I was so lucky.  I took the 10:00 train from paddington (which by the way is fabulous) and got to the terminal at 10:10.  Security guards were making everyone leave the terminal unless their flight left before noon - the rule was that you could not come into the terminal until 2 hours before flight time ( this is of course different than the Virgin Atlantic pre recorded message which said to get to the airport 3 hours early).  Everyone was being herded outside the terminal - for security reasons they didn't want so many people in the terminal.  People were sitting on their suitcases in  a grassy area and someone said buses were moving people to offsite loacations to wait.

 I asked the Virgin rep and she said that only the people holding tkts with a 9/16th flight date were allowed to line up to check in and everyone else had to go to a separate stand by line  - and by the way this line stretched around the world.  They were massively overbooked and she said only the ticketed passengers would get on.

I just happened to be standing next to a guy who also had a tkt on Continental/Virgin for the same flight - he said that he had talked to Continental in the US and they told him to go first to the continental counter and get reticketed.  So he and I went to t he Continental counter ( where they were giving out cookies!) and got reticketed for the 16th.  I never would have known to go to the countinental counter if I hadn't talked to him.  By then it was about 11:30 - so we sneaked back into the Virgin Atlantic line and and hour later we were processed in.

It was just too lucky.  I felt awful though - some of the people in the standby line were crying - they looked just desperate to get to the US.

We waited on the ground for 2 hours and then left the gate at about 4.  Every seat was taken and it was a miserably uncomfortable flight.

But here I am.

>>> "Taylor, Mark E (Legal)" <Mark.Taylor@ENRON.com> 09/17/01 10:31AM >>>
After a two and a half hour delay -- mostly caused by the extra security
-- we finally got off the ground yesterday and I am now back in Houston.
I talked to Amanda after I checked in and she said you were on the train
to the airport.  Did you have any trouble?

Mark Taylor
Vice President and General Counsel
Enron Wholesale Services
(713)853-7459



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