A Day at Heathrow!

---

Our day at Heathrow started very early on Monday 30th June. After flying to Perth early sunday to meet Lesley then onto Singapore, our flight from Singapore to London had been delayed an hour and 15 minutes and only having an original turn around time of 2 hours it was going to be a stretch. Onto a bus to terminal 5...which took another 15 minutes..and a race to the desk to get through to the gates. The first security lady looked at the boarding passes and said yes you should make it...the second lady took a quick look and without even thinking about it said' No sorry, you'll never make the gate you'll have to go rebook onto the next flight'...even though we still had a good ten minutes before the gate closed... craaaapp.....maybe she wouldn't have made it...she wasn't the fittest looking person on the planet....I think they just couldn't be bothered getting people through quickly.....or the plane was already overbooked....either way this was our day...

0710 Land at Heathrow T4

0712 On a bus to T5

0725 Reach transfer desk and told to rebook onto next flight

0725 Swear

0730 Book onto next flight and discover it doesn't leave till 1230

0735 Gates close for original flight

0800 After wandering find the Giraffe cafe place for toast and coffee

0900 Find an exchange desk to change some money

0930 Finish wandering the shops and find a seat

1000 Bored

1030 Bored and trying not to fall asleep

1100 Still bored

1145 Excited that gate number has popped up on departure screen

1146 Move excitedley to gate..because moving excitedly might just make the plane leave earlier!

1230 Start boarding plane and get comfortable for the 1 hr 45 min trip

1300 Captain announces delay due to a bit of masking tape stuck in engine somewhere and he can't start the engine with it there

1330 Captain says sorry for the further delay but now the aircon isn't working properly and the engineer has to come have a look

1400 Still delayed but now because there is a bag on the plane that shouldn't be and it has to be found and taken off to it's correct flight

1430 Taxi to runway to take off

1500 After waiting on runway captain announces that both fault lights are still on so can't take off untill one of them is fixed...I say stuff the airconditioning...I think they should fix the engine that doesn't start!!

1515 Plane starts to move back to gate so engineers can do their magic...but gate doesn't have an aircon??..so back to the tarmac we go to wait!

1530 Plane moves to remote stand...with aircon... so engineers can do their magic....we should have already been in Oslo

1545 Strangely up until this point all the passengers had been remarkably quiet..not one complaint so far...just a lot of people wating to use the bathrooms!

1545 Hostesses ask if anyone needs anything...little indian man needs to get on a flight to the USA coz that's where he thought he was going to start with!!!!!

1600 Much confusion over little indian man..yes he definitely wants to go to Albequerque New Mexico and has instead booked himself onto a flight to Oslo Norway...not only booked a ticket but also got on the plane even though it was clearly not going to the USA....did he not look at an atlas??!!

1610 Little indian mans bags need to be found and removed from the plane!

1615 Announcement '' If there is a Mrs X on board can she make herself known to the crew'' At which point I thought ''What do they mean 'If' ??'' Surely after 4 hours of sitting on a plane they should know if mrs X is on board or not....I mean noone has been allowed to leave.....except little indian man.....aaarrrghh...

1630 Aircon starts working in plane...but does this mean the masking tape is still in the engine??

1645 All are back in their seats and ready to go

1700 Taxi to runway to line up with what seems like a hundred other planes all lined up ready to take off with all on board slightly nervous at any weird noises

1740 Finally take off....10 minutes after the next flight after us to Oslo!!!

So we finally made it!! Hopefully the flight to Longyearbyen will be easier.


Things I find disturbing:

Whilst sitting on the plane stuck on the tarmac I remarked to Lesley..''Well, Ive never been stuck on a plane before so i guess there's a first time for everything''...To which Lesley replied ''I've only been stuck on a plane once..24 yrs ago..it was British Airways and I haven't flown with them since...till today!!''

---

Comments

[aurelie]

hilarious,but i feel your pain!!
hiya, so great to hear from you!please keep in touch and let me know the rest goes better!!sorry i havent called life has been crazy. we frase caleb an i are off on a round the world trip of 5 weeks at the end of this month ,with a 9 month old baby yes we are mad travellers!!be funny if we caught up?let us know your itinerary. speak soon ,, aur mackey