Airport fun

Last week-end, I was in Essen, Germany for the digiKam / KDE imaging coding spring. I came back to Toulouse yesterday, but the trip did not go exactly according to the plan.

I managed to get to the Düsseldorf International airport without any problems. Our host had provided me with all the information I needed to get there by bus & regional train from the hotel. I arrived early at the airport and worked while waiting for check-in. I had to take a first plane to Frankfurt, then another one to Toulouse.

When I arrived at the gate in order to board, the screens indicated a 20-minute delay: the plane was planned to take off at 15:00 instead of 14:40. That was not much of an issue, since I had more than an hour to connect in Frankfurt. However, as soon as everybody was seated in the plane, the real fun began.

The captain announced that many air traffic controllers had not shown up on Monday morning; he said they might have called in sick because of the swine flu. As a consequence, a lot of delay had been accumulated and our plane had lost its flight slot. The next slot was 2 hours later.  The captain managed to get an earlier slot at 16:00.

The problem then was to be able to land in Frankfurt. He called the controllers there and managed to get a landing slot. After leaving Düsseldorf, the crew spent most of their time trying to get information about connecting flights, and pass it along to the passengers. The flight attendant told me I would probably not be able to catch my next flight. We eventually landed in Frankfurt at 16:45, even though the captain had to convince the airport staff to let us use a parking slot that was not completely opposite from the terminal.

For one moment, I really thought I would spend the night in Frankfurt. Fortunately (for me), the delays in Düsseldorf had caused some delays in Frankfurt as well; my plane to Toulouse, which was supposed to take off at 16:40, was delayed to 17:20, so I was able to catch it. We eventually left at 17:40 and landed in Toulouse around 19:20. I was glad to be finally home.

My luggage, however, decided that Frankfurt was worth a few more hours of sightseeing, and did not take the same plane as me. It arrived later in the night and was delivered today.