The odyssey
I thought about doing this post as a retelling of the real thing, but that would be a bit lame and probably impossible in a state of incipient jet lag and besides, it's been done very well indeed, and that would be hard to live up to.
Statutory warning I: This is a thinly disguised bad beat story. But, like at least some of that genre, it contains amusing and/or instructive moments.
Statutory warning II: This post violates Rule 23.1 of blogdom, which requires that blog entries should fit on a single screen.
Non statutory warning: Proof reading facilities may be temporarily unavailable or unreliable owing to jet lag.
So, when we last heard from our hero (that would be me) he was contemplating a 40 hour journey from Scotland to New Zealand. Let the tale of that journey begin.
I'm an experienced traveler. But, until I've actually checked in for my flight(s) at the airport, I'm always nervous. After that, if anything goes wrong it's the airline's problem and they can deal with it. So I tend to arrive for my first flight early. Besides, I'm rather tall -- not basketball tall, but tall enough that when, perforce, I'm flying economy it's vital to be able to get an aisle seat and highly desirable to get bulkhead or exit rows. This explains at least in part why I was at Edinburgh Turnhouse airport at 1430 for a 1720 flight to London.
At Edinburgh I got boarding passes for the flights as far as Christchurch which I could see were aisle seats, and which, I was assured, were exit rows. I didn't trust the latter claim because the row numbers looked wrong for the 747's. But, I was hardly in any position to climb over the counter and investigate on the computer myself, much as I might have liked to.
Having supplemented my supply of reading materials with the Saturday Times, I proceeded through to the departures area. I glanced at the departures monitors, and noted that my flight was listed with a "15 minute" delay. Other experienced travelers will know how bad this is. If you have a 1720 flight, and the departure is listed as 1735, that's fine. It usually means that the incoming flight is in the air with a known arrival time and there's going to be a 15 minute delay. But, when they say "15 minute delay", it means one of two things. Either the incoming flight isn't off the ground at its origin yet or you already have a plane on the ground but there are technical problems. In either case it's more of a "don't say we didn't tell you it was going to be late" message, as opposed to any sort of reasoned judgment about an actual departure time.
A little detective work revealed that all flights coming from the southeast of England were experiencing delays. That suggested weather problems there (consistent with information from the newspaper, and the fact that Wimbledon would soon be starting.) Sure enough, a while later "15 minutes" was changed to "45 minutes", and some time after that to "1 hour 30 minutes".
That estimate almost held. The incoming flight arrived, we got on, and were told we had a runway slot at 1855. But, we had the classic "one checked in passenger not on board" situation. I've got every sympathy for people who are unavoidably detained by a late connection or whatever, but how can you fail to board a plane on time when said plane is already 90 minutes late? Anyhow, we missed that runway slot and as a result didn't take off until 1920. At least I had an exit row seat.
That had us on the ground at Heathrow around 2030 and amazingly at a gate by 2045. My Sydney flight was due to take off from terminal 4 at 2200. An hour and 15 minutes is ample time for a person, particularly one in reasonably good physical shape and experienced at Heathrow, to get between terminals 1 and 4, but I had a pretty strong feeling that my luggage would not be up to it.
I was not impressed to find that my Qantas flight to Sydney was actually being run by British Airways, with Qantas as a code share. The quality of service on BA has, in my experience, ahem, let's just say, not been of the highest standard. I'm actually still a bit perplexed by this, since my travel agent knows, and shares, my preferences, and there was a "real" Qantas flight at almost the same time. I'll have to check what happened.
Anyhow, BA decided to try an experiment: whether or not a full load of 747 passengers could be rendered more docile by cooking them prior to take off. Somehow, we got disconnected from the external air conditioning unit (or it broke down, it was never clear) and then with the inevitable "we're waiting for some cargo" delays got to sit in sweltering temperatures for over an hour. I'd not be surprised to be told that they got above 35C. An hour late at takeoff, not a big deal on the long hauls because it can usually be made up, and also because the scheduled ground time in Bangkok at almost 3 hours was far longer than actually needed to clean, refuel and restock the plane.
Oh yeah, I had an aisle all right, but not an exit row. Also it was in the poorest possible position relative to the food serving area -- that is, near it, meaning that I would be nearly last to be served and would likely have to take whatever menu item had been least possible (again, on long hauls, Qantas and Air New Zealand have frequently gone with the policy of serving the main meal on the second leg in the opposite direction to that on the first leg, but I've never run across this simple and admirable idea on other airlines.)
And then, the real fun began. In seat on demand entertainment systems are the greatest boon to long haul flights since, well, since ever. And like all such boons, they quickly set themselves in your mind as an indispensable part of the whole process. We took off, they turned the system on. I started to watch Eragon, just the right sort of mindless junk for the situation. A chorus of "dings" revealed that only about 1/3 of us actually had access to our systems. There followed a series of system shutdowns, waits, reboots, etc. Each had the effect of making the system available to about 1/3 of the passengers. Not always the same third, but always about 1/3. Eventually they gave up and switched over to the more robust scheduled programming mode. Sigh. I suspect that some vital part of the system hadn't responded well to being cooked prior to take off.
Bangkok was a pleasant surprise. It had slipped my mind that, when last I passed through what was then a rather dingy and unpleasant airport, there had been a great furore about the fact that a brand new one was due to open soon. So, it was the new one we were at. While not quite up to Singapore standards (more glass, which is nice, but which makes the climate control a bit unreliable), it's nice enough. If you're passing through, check whether you can reach your departure gate from Level 3 where most of the frequent flier clubs are, rather than Level 4, the main shopping concourse. There were long queues at Level 4, but you could just walk right up to security on Level 3.
Quite a few people on the flight, who were continuing to Sydney, got caught by the new security regulations there. They'd picked up duty free liquor in London (a poor decision in any case, since you can buy it more cheaply on landing in Sydney and then you don't have to carry it). The plane had to be cleared completely in Bangkok, but then the liquids couldn't come back on board since we had to clear security again and the 100ml rule applied. Much grumbling about not having been told about this in advance.
Off we go from Bangkok, back on schedule. The entertainment system continues to crap out and is essentially unusable for most of the flight. I managed to see about 20 minutes of Gangs of New York, which I was really enjoying, though it was a bit heavy for airline fare. Then I randomly got access to Men in Black which I thought had aged rather poorly. This time they gave us all "We apologize" forms to fill out. No doubt, any compensation offered will be completely useless to me.
Sydney was nothing much. I was fairly much in zombie mode by that point in any case. The gate staff were in an extremely grumpy mood and, in particular, were being gratuitously rude to various Asian passengers who were nervously checking whether their boarding passes were o.k. (they were), and then were having difficulties following quickly delivered instructions in broad Australian accents.
And on to Christchurch. Sure enough, no sign of my luggage. I did all the usual stuff at the baggage inquiry counter. Both pieces were already registered in the system as not having made it on to the flight (that was certainly news to me!) The system further indicated that one had been placed on the same flight the following day. The other, well, the other was apparently dispatched two weeks ago. Heathrow must be trying out a new time machine as a solution to the late luggage problem. We'll see where they get with that. I was a bit worried to be asked rather pointedly whether I had travel insurance (as it happens, I did, because I was traveling on university business).
The lost luggage had one unfortunate side effect. When I do need to check bags, I'm a strong believer in taking only the essentials in my carry on. So, in particular, my checked bags contained my sweatshirt, polar fleece coat, and GoreTex jacket. I'd been planning to pull all of these out in Christchurch prior to going on to Dunedin where rain, sleet and snow featured prominently in the forecast. Instead I would have to face it in a light shirt and suit jacket (I still dream of random upgrades.) Face it I did, especially as the shuttle driver had to drop me at the top end of my street owing to ice. Brr.
Switched the hot water heater on, and was looking forward to a nice shower after dinner, and catching up on the final two episodes of Heroes before an early bedtime (I got home about 1800 local time). So, at about 2030 I went to take a shower. No hot water. What??? And then I remembered ...
Hot water systems in NZ frequently feature ripple control. This means that for load balancing purposes, especially in cold weather, they're frequently shut off. Ooops.
Oh well, I got a good night's sleep and a hot shower this morning. Exams are graded, and I'm feeling remarkably chipper, despite, or perhaps because of, having had to walk to work as my street was an ice rink on an 8% grade. Now, we'll just have to see about the luggage.
Statutory warning I: This is a thinly disguised bad beat story. But, like at least some of that genre, it contains amusing and/or instructive moments.
Statutory warning II: This post violates Rule 23.1 of blogdom, which requires that blog entries should fit on a single screen.
Non statutory warning: Proof reading facilities may be temporarily unavailable or unreliable owing to jet lag.
So, when we last heard from our hero (that would be me) he was contemplating a 40 hour journey from Scotland to New Zealand. Let the tale of that journey begin.
I'm an experienced traveler. But, until I've actually checked in for my flight(s) at the airport, I'm always nervous. After that, if anything goes wrong it's the airline's problem and they can deal with it. So I tend to arrive for my first flight early. Besides, I'm rather tall -- not basketball tall, but tall enough that when, perforce, I'm flying economy it's vital to be able to get an aisle seat and highly desirable to get bulkhead or exit rows. This explains at least in part why I was at Edinburgh Turnhouse airport at 1430 for a 1720 flight to London.
At Edinburgh I got boarding passes for the flights as far as Christchurch which I could see were aisle seats, and which, I was assured, were exit rows. I didn't trust the latter claim because the row numbers looked wrong for the 747's. But, I was hardly in any position to climb over the counter and investigate on the computer myself, much as I might have liked to.
Having supplemented my supply of reading materials with the Saturday Times, I proceeded through to the departures area. I glanced at the departures monitors, and noted that my flight was listed with a "15 minute" delay. Other experienced travelers will know how bad this is. If you have a 1720 flight, and the departure is listed as 1735, that's fine. It usually means that the incoming flight is in the air with a known arrival time and there's going to be a 15 minute delay. But, when they say "15 minute delay", it means one of two things. Either the incoming flight isn't off the ground at its origin yet or you already have a plane on the ground but there are technical problems. In either case it's more of a "don't say we didn't tell you it was going to be late" message, as opposed to any sort of reasoned judgment about an actual departure time.
A little detective work revealed that all flights coming from the southeast of England were experiencing delays. That suggested weather problems there (consistent with information from the newspaper, and the fact that Wimbledon would soon be starting.) Sure enough, a while later "15 minutes" was changed to "45 minutes", and some time after that to "1 hour 30 minutes".
That estimate almost held. The incoming flight arrived, we got on, and were told we had a runway slot at 1855. But, we had the classic "one checked in passenger not on board" situation. I've got every sympathy for people who are unavoidably detained by a late connection or whatever, but how can you fail to board a plane on time when said plane is already 90 minutes late? Anyhow, we missed that runway slot and as a result didn't take off until 1920. At least I had an exit row seat.
That had us on the ground at Heathrow around 2030 and amazingly at a gate by 2045. My Sydney flight was due to take off from terminal 4 at 2200. An hour and 15 minutes is ample time for a person, particularly one in reasonably good physical shape and experienced at Heathrow, to get between terminals 1 and 4, but I had a pretty strong feeling that my luggage would not be up to it.
I was not impressed to find that my Qantas flight to Sydney was actually being run by British Airways, with Qantas as a code share. The quality of service on BA has, in my experience, ahem, let's just say, not been of the highest standard. I'm actually still a bit perplexed by this, since my travel agent knows, and shares, my preferences, and there was a "real" Qantas flight at almost the same time. I'll have to check what happened.
Anyhow, BA decided to try an experiment: whether or not a full load of 747 passengers could be rendered more docile by cooking them prior to take off. Somehow, we got disconnected from the external air conditioning unit (or it broke down, it was never clear) and then with the inevitable "we're waiting for some cargo" delays got to sit in sweltering temperatures for over an hour. I'd not be surprised to be told that they got above 35C. An hour late at takeoff, not a big deal on the long hauls because it can usually be made up, and also because the scheduled ground time in Bangkok at almost 3 hours was far longer than actually needed to clean, refuel and restock the plane.
Oh yeah, I had an aisle all right, but not an exit row. Also it was in the poorest possible position relative to the food serving area -- that is, near it, meaning that I would be nearly last to be served and would likely have to take whatever menu item had been least possible (again, on long hauls, Qantas and Air New Zealand have frequently gone with the policy of serving the main meal on the second leg in the opposite direction to that on the first leg, but I've never run across this simple and admirable idea on other airlines.)
And then, the real fun began. In seat on demand entertainment systems are the greatest boon to long haul flights since, well, since ever. And like all such boons, they quickly set themselves in your mind as an indispensable part of the whole process. We took off, they turned the system on. I started to watch Eragon, just the right sort of mindless junk for the situation. A chorus of "dings" revealed that only about 1/3 of us actually had access to our systems. There followed a series of system shutdowns, waits, reboots, etc. Each had the effect of making the system available to about 1/3 of the passengers. Not always the same third, but always about 1/3. Eventually they gave up and switched over to the more robust scheduled programming mode. Sigh. I suspect that some vital part of the system hadn't responded well to being cooked prior to take off.
Bangkok was a pleasant surprise. It had slipped my mind that, when last I passed through what was then a rather dingy and unpleasant airport, there had been a great furore about the fact that a brand new one was due to open soon. So, it was the new one we were at. While not quite up to Singapore standards (more glass, which is nice, but which makes the climate control a bit unreliable), it's nice enough. If you're passing through, check whether you can reach your departure gate from Level 3 where most of the frequent flier clubs are, rather than Level 4, the main shopping concourse. There were long queues at Level 4, but you could just walk right up to security on Level 3.
Quite a few people on the flight, who were continuing to Sydney, got caught by the new security regulations there. They'd picked up duty free liquor in London (a poor decision in any case, since you can buy it more cheaply on landing in Sydney and then you don't have to carry it). The plane had to be cleared completely in Bangkok, but then the liquids couldn't come back on board since we had to clear security again and the 100ml rule applied. Much grumbling about not having been told about this in advance.
Off we go from Bangkok, back on schedule. The entertainment system continues to crap out and is essentially unusable for most of the flight. I managed to see about 20 minutes of Gangs of New York, which I was really enjoying, though it was a bit heavy for airline fare. Then I randomly got access to Men in Black which I thought had aged rather poorly. This time they gave us all "We apologize" forms to fill out. No doubt, any compensation offered will be completely useless to me.
Sydney was nothing much. I was fairly much in zombie mode by that point in any case. The gate staff were in an extremely grumpy mood and, in particular, were being gratuitously rude to various Asian passengers who were nervously checking whether their boarding passes were o.k. (they were), and then were having difficulties following quickly delivered instructions in broad Australian accents.
And on to Christchurch. Sure enough, no sign of my luggage. I did all the usual stuff at the baggage inquiry counter. Both pieces were already registered in the system as not having made it on to the flight (that was certainly news to me!) The system further indicated that one had been placed on the same flight the following day. The other, well, the other was apparently dispatched two weeks ago. Heathrow must be trying out a new time machine as a solution to the late luggage problem. We'll see where they get with that. I was a bit worried to be asked rather pointedly whether I had travel insurance (as it happens, I did, because I was traveling on university business).
The lost luggage had one unfortunate side effect. When I do need to check bags, I'm a strong believer in taking only the essentials in my carry on. So, in particular, my checked bags contained my sweatshirt, polar fleece coat, and GoreTex jacket. I'd been planning to pull all of these out in Christchurch prior to going on to Dunedin where rain, sleet and snow featured prominently in the forecast. Instead I would have to face it in a light shirt and suit jacket (I still dream of random upgrades.) Face it I did, especially as the shuttle driver had to drop me at the top end of my street owing to ice. Brr.
Switched the hot water heater on, and was looking forward to a nice shower after dinner, and catching up on the final two episodes of Heroes before an early bedtime (I got home about 1800 local time). So, at about 2030 I went to take a shower. No hot water. What??? And then I remembered ...
Hot water systems in NZ frequently feature ripple control. This means that for load balancing purposes, especially in cold weather, they're frequently shut off. Ooops.
Oh well, I got a good night's sleep and a hot shower this morning. Exams are graded, and I'm feeling remarkably chipper, despite, or perhaps because of, having had to walk to work as my street was an ice rink on an 8% grade. Now, we'll just have to see about the luggage.
Labels: travel
posted by Michael Albert at 10:38 am
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