Entry 4 – Australia to Canada flight time turmoil May 2022
It was time to head to Canada a distance of about 20,000 kilometres from our home.
Our first flight was a domestic flight, Adelaide to Melbourne. It was a 7am departure flight and the current recommendations were to present yourself at the airport at least 2 hours prior your flight time. We had decided to spend the prior night in accommodation at the airport, planning to start a long day of travel as comfortable as possible.
Our tow tug was parked up at Steve’s parent’s home not as far from the airport and his sister had offered to take us to the airport. We had a last iconic Australian meal of a pie and chips for tea. We were waved off by Steve’s parents.
Once again, we checked our flight schedule and all appeared to be correct at bed time.
We presented at the airport check in counter at 5am to be informed there was no flight available for us as our seats had been cancelled. After about 45 minutes of negotiation, we were allocated different seats on the same flight.
We collected our baggage at Melbourne airport and set out to locate the Air New Zealand check in counter whom we had originally booked our flights with. Mary spent another 40 minutes with the services officer sorting the rest of our flights. All seemed in order again. We watched our next aircraft land at the terminal and all appeared good.
There was the announcement our departure time would be delayed by 20 minutes due to the late arrival of the aircraft. Eventually we boarded, then there was an announcement we were in need to wait longer due to baggage. Eventually we started to taxi out to the departure runway about 50 minutes late.
We were close to the runway and stopped for a period of time. Then there was an announcement there had been a medical emergency with one of the passengers and we returned to our departure gate.
The plane entered the sky nearly 2 hours late. About 3 ½ hours later we arrived at our transit airport where we were to change planes. Before exiting the plane there was an announcement requesting everyone to stay seated except for passengers in need to catch a connecting flight which included us.
We arrived at our next departure gate as they were announcing the boarding for our flight. We quickly got ourselves in order for boarding and were in the last 5 people to board.
Our final leg was a flight of about 14 hours. We had decided to utilise a skycouch in the economy section for this leg of our journey. This was a row of 3 seats with retracting leg rests where the seat could be converted to a smallish bed. It was tight and we obtained about 5 hours of reasonable sleep.
We arrived on time at Vancouver airport feeling relieved we had made it at our scheduled time.
We were feeling quite fatigued after our long flights and anxious while waiting at the luggage carousel, hoping our cases had also arrived. It was a delightful feeling to see all of our luggage appear. We made it through the border force screening procedure with very little drama before exiting to a delightful greeting by our hosts Taylor and Ernie. We had been in a climate controlled environment for the last 46 hours and on exiting the airport terminal we were hit hard by the cold Canadian air temperature of about 12 C. It felt like walking into a freezer.
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