Seasons Greetings

A tale of fog, queues and no mince pies

Finally made it to Edinburgh about 24 hours later than expected.

Lets see…last time I wrote, just been told that had another hour’s wait before boarding. Sometime after that announcement, a message came over the PA for the SAS London flight that they were being delayed indefinitely as Heathrow was now closed due to fog. Nothing from BA !! Then 15 minutes later we were told to board. Thought the airport was closed. Who cares….everybody cheered anyway

Sitting comfortably, doors closed, mobiles off….then the captain says that we have a late take-off slot…in about 1 1/2 hours. Some passengers didn’t take this too well. One guy marches up the cabin to the nearest steward and starts shouting at him. Being in very frantic sounding Norwegian I didn’t quite follow what was being said, but I don’t think it was merry Christmas. Anyway, turned out not quite so bad. Off the ground in closer to 1 hour.

On arriving at Heathrow, those with connecting flights were told to go straight to baggage reclaim and then to the ticket office for rebooking. I already knew that all domestic flights for the rest of the day had been canceled and the fog was unlikely to improve much the following day. A helpful BA person advised not to even bother with the 4 hour + ticket desk queue, but to get a hotel for the night and to continue to Edinburgh by train the following day. By the way, “we have no hotel vouchers left” so you’ll have to find your own and claim the cost off BA. So I spent the next 4 hours in a queue at the hotel reservations desk in Terminal 4 arrivals – a desk only manned by one person I might add!!! Now it was 10.30pm and I had a very expensive hotel reservation in central London (more expensive than the £100 BA limit) – not much left to choose from.

The next morning after waiting on the phone for about half an hour I managed to get a seat reservation on the 10.30 from Kings Cross to Edinburgh. Kings Cross was hoochin and the train wasn’t much better. At least I had a seat. Some poor sods had to stand the whole way.

So, by late afternoon I was finally home. Now looking forward to another family Christmas. Probably going to be just as stressful