Please Standby…

“We can’t guarantee you a seat,” the lady at the Lufthansa check-in counter replied, to my horror, when I asked her what standby on my boarding pass meant.

“Does it mean I may not be allowed to board the plane?” I asked, trying to find my voice.

“Yes,” she replied, without taking her eyes off the computer.

The anxiety and stress were immediate. My brain’s processing power seemed to have gone down.

That morning, I had arrived at Dublin Airport excited to begin my Slovenian trip—a trip I had planned many months in advance. My plan was to fly from Dublin to Ljubljana via Frankfurt, stay the first night in Bled, the second in Piran and the third in Ljubljana, before flying back to Dublin on the fourth day.

I had even meticulously planned what I was going to eat during my stay: only traditional Slovenian dishes and desserts such as kranjska klobasa, idrijski žlikrofi, štruklji, blejska kremšnita and much more.

I hardly drink alcohol, apart from the occasional pint under social pressure, yet for some reason, I had even decided to try Laško, the iconic Slovenian beer, during this trip.

That showed how committed I was to this holiday.

Now, all those plans seemed to be rapidly evaporating while the lady explained why I had been placed on the standby list.

“I paid for my tickets well in advance,” I told her.

“I am sorry, sir, but since you are checking in at the very last minute—two hours before the flight departure—the airline has already handed out all the available seat assignments to other passengers, and there are no seats left to offer. You will find out whether you can board only 15 minutes before the gates open.”

I had been flying for decades and had never encountered this before, probably because I normally checked in online without difficulty. But this time, when I tried to upload my passport page thrice, it was declined every single time. Eventually, my screen displayed a message asking me to collect my boarding pass from the check-in counter.

“Based on what you can see on the screen, do you think there is a possibility I’ll get on the plane?” I asked. I could hear my voice beginning to tremble.

“I can’t tell you now, but I am hopeful you will get a seat.”

She can’t tell me, but she is hopeful.

These did not feel like equally useful pieces of information.

Which one was I supposed to hold on to?

Still, I desperately needed something positive to hold on to because my legs seemed to weigh as much as a ship’s anchor. The stress was becoming too much, with every possible scenario beginning to flood my mind.

As I walked towards security, I kept replaying something else the lady at the counter had told me.

“Don’t worry. If you don’t get a seat on this plane, the airline has the responsibility to fly you to your final destination, however many hours it takes.”

But that brought me absolutely no relief.

I didn’t want to reach Slovenia according to Lufthansa’s schedule.

I wanted to reach Slovenia according to mine.

My entire Slovenian itinerary was very tight and depended on perfect timing: catching specific buses and trains from specific locations and staying in key places so that I could actually catch those connections. If I was delayed by even a few hours, the entire plan could fall apart and leave me stranded somewhere.

There was another problem.

I had spent the previous weeks enthusiastically telling family, friends and colleagues about Slovenia.

Imagine returning home without ever having left Dublin.

My parents would never stop teasing me.

I had no backup plan.

My entire holiday now depended on some stranger deciding, at the very last moment, not to travel.

As often happens in situations like this, I started blaming myself.

Why hadn’t I thought of uploading my visa page during online check-in?

The lady at the counter had told me that I was supposed to upload the visa page instead of the passport biometric page I had been repeatedly trying to submit.

As I dragged my feet towards the security queue, cursing myself, I thought I must have been the only traveller among thousands of people at Dublin Airport walking towards a boarding gate without a confirmed seat.

Had this happened to anyone else?

At that moment, it didn't feel like it. I felt chosen. Just not in a particularly useful way.

About twenty minutes later, I reached the boarding gate and deliberately chose the seat closest to the counter.

A few passengers were already occupying the seating area and seemed very excited about their journeys. Most of them, sadly, were busy on their phones.

The woman sitting next to me was so spectacularly unbothered by my crisis that she was merrily chatting away with someone about finding the perfect apartment wherever she was travelling.

Can you believe the audacity?

There I was wondering whether Lufthansa would permit me to leave Ireland, while she was cheerfully conducting what sounded like a property requirements workshop beside me.

“I may or may not get on this flight today, but one thing I am certain about is that she and I could never share a house,” I thought.

She didn’t even want to climb eight to ten stairs to use the toilet. She wanted one on the ground floor.

Anyway, that accounted for approximately two minutes of what became one long, painful hour of an extremely stressful waiting game.

What followed was almost an hour of looking at my phone, looking at my watch, looking at the boarding desk, then repeating the sequence.

Every passing minute felt like an hour.

The excitement that had been building for days was being replaced by extreme anxiety.

After some time, travellers started flocking into the gate area. Ground staff also began appearing and taking their positions behind the counters.

They chatted and laughed among themselves while I watched them with prayers on my lips.

I was still supposed to wait another fifteen minutes before asking about my status.

But what if they already know the decision?

The thought flashed through my mind and prompted me to approach one of the counters.

“Could you please tell me whether I’ll be able to board?” I asked meekly, showing her my boarding pass and pointing to the word standby.

With a straight face, she calmly replied, “Please enquire again in 15 minutes.”

Between 5:00 and 5:15, I lost count of how many times I checked my watch.

The tension felt strangely similar to the stress I used to experience while sitting for Maths exam during my engineering years.

Nothing eased the anxiety.

By this stage, I almost stopped caring what the answer was.

Yes or no. Frankfurt or Dublin. Slovenia or humiliation.

Just tell me something.

Soon, activity behind the counter increased and passengers started getting ready for the boarding formalities.

I checked my watch one more time, used whatever energy I had left to stand up, and walked towards the counter.

That was when I noticed two tickets in the hands of one of the ground staff.

I had absolutely no evidence they belonged to me, but my brain immediately decided they did.

One for Frankfurt.

One for Ljubljana.

But nothing had been confirmed yet. I still didn't have them.

I needed to see my name or hear my name called.

As I approached the counter, the woman seemed to recognise me from fifteen minutes earlier.

This time, she spoke first.

“Rajvikash?”

“Yes.”

“Here are your tickets.”