How many people can say they’ve had to be escorted out of an airport? Spoiler… I can! As I write this from my sea-view balcony on a Greek Island, the ~20 hours I spent trying my absolute best to get out of the UK are starting to haunt me less and less.
After about an hour on two trains without air conditioning, I arrived at London Gatwick where I had to sit on the floor beside an outlet to have a virtual meeting with my boss. Call it cosmic karma for the greenhouse gas emissions emitted by the three separate flights I booked to get to Greece, or just bad luck, but when I received an email saying my flight was delayed by 3 hours, I realized I probably would not make my connecting flights. I spent the next few hours hoping something would change or my connecting flight would be delayed (as I was not eligible for a refund on my missed flights). The flight attendant informed me I would definitely not make my connecting flight, so when they finally announced boarding was about to begin and all the young partiers on their way to Ibiza cheered, I sat solemnly. While people began boarding I decided to check if there were any direct flights from London to Skiathos- the island in Greece I needed to get to. While these flights had previously been hundreds of pounds (hence why I decided to take three, inconveniently timed flights instead to save money), I found there was an extremely cheap direct flight leaving London the next morning at 8am. I felt a wave of relief wash over me. The only catch? It was departing from London Stansted airport, which was at least 2 hours away – and because it was midnight, some trains weren’t even running anymore.
I couldn’t believe my luck. I stood alone at the gate, the last person to board, and made a game time decision to buy this new flight. I had to inform the attendants I would not be boarding (it would be a lot more expensive for me to get stuck in Spain then take this much easier, direct flight). I actually had to sign some paperwork because they had already scanned my passport to board. Because it was so late, the airport was also ‘closed’ and I could not go back the way I had come. After a series of elevators, I found myself back at security but the doors were locked. I found a woman working alone, explained my situation and asked to leave the airport. I think I startled her. It took a lot of back and forth to explain ‘no I am not getting on the flight. Yes I am sure I want to leave the airport’. She told me someone would come escort me out and that I needed to stay put.
About 10 minutes later an employee came up to me and said “you want to leave? Come with me”. He walked quickly through the maze that is Gatwick with me and some French guy in tow. We had to run to keep up with him through the eerily silent airport. Other employees gave us weird looks. Has this really never happened before? We had to show our passports to leave and finally we were free. The French guy’s flight had been cancelled and somehow he had also been locked in. “I’m going for a cigarette,” he said (very on brand), and wished me luck getting to Greece.
Now for the difficult part: I had taken about 38,000 steps exploring London earlier that day and navigating the airport, but I still had to get to the other side of the city at midnight. The trains were so infrequent at this time of day that it made more sense to get to the airport than to go back to Chloe’s and try to sleep for an hour. After connecting trains between the terminals I had to wait 20 minutes for the next train to arrive. I was so tired I started to feel delusional and every inconvenience became funny. After about 40 minutes on that train, I stumbled through a station to yet another platform to catch yet another train. I took that one until the very end of the line where I had to catch a shuttle bus to Stansted airport.
When I finally arrived at the airport around 3am, security was not open yet, so the floor in the departures terminal was covered in bags and sleeping bodies. I joined them. At 8am I boarded my Jet2 flight to Skiathos without having to pay for my carry on bag (wahoo, a small win) and after a 40 minute delay on the tarmac, I was FINALLY leaving the UK.
Last Updated on November 19, 2025 by Megan Duchesne