The Airport

Jerry and Elaine are flying home from St. Louis to New York after Jerry has performed a show and Elaine has visited her sister. When their flight to JFK Airport gets cancelled, Jerry and Elaine rebook on another flight to LaGuardia Airport, with one seat left in first class and one in coach. After a brief tense moment during which Jerry explains that he cannot fly coach since he’s flown first class before while Elaine hasn’t and so cannot miss it, Elaine gets cramped into coach and Jerry parties in first class with a sexy model, Tia Van Camp (Jennifer Campbell).

Due to their having to rebook and a rerouting of their flight, George and Kramer go between JFK and LaGuardia to pick them up. Once they settle on an airport, George meets a convict, and takes the last Time Magazine available. The convict asks for it, but George refuses, saying he has a “blurb” in it. The convict tells him to look at the cover, which shows the convict’s face and the headline “Caught!”. George still refuses to hand over the magazine, despite threats from the convict. Kramer sees a former roommate of his (Grossbard) who owes him $240 from twenty years ago. Kramer hatches a scheme to get the money back that involves him and George buying tickets for the man’s flight and boarding it, Kramer receiving his money and then they get off the plane and return the tickets. George buys into the scheme, as he decides it will give him more frequent flier miles, and he will just get his money back, he asks Kramer to buy two tickets. Kramer buys non-refundable tickets, claiming the woman who sold them convinced him it was a good deal, to George’s dismay. They board the plane and Kramer confronts Grossbard, asking him for the money, when Grossbard claims he does not know who Kramer is, Kramer attempts to reach into his pocket and grab his wallet, which creates a scene. During this, George is waiting for the bathroom, and when the door opens up, it is the convict, unshackled, inside. He grabs George, pulls him into the bathroom and locks the door, and then continues to beat up George. Kramer is arrested and apparently in “serious trouble”, but he escapes the security guard’s grasp and runs away.

When Jerry and Elaine land, the model says goodbye to Jerry, and claims she will call him, while she is being followed by paparazzi. Elaine’s bag never arrives (This was due to an earlier scene where Elaine complains to a man who handles their baggage that he does not deserve to be tipped. In revenge, he sends her luggage on a different flight to Honolulu.), and Kramer comes sliding down the baggage chute, as his escape was successful. The three of them leave, while George is seen on a seat in the airplane, flying to an unknown location, letting out a scream of exasperation (directed at Kramer), as the episode ends.

There is an alternative ending where George meets up with Elaine and Jerry at the baggage claim, beaten up, saying in a daze, “You won’t believe what happened to me.”

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