolino, his nephew, injured in the first scrimmage but gamely on the sidelines ever after. Sometime after homecoming, I began to cast furtive glances out the window for the White Cliffs of Dover. We were due to arrive in London at 8:50 a.m.

At 8:30, Tottenville had just been cheated out of the district championship when the airplane’s loudspeaker erupted in an excited burst of Japanese. The heretofore implacable faces of the Japanese travelers suddenly became placable; as one, their jaws seemed to tighten and they unfastened their seat belts.

At last, an English translation was provided: “Your pilot, Mr. Ito, regrets to inform you that Heathrow is closed because of fog, so we will go instead to Paris.”

Mr. Tottenville slapped his thigh. “Bad for you, good for me,” he chortled. “I was going to Paris, anyway.” Mysteriously, however, after an hour’s flying time, no land appeared--just clouds.

Another two-minute burst of high-pitched Japanese interrupted the Muzak. As the complexions of my Asian fellow-travelers paled to Noh hues, we were informed in English that, though Paris was, indeed, somewhere below us--and had been for the past 20 minutes of circling--it was currently experiencing a snowstorm and so was also closed to arriving flights. Capt. Ito figured we’d better head for Rome.

*

Contrary to my forebodings, Leonardo da Vinci Airport was open. Following instructions, we debarked, boarded a small shuttle bus, and segregated ourselves into “Happy to be in Rome,” “Wish we were in Paris,” and “Wish we were in London” groups. Numbering a disgruntled 12, the England contingent was the smallest but had the advantage of containing all nine Japanese passengers: two young student-types and seven businessmen. Besides myself, the rest of our little band consisted of a middle-aged Brit and a youngish American man. A Japan Airlines official with the improbable name of Gino Campanile gathered us together like conspirators. Heathrow was still closed, he informed us three English speakers, but JAL would like us to be their guests at a gala lunch.

With visions of Italian delicacies dancing in our heads, we followed him briskly to the airport dining room, only to be informed that there were no available tables. Our next stop was the cocktail bar where we were promised a drink and sandwich, but this room too, was full. After much telephone consultation punctuated with shrugs and eyes to the ceiling Gino presented us with, as he called them, “the alternatives.”

Plan “A” was that we should all board a Kuwait Airlines plane, which was, at this very moment, preparing to take off nonstop to London.

“So Heathrow has opened,” deduced Morris, the Englishman.

“Oh, no,” replied Gino. “To our knowledge, it is still closed.” Not pausing for objections, he continued with Plan “B”: We would all go to a “seaside hotel,” courtesy of JAL, and wait there until 8 a.m., at which time a JAL plane would “surely” deposit us in London, provided that Zurich, its first stop, was not closed.

“Will Zurich be closed, do you think?” asked Morris.

“I don’t know, but I think so,” replied Gino. He then asked us to make a decision immediately since Air Kuwait was awaiting our bidding, and he further asked that we reach a consensus, since JAL didn’t want to be responsible for a “split group.”

“But,” sputtered Morris, who was getting upset, “if London is closed, how can Kuwait airlines land there?”

“That, I do not know,” allowed Gino.

Finally I asked Gino (with a wink to assure him that I was not as heated and demanding as Morris), what he would do in our position. He replied that since Kuwait Airlines was not known for their safety record and might well attempt to land in London, closed or not, he would “surely” opt for the seaside hotel.

The American (a doctor named Jim), Morris, and I, and the sole Japanese gentleman, Mr. Hiruma, who spoke enough English to follow the conversation, immediately voted to wait. Hiruma relayed the decision and its motivation to his co-nationals, and we all boarded a small airport transport bound, we assumed, for food and rest.

Instead, it pulled up to a Ceylon Airlines plane, bound nonstop for London. Gino, obviously relieved that his supervisory duties were at an end, proclaimed that London was now open and our luggage had been reloaded. And so, we left the Eternal City, drank a cup of tea in the air . . . and landed in Frankfurt. Heathrow was closed, it was announced in Tamil and English.

Grumbling, we marched into the Frankfurt Airport, but no sooner had we entered the building than we were out again, this time lured away by British European Airways. Heathrow was reopening. Upon exiting the building, one of the Japanese students, looking frantic, had grabbed me, demanding in a heavy accent, “Why are we leaving London?” There had not been any announcements in Japanese for a long time, and Hiruma had clammed up.

Flying time was to be an hour and a half, but in an hour and 15 minutes we landed . . . in Paris. London, you see, was closed.

Ours was a silent, dejected, exodus into Le Bourget. Through the frosty windows, we could see thousands of stranded people in waiting rooms, gazing longingly toward the Channel. We were given vouchers, but at the restaurant were told that the only food left was peanuts--of which we consumed large quantities. We waited, huddled on plastic seats or stretched out on the floor, until 11 p.m. when it was announced that London had closed for the night and we would all be put up in a hotel downtown. We were instructed to clear customs, find our luggage and board a bus.

To no one’s great surprise, really, our belongings were apparently headed for Columbo. Hiruma and I laughed rather hysterically. My duffel bag was stuffed with the carefully selected items I would need for an eight-month stay in rural Alaska, plus the written record of all my previous work there. His suitcase contained crucial papers for a business call he was scheduled to make from London the following morning. But Jim’s situation was even worse: It seems he was a plastic surgeon, on his way to Newcastle to perform a series of cosmetic procedures. His trunk was full of plastic, which, if placed in too warm an area--like Ceylon--would melt.

After a 45-minute ride through the snowy streets of Paris, we arrived at the Hotel Palais D’Orsay, a monumental relic at the Pont des Invalides which had been awarded, in 1948, four stars. There were already hundreds of exhausted travelers there before us, demanding suites with baths, and by the time our turn arrived, we were assigned tiny rooms on the top floor; fortunately we had no baggage to carry.

It was now 2 a.m., but I telephoned Nancy in London. She had called Japan Airlines continuously all day and had been advised by recorded messages (the first five minutes of which were in Japanese) that we were in, variously, Vienna, Dublin, Madrid and Tokyo.

I finally dozed off, only to be awakened at 5 a.m. by a French voice on the phone, and ordered “to make haste.” With literally nothing to pack, I was downstairs in a flash . . . only to be told at the desk by the giggling Hiruma that London had closed again and we weren’t to leave the hotel for the airport until 10 a.m.

Our group of JAL veterans descended upon the ornate and unused dining room, where we were treated to a hearty breakfast of stale rolls and coffee, after which I improvised sign language to invite the Japanese student to go for a walk along the Seine. At every big building, he asked hopefully, “Notre Dame?” I’d shake my head and he’d look dejected. As we were heading back, he tried a last time, gesturing toward a small structure near the Louvre: “Notre Dame?” I figured he’d had enough disappointments in the past 24 hours, so I nodded my head enthusiastically, expecting a wide smile. Instead, he shrugged and said, I’m quite sure, “Big deal.”

On the way to the airport, the bus picked up a few more British passengers who were quick to make analogies to Dunkirk. When we got there, surprise: London was closed, and we spent a foodless, chairless, seven hours browsing through the tax-free perfume display. Sad stories abounded among the displaced--there was, for instance, the weekend tour group from Lisbon who were booked for three days of London theater, dining and sightseeing, but were now scheduled to go home.

And then there was the young actress I spoke to--very British and traveling with Mummy from Rome. She was to have had her “big break” today, she kept intoning, a TV commercial for chocolate Easter eggs, which would have been shown in Wales this year and hit Channel 1 in 1974--at which time she fully expected to be “discovered.” Mummy, in an attempt to be positive, said, “Now, dear, just think of all those wretched sweets you would have had to eat.”

Brigitte Bardot and her entourage were there, too, particularly plagued by a male passenger from a stranded Alitalia flight, who continuously slunk past her, eyes hooded but burning. Sporting her famous moue, Bardot looked through him, while the ex-Easter egg girl perched next to any man just long enough to hear him say, “ You’re far prettier.”

Then, at 3:30 p.m., it was announced that the Rome/Frankfurt group (us) would be taken to a nearby restaurant for lunch. Ravenous, we assembled . . . only to hear the further announcement that we were to board our flight immediately. As the engines roared and we taxied away from the terminal, we cheered and waved at the unfortunates within . . . only to be told a moment later that the only airport in the United Kingdom currently receiving in-bound traffic was Edinburgh, so we would return to wait longer at Le Bourget. The Japanese passengers began to chant something that must have been the equivalent of “We shall not be moved.” After some deliberation the captain announced that if it was Scotland we wanted, it was Scotland we would get! Morris calculated that we could at least take the 10-hour train ride to London.

And so, northwest we flew for nearly two bumpy hours . . . and landed! . . . but before the plane had come to the gate, Manchester, to the south, opened, and so we took off again and flew toward there. Just as we were preparing to descend, Birmingham, still closer to London, cleared and so we headed there, instead, and at last taxied to a full stop.

This story has a postscript. When Nancy greeted me at her flat with homemade tomato soup, a hot bath and flannel sheets, I decided I was in love. I had already missed my connection to Anchorage and so, after a long sleep, Nancy and I had a blissful week together. On the flight across the Pole, and then daily for two weeks from the native village (with no telephones) where I was doing my fieldwork, I wrote her proclaiming my great affection . . . to which I received no answer whatsoever. When her silence stretched to a month, then six weeks, the tone of my correspondence changed from peevish to hurt to outraged betrayal, culminating with a masterpiece in which I listed every fault I had ever found with her over the years.

The very day after posting that letter, I received a fat packet of mail all bearing Nancy’s London return address. I opened a note at random. The first line read, “I wish this damn postal strike would end.”