'We got very lucky'

Planning a trip to mainland China is an “ordeal,” harder than planning a trip “to the moon,” even, Daniel Babic of Manhattan told Newsday.

He and his girlfriend, Beth Pickens, spent six months not just planning tours, but visiting their local consulate and gathering years of work history to get their tourist visas. So when word of a nationwide grounding arrived the day of their flight from Kennedy to Hong Kong, the news landed like a “bombshell,” Babic said.

“I went to check our flight status and it said delayed,” he said. “The news said nobody really knew what was going on, so we decided we’re going to go [to the airport].”

But the news changed for the better.

“Just before our car came the news came on the screen, the grounding was clear,” Babic said.

As they walked towards the TSA checkpoint to catch their 1:45 a.m. Cathay Pacific flight, Babic added: “We got very lucky.”