I had to get to Cancún in January for work, and as a CO frequent flyer I really wanted to get there on Star Alliance. For various reasons (a combination of financial concerns and aircraft type) I had the bright idea of booking my flights in two parts: 1) LHR-YYZ-IAH, IAH-LHR and 2) IAH-CUN-IAH. I would come to regret this decision in time.
Flight one (Saturday):
AC859 LHR-YYZ
Boeing 767-300ER C-FMWU
Scheduled departure: 18:25 (Actual: dunno, round about then)
Scheduled arrival: 21:45 (Actual: never made it)
Seat: 27A (Assigned) 28A (Taken in error)
Usually when I’m flying to the new world it involves an early start, sometimes with time for breakfast at home, sometimes not. On this occasion I’d allowed myself an overnight stop in Toronto, which meant I’d be taking one of the last flights to the Americas that day. This in turn meant that I’d have the whole morning to spend with my family. To be honest I found the whole affair somewhat disorientating, and I spent the whole morning looking at my watch, convinced I’d miss the train to the airport. I feel I could have made better use of the time I’d made available to myself.
I took the train through to Reading and then the RailAir coach to heathrow, firing up the laptop as soon as I was onboard, the free wi-fi being one of the great attractions of this service. We made an initial drop at T5, and then by a happy coincidence there were no travellers wanting T1, so it was straight to T3 and directly to Air Canada check-in.
I went straight to a kiosk, but since there was no-one in the queue a slightly bored-looking agent shouted me over to the desk to help lighten her tedium. This turned out to be a good thing. Since my itinerary had me apparently stopping in Houston the next day an address was required, despite my actually being in transit (that’ll be why I couldn’t check in online). When I couldn’t provide an address, the check-in girl tapped away at her computer for a bit and cheerily announced “I’ve put you in the Hilton”.
I had to actively request a priority tag for my luggage, which I wanted largely because I lacked an AC one for the collection. I was disappointed that it didn’t say Air Canada or Aeroplan anywhere on it, but it did have “priority” in both English and French. My luggage weighed in at about 25 kg and I was all set to split it into two pieces if need be, but she let me on as it was. There was a very light load this evening.
I made my way through security, carefully emptying my pockets, but still setting off the alarms with my belt buckle. Someone’s been tweaking the sensitivity since I was last through T3. Thankfully it was fairly quiet at this time of afternoon, so there weren’t too many witnesses to my kettle moment. Past security I hugged the wall on the right to make my way through duty free with the fewest possible retail opportunities. A quick tour of the terminal and I headed over to Yo! Sushi for a bite to eat.
By the time I’d finished eating my dinner & washed my hands, etc., it was time to start heading over to the gate area. There was a good amount of mainly out-of-date reading material available at the gate, and a good (if poorly-angled) view of our aircraft- my first ever 767.
Boarding was by rows, and very efficient. But then so it should have been, with a less than half-full aeroplane this evening. I boarded as soon as my section was called and settled into my seat. The cabin was showing its age somewhat with the old-school overhead bins, but had the neat touch of modern mood lighting. The first thing I saw when I looked out my window was what looked like an Iberia A340 winglet attached to our wing (it was darker than the photo makes it appear). A definite moment of cognitive dissonance.
I also took the opportunity to take a photograph of the available legroom. Plenty for little old me.
I tried to check in to tomorrows IAH-CUN flight on my distinctly low-spec ‘phone, whilst listening to my iPod. In the midst of this what I took to be my seat-mate appeared. I smiled warmly, and made sure I wasn’t spilling over into the B seat, but he chose to sit in the unoccupied bank of three instead. Fine. Of course, it was only after take off when I stood up to get something from the locker that I realised I was sitting in 28A rather than my assigned 27A. The by now somewhat frosty gentleman confirmed that he was ticketed to sit in 28A, but stated that he was happy to remain where he was. I apologised, but did not insist. No point in making a bad situation worse.
Between my error and my realising it of course we had taken off and climbed-out. It was just after the initial climb-out phase that the plane started rocking violently from side to side. I thought the cabin crew had slipped the pilot a bung to rock us all to sleep so they didn’t have to give us a proper dinner service. Possibly this was what led 28C to letting me keep his assigned seat- who’d want to look out when that sort of behaviour was going on?!
The shaking settled down, and I’d all but forgotten it when a voice came over the intercom announcing that we were about to return to Heathrow to have a rudder that the captain was not happy with checked out. Cue much groaning, and a very quiet cabin on the approach to Heathrow. We were parked over by the T5 remote stands and given the once-over. after some indeterminate length of time (I was availing myself of Air Canada’s gate-to-gate IFE whilst we waited) it was announced that we would be delayed until tomorrow. Executive class passengers were to be put up in the Renaissance, Economy passengers were to be put up in the Ibis. Please collect your bags for rechecking tomorrow, and see your representative in the terminal.
The Ibis?!!! I had a pre-paid reservation at the Toronto Airport Sheraton, just to rub salt into the wounds.
At this point I felt entirely justified in ‘liberating’ a spare unopened Executive Class amenity bag. I took a photo, I know what you’re like. The lip balm tasted like fudge. The flight socks came in very handy when I eventually made it to Cancún since I found myself in a hotel with tiled floors that didn’t think to provide patrons with slippers. Shame on you, Hilton Cancún Golf and Spa.
Luggage collection, bus transfer and hotel check-in passed in a whirl of tedium. There was one piece of good news in all this, though: after we all got ourselves onto the bus it was announced that we’d be going to the Novotel rather than the Ibis. Not the Sheraton, though. It was about 11pm by the time all this was completed and I had details of my new connection, and I headed back to my room to try and sort out my missed connection that I had so wisely put on a separate booking.
No internet. Apparently Air Canada’s largesse did not extend to granting their stranded passengers internet access. I looked at my CO reservation print out. No ‘phone number. I looked at my OnePass card. No UK ‘phone number. At this point I wander down to the hotel lobby to see if I can use their ‘business centre’ ( a couple of sticky-looking Macs next to a broken printer). both computers were in use, but I did manage to run into the AC rep who had internet on her ‘phone who managed to get a ‘phone number for me.
Made aware than ‘phone calls can only be made from the front desk, I head over there to learn that they are furthermore limited to three minutes duration. Oh, come on! Uncertain of my chances of resolving my ticketing issues within 3 minutes, I decide to go back to my room and use my mobile instead.
It is of course by now well past eleven pm, and there’s still a queue for the restaurant. At this point I was happy that I’d had perhaps one more plate of sushi than strictly necessary earlier in the evening. My dinner that night was a Mars bar, mini tub of pringles, and a couple of cans of Grolsch- basically the (rather limited) contents of the mini bar. I saved the orange juice for morning. I suppose Air Canada can be glad I don’t drink cola or carbonated water.
I ‘phoned CO’s help line, and was somewhat alarmed to hear that everything was closed for the evening. Immediately after this announcement though, I was invited to stay on the line if my flight was within the next 24 hours. At this point I was transferred to Houston (I imagine), and started speaking to an incredibly helpful rep, Beth, who pointed out that if I was to change my flights then it would cost me somewhere north of £400, but if I waited a couple of hours I could pull a same day change for US$50.
After this ‘phone conversation I could see why everyone on the CO boards seem to be up in arms about any potential move to a UA-style outsourced Indian call centre. I have no qualms with dealing with Indian call centres (and possibly we in the UK are more used to the Indian accent), but dealing with Beth was a positive pleasure.
At this point, its time for bed. I grab a quick shower, request an alarm call, and hit the sack. Five hours later I’m magically awake (long before that requested alarm call) and making that call to change my later flight. I head down for breakfast and am about third onto the bus back to Heathrow.
Check-in was considerably busier than yesterday- they’d decided to combine us with that mornings AC869. There was no windows available, so I took the furthest-forward aisle, which was 23F. The agent also handed me my boarding pass for my flight YYZ-IAH. 14C. After the fuss I’d made about getting a window on the first leg, I was somewhat non-plussed to be presented with an aisle for the second. A bit of tappity-tapping later and I was in 20A- an exit row seat.
An exit row seat for free should make one happy, right? Well, it would have done if I hadn’t have learned that my upgrade to first on my scheduled UAX flight YYZ-IAH had come through. Poor old AC manage to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. My bag was checked through to CUN, although the agent was unable to print my third boarding pass.
Flight one (Sunday):
AC869 LHR-YYZ
Boeing 767-300ER C-GEOU
Scheduled departure: 08:30 (Actual: 10:00)
Scheduled arrival: 11:35 (Actual: ~13:00)
Seat: 23F
Security, round two. Determined to avoid a repeat of yesterday I carefully take off my belt and place it in my hat along with my iPod to go through the scanner, and step through the arch. But the alarm still goes off. Of course it does - I’ve been so preoccupied with my belt that I actually forget to take all the stuff out my trouser pockets. What a spanner! Five hours of sleep will do that to you.
They originally told us that the flight was to be delayed until 10am, before deciding to combine us with the 8:30 869. It would have been fine for those of us put up in hotel accommodation to get the 8:30 flight, but of course there was some unspecified number of people who had gone back to their homes who may not have been contactable expecting there to be a 10am flight, so everyone had to wait. Boarding was eventually called, and was again by (strictly enforced) status and row. It was really well handled, and kudos to AC for this. There was some playing of hunt the free space in the overhead, but everyone got on, and we pushed back around the time we expected to. I didn’t bother with a legroom shot as it looked pretty similar to last night.
Meal service was breakfast, and there was a choice of omlette or crepes. I either know too many French or too many pretentious people, as I has no idea what the flight attendant was on about from her North American pronunciation (“crayp”). It was only when she described it as being a bit like a pancake that the penny dropped, and that’s what I opted for. Since it was breakfast, I opted for a soft drink to accompany the meal. It didn’t feel right passing up free booze on a North American carrier, but there you go. Both the crepes and the fruit salad were perfectly acceptable if somewhat uninspiring. The baked goods seemed surprisingly stale.
The flight passed in a blur of tedium, enlivened somewhat by Air Canada’s excellent AVOD (excellent bar the annoying adverts that appear before every film or show). What was nice in my sleep-deprived befuddlement was a wide range of audio choices (sans adverts), so when my brain found the movies too heavy-going I could just pull up some Herb Albert and the Tijuana Brass and doze for a bit.
The pre-arrival snack was nowhere near as nice as it looked, but as it was now the afternoon, I did allow myself to wash it down with some beer at least.
And before I knew it we were down. That’s the trouble with Air Canada’s IFE when you don’t have a window seat, you don’t get any sense of impending arrival. I was shuffled off to US connections, missing a (Canadian) passport stamp, and did the whole entering the US thing.