The last story from my delayed flights saga. On September 12, when I already left my company’s London office and took Elizabeth line to Heathrow, I received a notification from Google (not British Airways): Flight XXX delayed arrival – 90 minutes. I don’t remember the exact verbiage, but something like that. Immediately, I looked at my BA boarding pass, but it didn’t show any delays. Since during my Chicago delay, Google was more accurate in estimating the delay time than AA, I thought that I will see the departure time change soon, but nothing came up. I arrived to the airport, waited for the departure in the lounge, still surprised that there was no delay announced, and finally proceeded to boarding. The flight was still perfectly on time, I took my seat, and soon, the boarding was complete.

Then came a usual announcement: “That’s your captain speaking,” and immediately after that he went off script: “So, you heard the thunder when you were boarding, right? Yea, it’s quite a storm going on, and now the traffic control want us to sit here and wait for the storm to clear. We will update you as soon as we know.”

Guess how much we were delayed? Yes, an hour and a half, and yes – just an arrival, not departure!

This left me wonder – how did Google know????

I didn’t want to fly a day before the conference, because I had too much work and in general I thought I could use this time better. However, I didn’t want to fly in right before the conference either, and I was also looking to minimize the cost. I finally ended up on the daytime flight, which would leave Chicago at 8:25 AM and arrive in London at 10:25 local time. That would still give me time for a good night’s sleep, and that was also the least expensive flight. Economy Premium was just slightly more than Economy Classic, but I decided to be mindful and not spend on extras when I didn’t really need them.

That being said, I got up at 4 AM on Tuesday so that I could leave the house at 5 AM and be at the airport at 6 AM, have breakfast at the lounge, and just relax while waiting for the flight. It all worked fine; moreover, it was a very fast rife early in the morning, so I was at the airport by 5-40 AM. I had breakfast, called Boris, and started to write a blog post while waiting. Suddenly, I saw a notification from the AA app (the flight was operated by American Airlines). I opened my boarding pass and saw that the flight was eight hours delayed! I was devastated and ran to the customer service counter in the lounge. They told me there were no other flights: the incoming flight was delayed, but because it was a late arrival to London and London won’t accept night arrivals, we would have to wait till morning in London. That meant the overnight flight, which I wanted to avoid! Also, I didn’t have Economy Premium, and I could not upgrade because there was nothing available!

I decided to go to the office to attend an important meeting, which I would skip otherwise. Also, it was twice faster to get to the office than to go back home. Only when I was almost there did I realize that I had left my office pass at home (and it was done on purpose because I didn’t want to carry around things I wouldn’t need on my trip). The security issued me a temporary pass, but I could not go to the gym or use a shower, or even open the doors to get from one side of the floor to another.

I sent a message to the hotel, asking them to keep my room for my morning arrival, and left for the airport, planning for longer security lines than they were in the morning.

The lines were longer but not terribly long. Fortunately, the AA lounge has showers. I was unsure whether I would have time at the hotel in the morning, and it turned out to be a good call because the flight was delayed for another hour and then we sat for another hour in the aircraft waiting for a takeoff, because the scheduled flight to London was just five minutes apart of t=our new departure time. Thankfully, BA moved me to the front row in the Main cabin, so I had some extra legroom.

Another thing was the food. When possible, I try to order a low-calorie meal, which I tried to do this time as well. However, the system returned “something went wrong” error and I gave up. When I was already seated, a flight attendant asked me whether I had a low-calorie meal, and I said yes, but what they brought to me was vegan, not low-calorie 😀. Nothing wrong with vegan in general, but that meal ended up be barely eatable, and same with the breakfast: they even didn’t give me yogurt which was a part of other people’s breakfast! I did my best to sleep for about 4 hours, and that was the max I could do on a less than 7 hours flight.

The flight landed at 7:08, and I was out of the terminal twenty minutes later (the worst passport control became the faster one in recent years). The conference started at nine, and I still needed to get to the hotel to leave my luggage and change. I message my colleague who was a part of the org. committee to ask whether there is any food at the conference, and he sent me a picture of pastries, so I realized I needed to get some food at the hotel (my room included breakfast, and was pre-paid). I reached the hotel shortly after 8 AM (thanks to Elizabeth Line!) and checked-in. They told me they didn’t have a buffet, and I had to order. The hotel was very old-fashiined (I will post some pictures), and the restaurant looked very respectable. So imagine me rushing in and asking what’s the fastest thing they can make :). They were visibly puzzled by this request and when on to confer, and then said that they can make fried eggs on a toast. To their credit, it was ready in ten minutes – I time it! So I got the eggs and a coffee and took off to the conference, which was in ten-minutes walk.

My mini-vacation started with the horrific flight delay. I was so happy with how I planned Friday, avoiding the congestion at ORD by taking public transportation, only to depart five hours later than it was scheduled!

The good thing is that I was at the AA lounge, so I had food, drinks, and comfortable seating, and also I had instance access to customer service. Eventually, I was put on a flight that departed earlier than my original one. However, we were delayed a couple of times, even on that flight. The aircraft just started to gain ground speed and then stopped, and we were told we would need to wait for the storm to clear! So – one more adventure! At least I was able to get to my friend’s apartment in Boston five minutes after midnight, not in the middle of the night!

That was the first time I booked Economy Premium. I fly business class occasionally when it is company-paid, or when I get an upgrade, but the latter one mostly happen when I travel within Europe. This time I knew I would have to work immediately upon arrival, so I needed some decent sleeping conditions, but I was not ready to purchase business class on my own.

Economy Premium is indeed right between Economy and Business class. In Economy, you sleep almost vertical, in Business, you sleep horizontally, and in Economy Premium, you sleep diagonally. My initial feeling was that it’s still not comfortable enough, but I ended up working for the whole day with no problem, so I guess it was not that bad. The seats are definitely more comfortable, however, the foot rest prevents from placing your backpack under the seat in front of you, so I had to put everything into the overhead.

The food is still bad. Since last year’s sharp decline in the quality of the in-flight food, the only decent meals are in business class. When I fly economy and it’s BA or AA, I try to eat in the lonuge and then sleep through the in-flight dinner. If I fly Finnair, it’s not an option, because the Finnair lounge in ORD is really bad and has virtually no amenities. This time, it was BA, but since the departure was at 5 PM, I had to leave the lounge by 4 PM, sort of too early for dinner. Besides, I was hoping that the food in Economy Premium will be better.

It was not, and also, they asked everyone to lift up their seat during the dinner service, so I won’t be able to sleep anyway. The only thing which was better than in the Economy was that there was a choice of meals, but by the time they got to my row they were out of chicken, and I didn’t like much the other two choices. We’ll see how things will turn out on my flight back!

One shocking thing on this flight was that there was a young woman on the left of me who spoke on the phone all the the time since she sat down, and through al of the safety instructions, and takeoff, until she lost connection and some point. Over an hour total!

While I was typing this post, I got a notification that our flight to Brussels was rebooked for a day earlier. I guess that’s the Universe’s response to my over-scheduled life!