The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
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12:05pm on Sunday, 21st July, 2024:
Anecdote
Well, we're back home now. The security cameras did their job and no-one broke into the house to steal my board games.
We arrived back later than we had planned.
Our flight was due to take off at 18:30, but for a short while during the course of the day there was a suggestion in the Vueling app that it might take off 20 minutes later (that was before the Vueling app stopped working because of "connection problems" shared by no other web sites). Boarding was supposed to being at 17:50, biut didn't; when it got to 18:oo and we weren't yet boarding, a disgruntled passenger (not me) asked why not. Acting on this, the people at the gate let us through, causing us to wait for 20 minutes in an airless airbridge. The man at the front of the line complained and we were allowed into another section of the airbridge where we waited another ten minutes in stifling humidity.
When we were eventually allowed onto the plane, it hadn't been properly cleaned. There were used tissues on my seat. We moved them to the seat in front.
At 18:35 we were all aboard, but the captain made an announcement. Our slot was free, but it was being given to someone else because of the IT problem yesterday. We would be taking off 3 hours late.
So ... why let us on, then?
Ah, well it could be that we might suddenly get the thumbs-up because some other flight missed its slot, so we had to wait aboard just in case.
The passengers were not happy. The flight itself was only due to take two hours. Five hours is the length of a transatlantic flight with a good tailwind.
Checking assorted flight trackers, it became clear to us that a slot had indeed been allocated, for 20:14. Sure enough, as we got closer to that time, the captain told us that we'd be taking off at a quarter past eight — only an hour and three-quarters later than we were supposed to take off. I think he was hoping that the fact this was some way short of three hours would cheer us up. It didn't.
The flight did indeed take off around 20:14. After wife-frightening levels of turbulence over Paris, we arrived at Gatwick relatively unscathed. Passport control was a breeze, our luggage arrived early, we went to pick up our car and were hit with a £30 excess charge because I'd said I would pick it up at 9:30 and that was 12 hours earlier. They must have used a 24-hour clock.
The journey home by car was awful. Speed limits were in place on the M25 because of roadworks, and there were matrix signs warning of a 20-minute delay between Junctions 2 and 31, which is to say the Dartford Tunnel. The delay was actually an hour and 40 minutes. It was followed by more roadworks the other side of the tunnel, then some on the A12. We'd left Gatwick at 22:00 for a 90-minute drive and arrived home at 01:30. Worse, because we'd been on Central European Time for over a week, it felt to us like 02:30. Fortunately, I'd managed some sleep on the flight over, so wasn't in danger of nodding off. Another half an hour might have tipped me over the edge, though.
Oh well. I've had worse travel experiences.
The pizzas at Rome Airport are surprisingly good, by the way.
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Copyright © 2024 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).