Whitman College Magazine Winter 2022

Delayed.
Delayed.
Gate changed.
Delayed.
Gate changed.
Delayed.
Flight canceled.
Dealing with flight drama creates frustration even in
the shortest of journeys, but for a group of international
students—many of whom had already been traveling
for 48 hours or more—the midnight cancellation of
their Seattle to Walla Walla flight on the evening before
move-in day at Whitman College seemed, in the words of
first-year student Bright Surit, “a catastrophe.”
Traveling from Thailand, Surit had already endured
more than 20 hours of flying and one flight delay that
left him arriving into Seattle after the Walla Walla flight’s
original departure time, so the initial delays were actually
a blessing for him. However, hearing that the Walla Walla
flight was canceled when he was so hungry, tired, cold
and jetlagged, Surit experienced “all the worst feelings
accumulated into one place.”
Other students were having similarly frustrating travel
experiences. Multiple delays along the way had left Mavie
Pham, a first-year from Vietnam, nervous that she was
going to miss the connection in Seattle. Angela Eliacy,
coming from Afghanistan, had 17-plus hours of flying,
with a 21-hour layover in Dubai followed by more than
five hours getting through customs and immigration at
the SeaTac airport.
Airport Connections
Through a group chat for incoming international
students, Pham knew there would be two other Whitman
students, Mwamba Mutanga from Zambia and David
Wang from Taiwan, on her flight from Doha, Qatar, to
Seattle. They texted each other their school colors and
managed to meet up in the Doha airport. She says, “I was
so happy to meet someone along the way!” In Seattle, they
met another two students, and eventually, as they waited
through the numerous delays and gate changes in Seattle,
more than a dozen students who were supposed to be on
the flight to Walla Walla gathered together.
Eliacy remembers the ups and downs of that evening.
“In the process of waiting we found each other, and we
were so happy. We were so close to Whitman! But then
the flight was canceled and no one knew what to do.”
In a different SeaTac terminal, Eyleen Menchu Tuy had
just heard of the cancellation and started making her way
WINTER 2022 / 33