Lost Horizons

Flight of the Valkyries

OK there I was in Singapore and due to fly back to Hong Kong. Knowing that there was a storm brewing, I checked the internet and was grateful to see that my flight was scheduled to depart on time, so I hussled my bootie out to the airport and checked in.
At 8.11 I received a text from Cathay saying my flight would depart at 10:15, and that the weather in Hong Kong was thunderstorms, 24-28C.
We boarded the flight on time, and got settled. The ground staff departed, they closed the doors and showed the safety video. Then the Pilot told us that our take off slot was in an hour and a half. Groans all around. Switched mobile phone back on, got out my lap top, had a beer, switched on the in flight entertainment, had another beer. At 11.02 I received a text from Cathay saying my flight would land at 14.02. Craned my neck to see if airbus had retrofitted RR Olympus engines from an old concord or something. Had another beer. At 11L47 I get another text to say we would land at 15.40, which seemed a lot more realistic. At 11.48 I get another text saying we would depart at 11.50, which was only about fifteen minutes out from our time we pushed away from the stand.
The flight towards Hong Kong was uneventful, as much as the food was unappetising. Once we got within about 60 miles of Hong Kong we just went into a holding pattern. People were getting tetchy, because they had connections and no information. I was getting tetchy because on the info they had us disembarking at gate 0, which I took to mean that we would be bussed to the terminal.
When we finally got on the ground, we did go to a gate, number 68 about as far away from anywhere as you can get; but, of course we had to wait half an hour for the airbridge operator to turn up. To give them, their due the airport was coping pretty well with the chaos. Going through the luggage reclaim, there were so many flights landing that they had this huge projection screen with the flights and their belt numbers. After that everything went smoothly, got to the airport express three minutes before the train arrived and got to Central where there were plenty of taxis and no queues. Got home and it was in one piece - no food in the house, so I headed out to get something to eat.

posted by Luke @ 5:58 AM