I woke up in advance of my alarm. That was somewhat surprising given the late nights all week but also good news given the early flight this morning. Out the door by 6, at the airport by 7 and an 8am departure was the plan. It fell apart pretty much right from the start.
OK, so even with being up early I was still a bit late cramming the last few things into my bag and getting out the door. Plus no taxis at the taxi stand on the corner. Oops. But I had planned a buffer there and was OK with the brief delay. Still made it to the airport 10 minutes ahead of schedule. I’m a bit slow moving right now due to some foot issues so I figured I’d try to get on the earlier 7:30am flight if I could, easing my connection time.
Entering the terminal I discovered that my flight was posting a delay of unknown duration. I had booked with only an hour layover in Frankfurt to begin with. A delay would be very bad. Now the 7:30am flight was not a “nice to have” option; missing it meant likely missing my flight to Dallas. Turns out the news was worse than I thought. The flight was not just delayed; it was canceled.
There was much talking in German between agents and eventually I was handed a new boarding pass for the early flight. Sure, it was a middle seat in coach rather than the window in business I had booked, but making the connection was key and this would let that happen. Turns out the middle seat was an exit row which would have been just fine for me. It also turns out that Dr. Li had boarded the aircraft shortly before I did and was sitting in 11B when I got there. Oops.
The flight attendant was quick to make some calls and eventually came back with a smile and great news: “1C; much more space.” Huzzah!
Our 7:30am flight became something a bit more like a 7:50am flight as they completed rebooking most of the canceled 8am passengers but we were on the ground in Frankfurt by 9am, a bit late for the original 7:30am passengers but early for me. No troubles at all making that connection save for the crazy line at the Lufthansa Lounge which prevented me from getting one last German pretzel before leaving the country. Given that I averaged more than 2/day during my week here I’m pretty sure that’s OK.
And, in the end, everything worked out just fine; I’m posting this from somewhere over the North Atlantic Ocean using the in-flight wifi on Lufthansa and enjoying my comfy seat and tasty meal.
The mild concern over no taxis and the happiness of just getting a middle seat. Frustration over a double booking and elation over the solution. And, in the end, simple relief over getting where I’m supposed to be. The emotional ups and downs of a simple trip can be quite interesting.
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Glad you made it — did you hurt the foot in Hamburg or at home? If Hamburg, I could only imagine the highjinx! (sp?).
What are your thoughts of LH Business? Looks like an awfully small foot cubby.
Glad you made it but as you might imagine, as I read it, I had visceral recall of many of the things that were happening since it has happened to all of us from time to time. Seeing your bad foot propped up in that picture was a relief to me. Hope it recovers quickly.
Trevor, LH new business is quite OK, not the best out there though. You’re welcome to read my flight report HND-FRA here: http://theflyingexpert.com/2015/04/16/flight-report-lufthansa-tokyo-haneda-frankfurt-business-class/ — make sure to translate to english in Chrome or whatever 🙂 (sorry, no english version yet, working on it)
Sadly the injury came at home and without a particularly good story.
Ha ha – Frankfurt. Connections under 2 hours are always very risky. Trust me, a few years ago I was practically living in that airport. But it offers super great connections.
Frankfurt is much better now with the new A/Z pier added on. Piece of cake making the connection once I got there.
I can’t believe this is actually a full blown blog post. So you switched from a later flight to an earlier flight and made your connection…okay? When I read the headline, I thought there was going to be a bit more “meat on the bones.” This is something that happens to thousands of travelers a day. You were accommodated on an earlier flight because the later one was cancelled.