When I scheduled this trip to La Cadiere d’Azur for Sebastian’s wedding, it was not my intention to spend one of my four allocated days at Heathrow. But here I am with a 12-hour layover. It all started with Delta delaying my flight from DTW to CDG by 6 hours due to their inability to maintain the integrity of their fleet. So I was then re-booked on a flight to Heathrow that would have resulted in my getting to Marseille airport at 4:00pm instead of 9:00am this morning. But then the secondary re-booking (BA out of LHR to MRS) was cancelled and I was re-booked once again on a flight departing LHR only at 5:15 pm, getting in at 8:15 pm. So I spent 10 hours at Heathrow. Just now finishing up my second meal. As usual, Delta accepts no accountability for extra time and no compensation in terms of meal reimbursement or extra miles or perks. They know they have us all by the balls because we make our purchasing decisions on where we live and loyalty programs and in the end, airlines industry is a commodity business anyway–they are one in the same for the most part.
Anyway, I read a little, caught up the blog, wandered around the airport, had a couple of coffees, napped a little on a bench and texted with Laeitia, Sjored, Brian, Anand and my great friend Maneesha in Sydney.
Oh, the story got worse. We ended up sitting on the tarmac at LHR for 45 minutes and so were almost another hour delayed getting in to Marseille. Also, the gate agent made me check my baggage even while loads of others were boarding with carry-ons the same size or even larger than mine. She kept saying it would not fit and I pointed out the guy just ahead of me who she let through who had the exact same Sharper Image roller than I used and have carried on flights all over the world now for 3 years or so.
Just one of those days. Now at the airport at Marseille just waiting for Sjoerd and to pick me up.
The Martini Tales 