Planes, Trains and Automobiles
So there I was, crunching through the snow on Wilton Street last Saturday night when I should be dodging students on Temple Bar, passing the evening in Dublin en route back to Boston.
It was a great plan, and one that's been executed flawlessly on previous occasions. Even the snow of New Year 2010 that lay a panicky inch thick on O'Connell Street and closed Dublin Airport for that particular departure morning was nothing more than a hindrance on our last wintry odyssey through the British Isles.
Snowmageddon
But then came Snowmageddon. First a little flutter, then a drizzle, then a rush of snow fell just as the cab drew up to take us on the easy forty minute journey out through Kensington, Hammersmith, Chiswick and Hounslow to Heathrow. It was 11:30.
John Hammond at the Met Office was quoted in Monday's Telegraph as saying that the suddenness and brevity of Saturday morning's 10cm fall on London only happens in southern England "about once in 10 or 15 years."
My friend, the meteorologist Philip Eden, warned me when he heard of the trip we were planning to Scotland, Ireland and London to beware of a sudden temperature drop midweek, and I always listen to Philip.
But I also believe in luck, and a bit of planning. Cromwell Road was already resembling a ploughed field, and Lee, our driver, wasn't in the least cowed. "This was clear just half an hour ago", he said.
Just then, the cab windows fogged up altogether. Traffic hummed along at 5 or 6mph, and we congratulated each other on not being in one of the BMWs or Mercedes which were already making heavy weather of the weather. "Must be something about German cars" Lee said, with just a trace of cabbish satisfaction. "Mind you, the old cabs were the best in this sort of thing." Ten or fifteen years ago, he might have added, but didn't.
Heathrow
After just an hour and 20 minutes, skillfully avoiding the Mercedes labouring up the slight hill you have never noticed on the final approach to the airport, Lee dropped us on the confused and snowy margin of Terminal One arrivals. The snow had just stopped and we could see blue sky breaking through the retreating snow clouds.
On the kerb stood a couple with their bags. "Is that your cab?" the young woman demanded. "Keep him. The airport is closed." It was 12:50. Leaving Lee with my wife on the kerb, I set off on a brief voyage of discovery.
In the hall of T1, where there is never enough room to queue at the best of times, people were everywhere. Yet the roped-off check-in area was empty. By walking past the ropes, and slipping into the Aer Lingus area from the top, I was able to get right to a man in the distinctive ground staff yellow vest. "We're closing the airport", he said. "There won't be any flights out for the rest of today. If you live locally, go home."
One of three Aer Lingus check-in agents walking the area in front of the desks handed me a one pager headed Aer Lingus flight disruptions Saturday 18th December 2010. "This'll help", she said. "What flight are you on?"
"Dublin", I answered.
"We haven't cancelled that one", she said. "We're going to try to get that one off, no matter what."
Back at the cab, Lee waved a cheerful farewell after exchanging phone numbers. By this time it was 13:15, and the lower doors to arrivals were blocked by the countervailing queues of Aer Lingus and Air New Zealand, with a bit of bmi thrown in.
We swung back around the top, this time wheeling two fat duffel bags, and managed to weave our way back through a line of manly New Zealanders, parking up within audible range of the three friendly Aer Lingons.
Still, our flight was not cancelled. I confess to owning an iPhone, and a flight tracking app. This little thing perks up within two hours of your flight departing, and can tell you to within a minute whether you will be delayed and for how long - or whether you will be cancelled.
But then at 13:45, following frequent conversations with Yellow Vest Man, the friendliest of all the Lingons started putting out the word. "We're going to be cancelled", she said. "Go on the website now if you can, and rebook for tomorrow."
The bonus about travelling with a laptop which has to be produced and quarantined from the rest of your hand baggage at security is travelling with a laptop.
So, with the thing perilously balanced on a ledge above the bags, we travelled through cyberspace to Aer Lingus, where we read 1) a note from BAA saying the airport would be closed to all incoming and outgoing flights until 4pm at the earliest; 2) "cancelled" in red against our flight; and 3) our confirmation number for the second scheduled flight to Dublin at 08:50 on Sunday morning. This would give us more than enough time to connect with the 14:00 from Dublin to Boston in the afternoon.
Our happiness was complete when I rang Lee the cabbie to discover he was still at the airport having a cup of tea, and would be glad to take us back to London.
Not that you want to hear of all the fun we had with an unexpected dinner invitation that night. But at 23:30 the phone in my pocket buzzed with a text. Aer Lingus regrets to announce the cancellation...
Nobody should have to go on a website to do something as serious as this after such a jolly good dinner, and I was anything but jolly when I saw that the earliest flight on offer would miss our Dublin connection by a mile.
Sunk in gloom, we retreated to an uneasy and short sleep. In a bed, in comfort, which was more than too many of the company still crowding terminal 1 that cold night.
At 05:30 I was scanning the flight app under the covers. From what I could see, ours was the only Dublin Sunday flight to be cancelled from Heathrow. The others, while scheduled, were all full, I knew. It was our bad luck.
Gatwick
Not so bad, maybe. Ryanair was running two flights from Stansted which would have been in time, and Aer Lingus just one from Gatwick. If it was on time it would arrive at noon, just two hours before the Boston flight was due to go. I hate the long journey to Stansted at the best of times.
So I bet the pot on green. And a large pot it was too, but in the likely event of this one being cancelled, the fare was no questions asked refundable. At 0600, BAA posted on the Heathrow website. All inbound flights are cancelled for safety reasons, it said. We plan to be fully operational on Monday. Over at Aer Lingus, all of the day's Dublin flights from Heathrow were cancelled.
08:00, and we were aboard the Gatwick Express, which was busy for a Sunday morning. After gliding past the snow covered ruin that was Battersea Power Station, we even dared to bid Wandsworth Common a fond goodbye.
Anyone who has seen Gatwick's south terminal at holiday time will have an inkling of the scene. In every direction, Gatwick's Zones bled messily into each other like competing attractions at Dante's Inferno.
People waiting to go to Alicante or Malaga or Pisa were trying to wait as patiently as they could, as if somehow they would be rewarded for waiting extra well. But in the distance, an escape hatch beckoned. In a tiny stream through this vast sea we trickled to the nirvana of Zone B.
Down a ramp in exile from the main hall, the Irish airline whose name I will never mention again for fear of being accused of favouritism was operating a tiny heaven's gate for passengers travelling to Dublin on EI235. Within 5 minutes of arrival we were checked in and on our way through security.
The casino chips also came with the perk of lounge access. There is no guiltier pleasure to be had than to be sitting airside munching on a free bacon sandwich not more than 100 yards from Inferno. More than this, we fell into pleasant company with a group of stranded Delta Americans waiting for the 1400 to Charlotte, South Carolina, with connections to Life, Interrupted.
10:00, the original gate time, came and went. The departure board still showed us leaving at 10:45. At 10:20, Please Wait. At 10:30, I spotted something long and green making its way across the big picture windows from right to left and draw up at gate 6. It's Gate 6, I said to my wife. Fancy that, an arriving flight. All of us, seasoned travellers, stared and marvelled.
By 1100, gate 6 was getting a bit warm, what with all these bodies. A lengthy wait to have our boarding passes checked by a wordless Yellow Vest Man was succeeded by torpor, uninterrupted by any word from, or sign of, earthly representative of my favourite airline.
Our neighbour, a Massachusetts healthcare consultant named Clark, made full use of the time to call his travel agent and book a place on the following day's flight from Dublin to Boston.
On the plane
Still, just as all seemed to be heading for an especially excruciating Dante's corner, we were swept forward on a human wave and borne into a long green Airbus A320. It was 1130, with the plane door still open. An hour past take off time, the door swung shut and our captain spoke for the first time. "Thank you for your patience. The snow has had knock-on effects - a lot of ground staff couldn't make it to work", he said. "We are about to begin refueling."
At 1200, I watched the first officer sign the BP tanker driver's chit for the fuel, shake his hand and make a gesture just as Biggles would. He's given him a thumbs-up, I reported to my wife. Who, with two hours before Dublin take-off time, didn't want to know.
At 12:10, the captain reported he was waiting for a member of the ground crew to give him a loading total. The luggage hatch below my window swung open, and the
first of two buses unloaded happy passengers for the holiday airliner which had meanwhile arrived on the next stand.
At 12:25, the captain reported we were only waiting for the luggage to be loaded, which is when it dawned that the six large green containers sitting under the port wing were our large green cargo containers. A Yellow Vest Man stood nearby, doing nothing obvious.
At 12:45, the holiday airliner which had been on the stand next to us taxied off. Another Yellow Vest Man arrived and chatted amiably with the first. At 12:50, YVM#3 showed up, driving one of those conveyors that loads luggage containers on to planes and proceeded to do same.
YVM#1 waved and shouted a question, then pivoted the first luggage container around. He did the same for all six. A man in a Red Vest showed up, wearing a clipboard, and proceeded to do nothing obvious. Fifteen minutes later YVM#3 had loaded all the luggage apparently by himself, a heroic effort, and we pushed back.
The snow lay about the runways in small hills and then about the hills of Snowdonia below us. We took a few shortcuts, the pilot explained.
Incredibly, we arrived in Dublin at 1412, just time in time to see what turned out to be our flight for Boston pushing back on the black Irish tarmac. An urgent rush through the baggage hall to the transfer desk would only confirm what we already knew. And then we met Our Hero.
Not only did he book us seats there and then for the next day's Boston flight, but he organized free room and board for us at Dublin's best airport hotel. The man is a saint. And that is that, as we repair to Boston this Monday afternoon, a day late and a dollar short. Which is, in the circumstances, almost incredible.
(Flight EI 137 from Dublin landed at Boston's Logan airport in a snowstorm at 5.19PM on Monday, 1 hour and 14 minutes late. Virgin Atlantic flight 11 from London Heathrow landed at Boston in the same snowstorm, 2 hours and 2 minutes late at 7.27PM. Two later arriving British Airways flights from Heathrow were cancelled. Dublin airport closed for a short period after snowfall in the afternoon.)
After a brief hiatus, Rhod Sharp is back presenting Up All Night.
