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August 10th 2006
Published: August 26th 2006
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I last left you all with me traipsing through beautiful Boston, laughing it up with the locals. I've got lots of comments on the fact that I seemed to meet lots of friendly people and got out lots - well it wasn't always like that - I definitely did spend lots of rather boring nights stuck in a hotel room with my laptop and CNN to keep me company!

My plans after Boston were to go spend a week in New Jersey and Denver, then fly to the UK for a few days, then Dublin, then Oslo, then Beijing. So I was thinking maybe I MIGHT write something in Oslo, if anything fun happened, else definitely Beijing would be my next story! After all, what could possibly happen of interest in between right?

Ha. Tempted fate too much. I got affected by the terrorism scare in Heathrow Airport (London).

A bit of background for you. In the last few years, 2 other members of my team have gone to London for work. The first was there when the bombs went off on the buses in London, resulting in excessive delays at Heathrow. The second was there when the baggage handlers at Heathrow went on strike, resulting in massive delays at Heathrow. So it was only fair and fitting that when I went there, some clowns would try to cause mayhem in the airways, resulting in (you guessed it) massive delays at Heathrow!!

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5am:
What a glorious morning! Too early to get breakfast from the hotel's buffet (what a complete waste! What's the use of a complimentary breakfast if they don't serve it when you need it!!) So got into my car, drove to Hertz, got out, remembered that I needed to fill in my tank (I hate that!), got back in, drove out, filled up, went back to Hertz, and got onto the shuttle to the airport.

Blissfully unaware that Great Things Were Afoot at Heathrow.

6:15am
Something is not right at Heathrow. The queues at the checkin are amazing!! I mean, Heathrow is busy, but this is up there with LA!!

6:35am
I've got closer to the front of the queue. People at the counter are opening up their luggage and doing major repacking - how annoying! How inconsiderate of people to be doing this AT the counter! Surely it would be more appropriate to do this BEFORE you get into queue. I mean, hello, honey, I know you got 4 kids and all, but surely you could have packed nappies into a plastic bag before this??

plastic bag??

Hang on - this is happening at every counter!! What are the odds that every single counter has people repacking? I am normally a patient laid back kind of guy however am now starting to get annoyed.

Stupid commuters.

6:45am
There's a security crackdown at the airport!! We're not allowed any hand luggage whatsoever!! Aargh! WHat on earth am I going to do with myself on the plane?

ME: "What - no laptop?"
HER: "no".
ME: "How about a book?".
HER: "I'm sorry."
ME: "PDA?".
HER: "Nope".
ME: "Next you'll be telling me I can't take any gum on the plane"
HER: "Well actually sir, you'lll need to pack that as well"

!!!

I feel sorry for the ladies at the counters - they are very patient and nice and have answered all my questions without showing any sign that they hadn't had the same conversation all day. (Little did they know they'd have to have this same conversation for the next three days!! )

Was a bit traumatic to put my laptop onto the conveyor belt. My laptop bag is black and looks like every other guy's laptop bag. Am looking at the 50 other business guys all putting their identical-looking laptop bags onto the plane. I'm never going to find mine again!! Why oh why didn't I get a bright red laptop bag?

Even worse - what on earth am I going to do on the plane? My passport would probably give me a whole 4 min 32 sec of reading goodness, and after that I would be doomed to have to watch a movie. Read the inflight magazine. Or, even talk to the people around me!!

7am
Oh no!! There is a potential terrorist attack on the airport! I'm watching BBC in the lounge, and it looks like planes are being cancelled left right and center!! Something about 20 terrorists arrested in the night, plots to blow up planes, aargh! Thank goodness I'm not flying to the US!! Those poor guys are now stuck!

Am feeling a bit smug but am being supportive to the distraught US folk in the lounge. Some of them aren't taking it well at all. Especially the lady with the kid - I mean, what's the big deal, just hang around get on the next plane, big deal right? Some people make such a fuss.

As horrible as this all is, at least there is an even better chance that my plane will fly out on time now, seeing as less planes are leaving Heathrow now!

7:45am
My plane has been cancelled!! How could they do this to me! This is atrocious! Disastrous! Shocking! How stupidly annoying! Aargh! I am so frustrated. Now I'm going to have to hang around the airport all day!! Why on earth does this have to happen today of all days!

Drafting several complaint letters. Not sure who I am going to send it to though. Al Qaeda probably don't have a PO box. BA will have to do.

8am
The next flight is going out at 4pm. guess I'll have to hang around the airport till then. I've also been told that I've got to go get my bags back off the plane, and then check them again on the new flight. (ridiculous!)

11:42am
Unbelievable! Been hanging around at the luggage carousels for almost 4 hours now, and my bags still haven't arrived. The carousel area is FULL of people. I guess when 20 planes' worth of luggage are being emptied into the area, that's a lot of people. Everyone frustrated and annoyed. No food. No toilets. People ugly. Bags going around and around. carousels overflowing, bags falling onto floor, and left there as harried BA staff got too many other things to worry about.

Quite fun watching the laptop bags. Every time a new laptop bag arrives on the carouself, 50 business guys look eagerly to see if it's theirs. Would be much funnier if I wasn't one of them.

1:15pm
Bags still not here! Have hooked up with 8 others who were also on the flight to Norway who also don't have their bags. So I know it's not just me thank goodness. Only got 2 hours 45 min to get to my next plane.

1:25pm
70 planes been cancelled so far today! Mine's still flying as far as I know!

2:10pm
Starving! Bags still not here. My trusty band of 8 have swung a deal with the guards, they're letting us out to get food now.

2:20pm
Food, glorious food!
Even if it's just Starbuck's sandwiches...

3:20pm
The stupid guards let us down! They were meant to stay there and remember us when we came back! But they're gone, and the new guys won'te let us in! Been queueing up to get back in the normal way for an hour now!

Even worse - I'm going to miss my plane!! Aargh!

3:40pm
GOT MY BAGS!! Including the laptop!! Hooray!! Knew it would all work out.
It just goes to show that if you stay calm, and relax, and be one with the carousel, things will work out, you just gotta have faith.
Now just gotta make the plane...

4:00pm
Stupid BA has cancelled the flight!! Next flight not till tomorrow night... lots of very distraught norwegians around me. We're going to team up and try and find a place to stay for the night. Feel particularly sorry for the ones that were in transit, and had no plans to hang around london for a night!!

Oh well, am going to be positive. Another night in London won't kill me.

Found out why we had all the flight cancellations. It wasn't because of security. No, much simpler than that. As we were checking in ALL luggage now, there was 3 times as much baggage to process!! Which meant that they couldn't process the baggage quickly enough, and thus planes couldn't get loaded quickly enough, and thus they were cancelled. What a disaster.

5:00pm
One of the guys' dad has organised 8 executive apartment suites for us over the phone from Norway. We should be fine now!

5:15pm
None of the taxi drivers at Heathrow have heard of the apartments, nor know the address. It's meant to be less than 5 min from the airport!!

5:30pm
None of the bus drivers know either!

5:50pm

Got to Hertz, got a car, thank goodness for GPS!! My lovely GPS lady knows exactly where we have to go!!

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Anyway, enough of the diary format. Got to the hotel, discovered that it was incredibly nice, very lush, and had no broadband access to the room!! Well, it was supposed to, however, some of the rooms didn't get it because of a hardware fault which would not be repaired!! How was I going to cope without access to the Net?

In the end it didn't matter. Worn out from a full day of carouseling, I fell asleep before I knew it!

The next day, I woke up, watched the news. Apparently this was a serious plot, with plans to blow planes as they crossed the Atlantic. Thank goodness they found out about it!

Had the day to spend, so checked out of the hotel, went in to work, nothing to report there... Left early for the airport. Returned the rental car. Got there 3 hours before, just in case, hung around till the plane was meant to leave. It didn't leave! Hung around for another hour. Planes all around me were being cancelled, however mine was still flying...

30 min later they cancelled the plane.
Stupid BA.

Went back to Hertz. Rented another car. Drove around to the hotel. No apartments left. Kept driving around. Hotels all full!! Lots of stuck people! 1 hour later, finally found a place. I decided that I was not going to go to Oslo anymore. Looked like all the short-haul flights were being cancelled, and even if I got to Oslo, I was not going to be able to have the meetings I needed to, since it was going to be the weekend anyway! So decided to skip Oslo and go straight to Beijing. Leaving 4pm the next day. Added bonus - I would get to see my girl early!!

Went straight to bed. Exhausted.

I had a cunning plan though. Since I lived 3 min from the airport, why not try and check in really really early? Woke up at 5am and headed in, feeling pretty darned smug. Clever huh?

Ha. The airport was closed. And we weren't allowed to check in early anymore!

So I went there at noon. They had set up marquees outside the terminal, and we were meant to hang out in there and wait for our flight to be called. There was no other information available. The marquees were rather dreadful... crowded, wet, bleak amounts of sunlight filtering in through the doors, lots of tired people hanging around. It was raining outside the tents so was not pleasant at all! To BA's credit, they kept food and drink coming!

Every 15 min, a BA dude would come in with a megaphone and announce a whole bunch of flights that were cancelled. This would be followed by lots of upset people going up to the guy and practically lynching him. Was amusing for the first hour, then that started to get old.

And would you believe it, my flight got cancelled again. Somehow, I took it in my stride, in the back of my head, I think I knew it was going to happen anyway, and seeing as everybody else I'd met had been cancelled, it was an inevitability. However, even so, I was tired, fedup, and getting rather emotional. I just wanted to get out of stupid London and see my girl. Spending day after day at the airport, followed by running around trying to find a place to sleep, did not appeal to me. So - I made a command decision, bought a ticket with Cathay Pacific to Beijing, who cares about the cost, and flew out of the country.

So I got out!! 3 days of extra stuckage - not fun !! Actually it's a shame, because I really enjoyed all of my London stay up to the day I tried to fly out! Had even managed to catch up with family and some dear friends. In the end though, I was just glad to get out of the country. I hope not to see Heathrow for a while now!!

I can't believe how much I wrote on this one. Stay tuned, next blog is in China!!

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27th August 2006

Dude - that's gotta be a record
After probably hundreds of flight legs in my life I have never experienced anything approaching that bad. Thankfully it's mostly under control now since this Tuesday it's *my* girl's time to fly to the UK on BA!
29th August 2006

Not even in Africa....
Mate.... You did hit it bad! I flew the same day - but from Jo'burg to Kigali, Kigali to Entebbe. No glitches and a great flight. Amazing how Africa seemed to get it all smooth - but the Westerners made a glorified mess. I must admit, you did have me in stictches. Well at least you're outta. Cheers for now.

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