The bad: The plane meant to take me from Halifax to London apparently had some serious mechanical problems with the brakes, and they’re bringing a new plane in.
The worse: This means the flight will be delayed at least three hours (I.e. they are now saying 2AM instead of 11PM.)
The even worse: This means I will miss my connection to Hong Kong in London. Which, of course, means I will miss my connection to Melbourne in Hong Kong.
The still worse yet: The people here apparently are incapable of rebooking anything, so I won’t actually know what’s going to happen until I get to London. The best guess of the people here is that they will route me through Syndey. This will mean about ten hours in Heathrow, and that instead of getting to Melbourne Sunday night, I will get there midday on Monday. This in turn means that instead of getting a night of sleep at the hotel before starting work I will instead have left my house at 9PM on Friday, will be travelling until midday Monday, and will immediately roll into the office. I suspect my state will ot be “bright-eyed and bushy-tailed” at that point.
The small consolation: Since I’m flying first class, I get to spend my extra airport hours here in the lounge. Comfy chairs, free drinks and snacks, and fast wireless. (I should have a similar experience in Heathrow if do end up getting stuck there for 10 hours.)
The minor tragedy: They are closing the first class lounge at 11:30 and kicking us all out. This seems like an incredibly poor move on Air Canada’s part, given that everyone in here is waiting to go to London, and has paid for a first class seat to get there. Essentially they are saying: “We’ve taken a tremendous pile of your money, in exchange for which we give you a nice chair on your flight, and access to lounge. Except we’re going to get you there very late and disrupt your travel plans, and we’re not going to help you deal with that now, AND we’re not even going to give you the level of service–i.e. access to the lounge–that you’ve paid for.” I say “boo” to Air Canada.
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