Home, at last! In my wildest dreams I could not have imagined that it would take two days to fly home to Kelowna from Vancouver.
Flight #1 - Air Canada:
The "adventure" began at 5:30 pm on Friday night, when I checked in for my 6:20 Air Canada flight home from from Vancouver. All was proceeding according to plan. For a refreshing change, there was no heart-thumping last minute rush to the airport. There was no line to speak of at check in, and only a small delay at security. I had a bite to eat and arrived at the gate with time to spare. Surely, this was a relaxing start to a much anticipated weekend. I was in control.......
Ha!
What was that they said over the "loud" speaker? Something about fog in Kelowna? Little did I know as I boarded the plane and embarked on the 29 minute flight home, the journey was just beginning. Twenty nine minutes later plus one veeerrrryyyyy long descent, with lights on the ground visible from the plane, we had to turn around and head back to Vancouver. The fog was too thick for our Airbus to land. The cliche "so close, but so far away" began to take on new meaning.
Upon our return to Vancouver, the Canadian version of "chaos" broke out. (Having experience with similar situations in Chicago - I assure you this was quite different.) We all stood in a line while the frazzled Air Canada reps rebooked us for the next morning, calling anyone we could to figure out if there was a better alternative. Bits and pieces of information came in from friends and relatives "on the other side". Yes, it was extremely foggy....can't land those planes manually....they had marked our flight "Arrived"....the Westjet flight made it in....Westjet lands more planes in Kelowna than Air Canada...flights had been turned back for the past couple of days...
That was enough for me! I was done with Air Canada. Not taking any more chances with my valuable weekend, I called my good friends Lucinda and Kent from the line - several times. I was going to be clever. I was going to take control of this situation and make sure I had at least part of my Saturday at home. Kent booked me on a 2:30 pm flight on Westjet the next day. I turned down Air Canada's offer of an 11:00 am flight and had my ticket refunded. Three hours was worth the increased odds of landing if it was foggy the next day.
I rented a car, crashed at my friend Theresa's terrific new townhouse and enjoyed a Saturday morning trip to Ikea with Theresa and her son Quinn. What a great way to spend the extra time, I thought, and it was.
Flights #2 and #3 - Westjet:
I was on a streak! I am really getting to know how to navigate the Lower Mainland. I arrived at the airport with time to spare and was noticeably perspiration-free for the second day in a row. There is really something to this, I thought, free of my usual pre-flight jitters. Checked in at Westjet, my now-preferred airline partner despite all those Aeroplan miles. Had a beer with lunch - it's the weekend after all - and went to the gate.
"There certainly are a lot of people here for a Saturday", I remember thinking to myself. Oh, look...that flight to Toronto has been delayed for 3 hours. I'm glad it's not me this time. I settled in with my brand new book "Tuesdays with Morrie" thinking how great it was to have time to read. Just as I opened the book, I noticed a little message had appeared on the screen at the Kelowna gate - our flight was delayed until 3:30. There was a general grumbling and malaise through the lounge, but we had no choice, and after all it was only an hour...
When is it time to get nervous at an airport terminal? When your delayed flight time approaches and you have still not boarded your plane. When is it time to start twitching and squirming in your slippery reclining seat? When your flight time passes and they are not telling you ANYTHING.
Then, it comes....the long awaited announcement. "Ladies and gentlemen on Westjet 123 to Kelowna. There will be a further delay to your flight. We have had to make a change and switch planes. The plane you were going to take to Kelowna is now going to be heading to Toronto. The former Toronto plane is here, but it has a problem and needs some maintenance before we can have it ready for you. We will let you know, just as soon as we can, your new departure time. Thank you for your patience...blah blah blah."
Patience is not the word I would have chosen to describe the reaction that ensued. You see, I was not the only one who had been trying to get home for 24 hours at this point. I was to find out later that I wasn't the only smartie-pants who jumped the Air Canada ship either, but it didn't help me then. And, here's the straw that broke the camel's back - I had just spent the last Tuesday with Morrie who had succumbed to his fight with ALS at the end of the book. All this free time for reading was really not helping me. Because, yes, that was me, bawling my eyes out in the Vancouver airport terminal! Just like Dorothy, all I wanted to do was go home. (Thank goodness I can laugh at myself today....)
Enough about me, back to the flight and the other people on it. Tension was pretty high and information was pretty low until they made their next, most absurd, announcement. No one could make this up: "Ladies and gentlemen on Westjet 123 to Kelowna. We apologize for the delay and thank you for your patience. We realize that many of you have been trying to get to Kelowna for the past couple of days. We have a further delay with your flight. Your plane was originally headed for Toronto and was filled with enough fuel to get it there. Unfortunately, we have tried, but we can't take enough fuel off the plane to make it land safely in Kelowna. The runway is too short. We are going to send this plane to Calgary.... Please, ladies and gentlemen, if you will just stay calm and listen to me..... Your best chance of arriving in Kelowna tonight is to take the flight to Calgary... We are trying to locate a plane and crew for an emergency flight to Kelowna and should have you there by 9:00 pm. For anyone who does not want to go to Calgary, we will pull your luggage from the plane......
This is getting long, but just use your imagination here. Calgary is a lot further from Kelowna than Vancouver, at least by ground. The funniest thing was that the Westjet "partner" with the microphone could not get her head around why people were upset and made it quite clear in her further attempts to "thank us for our patience".
I had already bottomed out, so I was back in cope mode, reaching for the phone to see what driving might be like. Fortunately, I can learn from experience, and decided not to do anything too clever like jump ship again. That was when the turning point came - I bumped into a friend and her husband who were on the same flight - and most people seemed to be putting their trust in Calgary. I decided to be a sheep instead of a ram (yes, I am an Aries). And now I had company.
The majority of the travellers trusted in the gods and took the plane to Calgary. We expanded our group to four and went for dinner and drinks. When we returned to the Calgary gate after dinner to find our flight delayed for another hour, we expanded our group to six and plunked ourselves down in the adjacent lounge. "To Kelowna before midnight!" was our collective wish as we clinked our glasses. When one person didn't show up for the flight and they had to keep us on the tarmac while they fished out his or her luggage, it didn't matter anymore. We were on a plane, and we it was going to Kelowna!! (It's funny how expectations change.....)
The third plane with our self-described "saviour crew" landed in Kelowna at roughly 11:00 pm. After a half-hour wait for our luggage and a short drive home, I walked in the door at 11:30 pm, quickly unpacked, and went to bed. "Kelowna before midnight" was the last thought to cross my mind as my head hit the pillow.
It's really foggy here in Kelowna today. I wonder what happened to all those people who didn't go to Calgary.....
As for which airline I'll be using next time? It's anyone's guess.
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