WASHINGTON -- Among the thousands of frustrated flyers stuck at London's Heathrow Airport Thursday was U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a jet-lagged casualty of worldwide delays and cancellations that grounded his family vacation.
"It's a nightmare, everyone's stuck, and our flight is apparently delayed until Sunday,'' the senator told The Associated Press by phone.
The New York Democrat and his family arrived at Heathrow Airport at 9 a.m. London time Thursday, but the plane was forced to sit on the runway for two hours before disembarking passengers.
When they finally got off the plane, they were greeted with the chaos caused by the arrests in a major international terror plot.
The Schumer family spent eight hours racing back and forth between Heathrow terminals just trying to catch up with their luggage.
"We now know the shuttle between the terminals better than we know the D train in Brooklyn,'' the senator said.
The first connecting flight to their planned destination -- Amsterdam -- isn't until Sunday, so Schumer said the family would probably head into central London for at least one night.
Schumer said that as chaotic as the airport is, he thought British officials were handling it well.
"The British are very good at these kind of crises, you know, a stiff upper lip, very helpful, but they don't seem to have much information,'' he said.
Schumer, his wife and two daughters had planned a two-week trip through Europe.
Oddly, he is not the first prominent New York politician to witness a major British terror incident.
When the London Underground subway system was attacked in July 2005 by terrorists who detonated backpack bombs on several trains, former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani was at a hotel just a few blocks from one of the explosions.
E-Mail Story
Print Story
