Tag: flights

Flight cancelled!

I am flying back to Bali from Yogyakarta. I will overnight in Bali to prepare for my trip to my next country.

This time I am heading to Australia.

I plan to start in Cairns, Australia and work my way down south.

My flight back to Bali is uneventful. In Bali am staying at the same hotel I previously stayed in by the airport. It seems to be much easier accessing the hotel when flying into the domestic terminal.

I use the evening to make sure I have all the documents ready I need for Australia, including making documents accessible offline – you never know when your phone data will just stop working!

My flight is supposed to be a direct flight at 11:15 am. I wake early to up to make sure I am at the terminal early like usual. I visit one of the lounges to get something to eat. In the lounge start noticing the flight is delayed. I decide this is a good time to try out another lounge at the airport to get some cocktails while I wait.

As time goes on the flight time keeps changing, getting nervous so I walk toward the gate to see what is happening.

I am flying Jetstar and their customer service is non-existent. No meaningful information is given to the travelers. Sometime in the afternoon they finally cancel the flight. Once before I’ve had a cancelled flight with Delta and they were pretty good at communicating to the travelers the plan for the next flight. Travelers on this flight are freaking out and trying to make phone calls to customer service while we await instructions. I patiently wait thinking things will be communicated to us in time. Ugh, not really. We finally figure out we need to go through reverse immigration, get our bags and someone would meet us at the airline check-in for more information.

Waiting to go through immigration the opposite way.

I seem to wait forever to claim my bag. At check-in they tell my new flight time for tomorrow (Note: the time they give is wrong). I finally get on a bus to take us to a hotel that will house us for the night. I could make my own arrangements but best to stay with the group since they should arrange all transportation and meals for us.

On the bus

We arrive at the hotel and I get my hotel room key, meal voucher and a vague instruction for tomorrow (Note: The flight time they tell us is wrong too). The hotel lobby isn’t bad but the rooms are pretty outdated. The hotel probably was pretty nice when it was first opened.

I settle in and decide to go out for a look of the ocean and order something to eat. The situation isn’t the best but we are right on the water!

I watch the sunset from a patio with drinks while listening to a duet band singing Islands in the Stream. I get to chat with some other flight passengers.

I head to bed early because I keep getting conflicting information on tomorrow’s flight time and I want to be prepared for anything: airport says 6:00 am, room notification says 10:00 am, and online says 7:00 am).

We get the morning call and make it in time for the flight so it all seems to work out. I get a well deserved coffee with my breakfast voucher.

  • duty free shop
    duty free shop

Once arriving in Cairns, Australia I have a little bit of a wait for my van pickup. I am sad I am missing a day in the city due to my flight cancellation. I will need to pack all I really wanted to see in a shorter period of time I guess.

My hostel Mad Monkey Backpackers is great. I have a nice air conditioned private room with a private bathroom. I love the lounge area to catch up on social media back home.

Luckily I am able to move the Great Barrier tour I had scheduled for today for two days later. Tomorrow I am heading out to see the rainforest in Australia.

A little bit of fancy

I upgraded my credit card to one of those high end travel cards to get a deal on exchange fees among other things. It isn’t cheap but included in the fee is priority pass. I got to try it out today.

Not sure if if I am really getting my money’s worth but it is a nice place to relax pre flight.

Flight? Bad travel luck over?

The journey of heading home starts with our train trip from Nuremberg to the Frankfurt flughafen train station. It is the main station that connects the airport with the regional area. We booked a hotel that night near the airport so we wouldn’t have to be rushed to get to the terminal. The hotel I booked with my Hilton points just so happened to be connected to the train station next to the airport. There is a convenience market and restaurants in the same mall area. After a hotel room snafu (we somehow got a non-smoking room that was smokey) we went out to get dinner at Paulaner, a restaurant located at THE SQUAIRE (the train station and airport mall area). I tried the Schnitzel one last time and was happy it came with a much needed salad. I also treated myself to some tropical dessert.

We go back to the hotel for an early night. We set our alarms and rest up for the flight.
We wander around a little bit in the morning before our walk to the aiport. We find a bakery where I get coffee and this cheese covered pretzel thing. I decided to carb it one last time in Germany.

Then it is on the walk to the terminal. It isn’t as quick as I thought it would be and we did end up taking a bus. The hotel and train station is in terminal 1 and our flight was terminal 2. Still have plenty of time since I always leave early for flights.
Frankfurt is a little odd. I felt like we went through security multiple times. You first go through a very easy screening and you feel like you are in the clear. But don’t buy any liquids or anything you expect to take on the plane. If you are US bound, you will have to go through screening once more to get to your gate, only within a window for your flight. They will make you dispose of any liquids you purchased (unless it is from duty free shop and “locked” up). There is a bathroom and shop on the other side where you can get duty free items, snacks, cold sandwiches, and drinks (water, soda, beer, and wine to consume there).
Once we got through the final round we sit and wait. Things seem to be smooth until we get our first delay message. It is a mechanical issue and technicians are looking at it. No eta, but no worry because so many flights are delayed these days we just expect that as the norm.
We sit some more and more delay messages. At some point they start to say a couple hours. Still hopeful of arriving home. They bring out drinks and finally sandwiches. I start to hear the rumor mill. The flight is getting cancelled. They won’t announce until it gets officially cancelled by the technicians.  They also talk about how it won’t be rescheduled for later that day because the crew will time out and there is no crew to fill the 8 hour flight. People start looking for other flights to get on.

Sandwiches!!

I hear the rumors but don’t want to believe them until we hear official word over the intercom.  It finally comes. Our flight is cancelled. We are asked to wait for word of what to do. Some book themselves on alternate flights or the same flight the next day but now all those options are gone. Eventually they announce that they are creating a new flight for us the same time the next day and they are putting us in an airport hotel overnight with food vouchers.
We get some sort of vague instruction to find the shuttle for the Steigenberger Hotel and all arrangements will be handled at hotel. Apparently we are automatically booked on the flight for the next day. Groups of us wander out to find the bus. It is real confusing and no one is there to direct us. It is a group effort. Many on the flight are English speaking or have a good level of English language so with team work we find the bus. It is way too small for all of us waiting so we have multiple trips. While I am waiting delta calls me to offer me an $100 voucher. Really Delta? Still don’t know when I am getting home, and this hotel situation at the time seems messy.  Not really the best time Delta unless you have some information to help me now!
When we get to the hotel it is long lines for the check in. My husband gets in line and I sit aside with the luggage. We check in with almost no identification. It is almost like we could have been just stragglers who came in at the right time and got a free room. Breakfast and Dinner are in a special conference room for our group. I wasn’t expecting much for a free hotel stay but was pleasantly surprised at our room. It was nicely decorated and very clean. The only bad part is that we were at the airport, it was already later in the day, so we had no real time to get to Frankfurt and sight see. Let me correct myself – ten years ago I would have hopped in a cab or train to do whatever Frankfurt I could do in YOLO style but tonight we want to eat and get a good night’s rest after being at the airport most of the day.

The dinner was buffet style and very impressive. I wasn’t expecting them to comp any alcohol but they had a seemingly never ending supply of the Radelberger beer. We took full advantage of it and did find it had an end – after we spent a couple hours hanging out chatting with some jazz/chamber music musicians from Brooklyn who were coming back from some Germany performances. A couple of them lived not too far from us. If you want to check them out they are Project Trio and Turtle Island Quartet. They were really nice group of guys.

Once the beer ran out it was time for bed. We rest up and finally get on our flight home the next day.

I heard rumors of good compensation granted for flight delays and cancellations and planned to do research when I got home. The next day we came to discover that our entire flight was comped. Both legs of the flight were refunded. So we basically went to Germany on a free flight with the “inconvenience” of having to miss another day of work. Fortunately we both have understanding employers so that wasn’t an issue.
The European union has stricter compensation laws for airline inconveniences and it appears Delta went above and beyond that. So it is hard to say that my bad travel luck is still in place since it was bad luck to have a flight cancelled, we still got home safe. Plus we were well compensated. I guess these are the good problems to have.
Until the next journey.
Happy travels!

What happened to my good travel luck?

July 29, 2017

Which each international trip I feel less and less prepared; or do I feel most prepared? I can’t decide. When I started traveling overseas I used to meticulously prepare – hours and hours spent on detailed research on each city, language CDs bought and listened to, and packing would start weeks in advance. Now, it seems like I just open my packing list app and throw everything into a backpack days before. Ok, I am being hard on myself; it is not really like that. The packing list I use has been tried and tested before many trips and doesn’t do me wrong (except make me over pack). I am more experienced now – there is no need to stress over every detail; Europe is not third world – you can buy what you forgot to pack. I guess what what has mostly changed I set up the hotels and number of days I will stay in each place ahead of time but all the details are fuzzy until we get there. This kind of travel used to give me anxiety but it works for me now. I utilize the “research time” as the time to rest and revive my energy store. It works.
Before leaving for Germany, I had house guests. This is also something I would avoid, again the stress and distraction from my main job – preparation; but this time it was ok. Plus I really wanted to see this friend (and meet her travel companion). I fortunately was able to schedule a reunion of sorts with this old friend and others during one of my last “mom’s estate” trips to Florida. But now I have finally closed the estate and my freedom has been restored to use my time as I wish. I will still be back to Florida for work, friends and family but there won’t be the urgent need to be down there all the freakin time to take care of business. So this visit from the friend was  very welcome because we normally don’t get to meet up too often. It was a good distraction because there wasn’t too many last minute gotchas that I needed to take care of pre-trip (ok I decided last minute I didn’t want to bring a million pairs of short shorts and needed more pairs of travel type capri pants. I did a last minute shopping expedition too near to my house – which means I came up completely empty in the pants department but picked up two new sundresses and a scarf – which I really didn’t need but brought anyway because they were new.) I digress; I was able to spend at least one evening with my friend before we disappeared to Germany.

The Journey

I arranged a car service to take us to JFK, timing it so we would get there around 2.5 hours early (to my displeasure). Part of my anxiety is that I am afraid of missing a flight and loathe running through an airport with my luggage to catch one. For this reason I most always show up at the recommended time for flying (2 hours domestic and 3 hours international) but when traveling with others I compromise because not everyone shares my travel anxiety. In this case, we still showed up pretty early but it totally backfired (more of that in a minute). As for the car service, they are pretty good value for the money and mostly show up on time but again the way they assign their drivers gives me anxiety. I book my trip hours or sometimes a day in advance but they don’t assign a driver until about 10 min or less before I am supposed to get picked up (I can see all this through their website and corresponding text message). I would be totally cool with this except ONE time they never assigned a driver for a super early airport ride. I watched the screen minute after minute and the driver never appeared under my reservation. I finally called and they sent a driver. Luckily I planned to leave early since I was travelling alone. Everything was ok but I never forgot this experience. On today it was 15 minutes and no driver was assigned. I made the call. Of course I got attitude from the dispatch “You still don’t leave for another 15 minutes” to which I exclaimed “one time you guys never showed up and I am anxious about missing an international flight”. I was probably a topic of conversation in the office after we hung up but a driver was on the way. We took the “busy” way to the airport which cuts through the middle of Brooklyn instead of the long way around the perimeter of brooklyn. Most drivers choose to take the long way since usually traffic is more stable that way. Today it didn’t matter and we were still early so it didn’t matter to me.
When we arrived at the airport it seemed strangely crowded, even for people leaving for a holiday weekend (forth of July was the next week). Lines stretched down the curb and it looked like no one was moving. It was almost like 40 tour buses dropped everyone off at once. We decided curb side check in was not an option and moved inside. Inside it didn’t get better. Wall to wall people and no one was moving anywhere. And no communication what so ever about what was going on. We inquired to a man next to us who looked like he might know what was going on and he informed us of the airport fire at Panda Express at the terminal. Everyone had been evacuated to where I was standing now. So we waited with still no communication. As time went on crowd got thicker and thicker and still no communication. We would see a little crowd movement and thought the crisis was over but alas it was just a false alarm. We were still stuck there, in the crowd. I didn’t start the countdown watch to when we arrived and when we started making progress but I would say initially we stood in the crowd for at least 1.5 hours before security was opened. People were surprisingly calm given the craziness. I was slightly annoyed but cool until one guy got mad at me for hitting him with my backpack to which I replied “what do you expect me to do, I have no where to go and people are trying to get by”. Everyone was getting pushed aside and hit with suitcases and backpacks as people pushed through the crowd trying to get “somewhere” even if they didn’t know what or where somewhere was. Eventually security opened back up. We still were not worried about missing our flight, even though I am pretty sure it took us at least another hour to get through security. No planes were leaving yet, there is no way we would miss OUR flight. They started cancelling the “missed” flights but we weren’t one of them. This did start delaying everything out of that terminal since they had a big backlog due to the fire. We probably got our first delay notice as we were almost through security but I am not quite sure.

Once we finally made our way to the security scanners, my experience was pretty uneventful except my shoes triggered a future search. So much for not having to take the shoes off anymore It was no big deal, not like Carlos getting flagged for a further search. Carlos had to wait for his bags to get searched further. It was taking a while and I had to pee really bad. We agreed to meet close to the gate or a restaurant or something. I went to the restroom then stepped to the side and waited and waited. Did Carlos go to eat somewhere without me? That is so unlike him, maybe his phone wasn’t working. Finally he appears, he just got done with his search. They flagged his protein powder and ask him a few questions about it then let him go. Why so long? Before his bag was search the guy getting searched in front of him was a work of art. Carlos told the story of him watching the security officer take large bottle after large bottle out of his carry-on bag. They took out full size bottles of shampoo and conditioner, they took out large bottles conspicuously wrapped in duct tape, and finally they took took out at least two large spray bottles of Cutter (Yes the bug spray). It was almost comical. The person would almost had to not flown in this century to know all that stuff was a big no no. Carlos tried to get a picture of it all was only able to capture a little.

We started making it toward our gate, eyeballing all the possible eateries along the way. The goal was to pick a place that met our craving requirements that wouldn’t put us too far from our gate. That proved difficult since the flight delays kept ping ponging us from gate to gate. We finally pick a place near the gate that our flight gets assigned to the most but of course we end up not flying out there. After some food and some slow service at the restaurant we finally make it to our flight for an uneventful trip. See you until we arrive in Frankfurt!