- Schedules have been updated without my knowledge, resulting in a missed flight
- General weather inconveniences (usually involving snow) would cause nuisance delays
- Planes have skidded off runways (not mine, thankfully), leading to completely closed airports and a night sleeping on a bench in a friend's hotel room
On the other hand, it could be said that since I travel a fair bit more than the average person, it stands to reason that the odds of something happening to me whilst in transit are higher than most.
The Hong Kong-Australia-New Zealand trip contained the most number of flights I've ever taken in a single vacation (which, incidentally, came to a total of seven legs). For the first six, nothing of significance happened. My last day in Hong Kong was a Saturday. I leisurely woke up in my brother's living room, checked the weather, then decided to check on my flight using the airline's app. My flight was scheduled for 4:30pm, so I didn't expect there to be much information. When the app first opened, it said it was on time. Within a few seconds, the graphic changed to "Delayed". What I saw underneath the graphic made me call wildly for my brother to get on the internet and confirm what I was seeing.
My flight was now scheduled for 2:00am. Sunday morning.
I had to look at that information a number of times before I could believe it. I checked the airline website, I checked the airport website, and my brother checked the internet at large. Despite some discrepancies of an hour or so regarding the departure time, they were all saying that my flight was delayed for roughly 10 hours.
This was disheartening news at first. As much fun as I'd had with my brother, I was ready to go home. I'm sure he was ready to be rid of me too, as we had spent 3 solid weeks straight together. However, unlike the other times I've been stranded somewhere, I didn't have to worry about where I would stay, what I would do, or how much extra I'd have to spend. All of that was taken care of. So in this case, I was pretty lucky. So I took it all in stride. I had a good nap in the afternoon while my brother went to his ultimate frisbee practice. I got an extra dinner at a Thai restaurant that my brother had never tried before. I wasn't able to do any decent airport shopping since the stores closed around 11:00, but that was probably for the best.
While waiting at the airport, I found an article that revealed the reason for the delay. As you know, flights are based on the same plane flying between two cities. The plane I was supposed to take was coming from Toronto the day before. That plane took off on Friday at 10:00am and would have arrived in Hong Kong on Saturday at 2:00pm, which then would have been available for my flight at 4:30. After takeoff, the plane had to turn around and go back to Toronto. Why? The toilets on the plane were backed up. For the safety of the passengers, they had to turn around. Back on the ground, the either fixed the problem or got another plane (hopefully the latter!). That flight didn't leave Toronto until 8:00pm on Friday night, which meant they wouldn't arrive in HK until 12:00am Sunday. So, again, in the big picture, it could have been a lot worse for me. I could have been on a plane with backed up toilets. I'm trying not to think about that too much.
Another piece of good news was that I ended up with an empty seat between me and the lady sitting in the aisle seat. We wasted no time in claiming our halves of the free seat. We left mostly on time, and the flight was uneventful. After 14 hours of flying, I finally landed at home.
It was around 4:00am. Sunday morning.
It was around 4:00am. Sunday morning.
I did my best to get myself out of the airport as quickly as possible. Alas, I was unable to get the kangaroo, emu and crocodile jerky past customs, but I didn't really have the strength of mind to argue at that point. My other brother came to pick me up. We stopped for a greasy fast food breakfast, then he drove me home. I walked into my dark condo, my internal clock utterly confused. A short while later, the sun started to rise. I was wide awake, and about to start my Sunday again.
"I walked around the world a hundred times and realized, that freight trains and paper planes are just like you and me"
"I walked around the world a hundred times and realized, that freight trains and paper planes are just like you and me"
No comments:
Post a Comment