So, in the end this is what happened... (not very interesting, I know, but still an experience to learn from)

- I was already tense, because on the 1st of Jan DEL experienced very bad fog. I was keeping my eyes on the website of the fog monitoring service.

- Due to a delay of one of the persons that I was meeting, my "breakfast" in Udaipur ran VERY late. Little I knew it was just the beginning of a nightmare.

- Missed my 12:55pm UDR-DEL IC flight.

- Could not find a single seat on any other UDR-DEL flight for the day; strange, as the day before there was some availability. This is where I started sweating.

- Found a seat on an IC flight out of AMD (leaving at 8pm). Decided to go for it (*BAD* decision). My hotel and the driver assured me it would take no more than 3 hours to get there; in the end it took 4.

- Arrived in AMD. All flights to DEL cancelled except for my IC flight. In the meantime I could see on the internet that visibility in DEL was down to 100m. Asked the IC agents and they assured me that the flight was departing on time.

- To my relief, boarding started at 8:00pm. On the plane (CRJ) I asked the captain (an American guy) and he assured me we would make it to DEL. We started taxing and stopped just before the runway. 1 minute, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes: finally the captain announced that visibility in DEL had dropped to 100m (what a surprise; I saw that myself on the internet just 1 hour earlier). Then the bad news: we could not land with <150m visibility, so we were not going anywhere for the night.

- IC representatives were talking about providing hotel accomodation and departure the next day not earlier than 10am. This is when i started not only to sweat, but also to quietly swear. I asked the IC guy if there was *any* flight leavig AMD towards BOM or any other large airport. It was 9:20pm; there was an AI AMD-BOM flight leaving at 9:30pm and due to land in BOM at 10:30pm. He promised to hold the plane and gave me an escort to take me to the international terminal (the flight was the AMD-BOM-LHR, so leaving as an international departure).

- Quick phone call to LX. Asked to change my DEL-ZRH to BOM-ZRH. No availability in first on LX155; I begged them to put me on a waiting list and find me *any* seat in *any* class in case of no-shows.

- Despite I was being escorted by two AI/IC employees, the rude security guard at the international terminal in AMD was refusing to let me in because I did not have "printout of reservation". The AI employee went inside and came back with a boarding pass for the flight. No luck, the VERY open-minded security guard kept telling that he needed "printout of reservation", not boarding pass. Who seemed to be the AI station manager came outside to speak with the guard; still no luck. In the end, the AI guys managed to print something that satisfied this mo**n.

- I made it to the gate by 10pm, wondering whether the plane had already left. Despite the flight information showing no delays, boarding had yet to commence! This is when I started doubting that I could make my 1:20am departure for Zurich. Boarding started at 10:30pm; the plane kept sitting on the tarmac until 11:30pm because another plane was "blocking the runway" (?!). Took off at 11:45pm, landed in BOM at 12:50am; reached parking position at 1:10am. No hope to get on my LX flight. The real joke is that we taxied so close to the LX plane, that I could see people taking their seats from the windows...

- Got a room at Le Royal Meridien. After my crucial (and - by now - former) ZRH meeting I was supposed to go back to London, so found a seat on 9W118 BOM-LHR in business at an acceptable price. Both the 9W website and phone reservation line were unable to process the payment using my UK or Italian credit cards (5 cards tried). My TA was sleeping; called my travel agents at AMEX, which for some strange reason could not grab the seat. So I took a generous 3 hours sleep and went to book the ticket with at the hotel travel desk. The agent took 1 HOUR and 20 minutes to book the damn thing, with an endless series of phone calls to his office.

- After some breakfast and a shower it was time to head to the airport again. I had never flown 9W before, so I was a bit annoyed and wished I had made my original flight (on LX new F), rather than leaving on an unknown carrier. But here I got my first and only bit of luck: at the gate I got an OPUP to First. With great pleasure I found out that the seat is basically the same as LX new F, but in a "suite" configuration (LX has open seats with privacy dividers). Service was stellar at the beginning, but unfortunately got worse during the flight (except for the top-notch purser). Overall I prefer LX, but the inflight products and services are comparabe between the two carriers (I am actually planning to write a trip report focused on the comparison between LX and 9W F).


So, this was my short adventure caused by Delhi's awful fog.

Shame to:
- Me for missing my original flight from UDR
- Fog
- Concierge and hotel driver (who advised that AMD was max 3hrs drive)
- IC for waiting till the runway to cancel the flight (when data about visibility in Delhi was available even one hour before)
- Security guard at AMD international terminal (who doesn't allow in the terminal a passenger with a regular boarding pass and escorted by airline employees)
- Travel desk at Le Royal Meridien; it can't take hours to book a plane ticket (and even if it does, they should take note of all the details and then do it themselves, not make people waiting for ages!)

A big praise to:
+ IC/AI staff in AMD for promptly (and kindly) switching me to the AMD-BOM flight
+ 9W for the unexpected opup
+ the great purser on 9W; one of the best airline employee I've ever had the pleasure to meet
+ everybody who had the patience of reading this post