The majority of this post was written during a layover in Vancouver on August 17, 2007. Lack of Internet access and laptop going poof prevented me from posting this until now...
I do not understand what is going on with me and flights out of Toronto. Last time, my flight to New York City got canceled due to weather. This time, I was heading towards Seattle via Vancouver. The weather was nearly perfect in Toronto, Sunny f/16 conditions with a few fluffy clouds. Checked-in and passed through security without any problems. They started boarding the plane 30 minutes before departure time, as expected. Everything was going well. Mission McGregor was on track.
I got onto the plane and zzzzz'd. After a while, I woke up to a PA announcement saying there was a slight delay in my flight. Apparently, some baggage handler had rammed one of the baggage containers against the cargo door of the plane. Mechanics were being dispatched to examine the damage to the door. The pilot assured us this would be fairly quick. I continued to sleep, and woke up again when the gentleman seated in front of me asked an attendant for an update. I looked at the time and it was already an hour past our scheduled departure time!! I had a two hour (now only one) layover, which includes a baggage claim and U.S. custom clearance. My connecting flight was in jeopardy!!! I was totally awake.
The pilot soon came on and apologized for the delay. He told us the mechanics crew were wrapping up their inspection, and were coming up to report to him on the issue. Another 10-15 minutes later, the pilot comes on again. He informed us the mechanics thought that the damage was not serious and that we would likely be able to push back soon. Under these situations, the mechanics are obligated to perform an "ultrasound" scan on the cargo door. They would feed the data into a computer (another 15 minutes process), and once that is okay, we'll have clearance for take-off.
10 minutes later. "Ladies and Gentlemen. This is the Captain again. I regret to inform you that we have bad news. The cargo door sustained damage just beyond the limits for flight safety. The air frame structure was compromised. The plane is now grounded." We were told to wait as they were checking to see if another plane was available.
Text to McGregor Commander: "Cargo door busted. plane grounded. Stuck in T O. :("
Everyone got off the plane a few minutes later, as they arranged another aircraft. I looked at the departure boards, and saw a direct flight to Seattle leaving in 15 minutes. ARGH! I was listening in on the ground agent discussing the situation with some other passengers. A few interesting issue came up.
- Would they hold the Vancouver -> Honolulu -> Sydney flight for 2-3 hours for the 20 or so passengers connecting from our flight? On first thought, 20 passengers is like almost 10% of your aircraft! Why not hold the plane? Apparently, there were other factors, involved in the decision. The main one is that if Air Canada decides to hold the flight, any missed connections in Australia (i.e. connections onto Melbourne or Perth) for the entire flight's passengers would be Air Canada's financial responsibility. The final decision was that putting up the 20 passengers in hotels in Vancouver would be cheaper.
- The idiot ground crew who broke our plane would be fired. The agent said it very matter-of-factly. A small little mistake (the guy probably didn't play enough games as a kid, and move the joystick a little too far) that ended up costing the company a lot of money and his job. Poor guy.
Anyway, we finally took off, 3.5 hours later. The service on the flight was very nice. They offered complimentary alcoholic beverages (Food and alcoholic drinks require ca$h now). The flight attendants were all very apologetic for the delay the entire trip.
There are flights between Toronto and Vancouver every hour. The next flight had also been delayed. Ended up having three flights to Vancouver within 5-10 minutes of each other. Dumb thing was they dispensed the baggage from all three Toronto flights on the same claim carousel.
There weren't any more flights to Seattle that night, so I got a free hotel stay at Delta Airport. I was looking for ways to get to Seattle that night, since it's only a 3 hour drive away. New meaning to the phrase, "So close yet so far!!!" (This is a recurring theme throughout the McGregor experience). Ended up just taking the free hotel.
Meet a couple people also in the same boat as me. One girl lives in Vancouver, but was going down to Seattle to see her bf. She's going down Saturday morning now, only to return to Vancouver on Sunday. Her parents dropped by the hotel to pick up some of her stuff. The reason why she spent the night @ Delta instead of at home? "Air Canada is going to pay for this" (fiasco & hotel). Another girl going to Seattle spent 3 years in Kenya. It was very cool listening to her stories about life in Kenya. I was amazed at her fresh perspective on so many simple things we take for granted.
As I checked in, the front desk staff apologetically gave me a breakfast coupon for $6.60. "Sorry it's so little, but that's how much Air Canada reimburses us." Since I had asked the Air Canada agent about meal vouchers, I knew that I had at least $10 breakfast AND $15 dinner. When I pointed that out, the front desk dude exclaimed, "Wow, Air Canada is generous tonight!" Ended up getting a $25 shrimp & chicken pasta with a glass of Mission Hill Chardonnay at the nearby Elephant & Castle. Breakfast was a very hearty continental breakfast (valued at $14.99, but they gave it to me for $10 - the voucher value).
Got to the airport at 6:30am. There were like 20 people in line to check-in, but only one ticketing agent. Waited for over 30 minutes, only to find out that I haven't been booked on the 8:10am flight. Air Canada is SOOO useless (the contents of a letter is already forming in my head). The group of us were, understandably, quite pissed. Since it was past 7am already, they couldn't add us to the 8:10am flight roster (US regulations), so I ended up getting booked on 9:00am flight. I wasn't in a very good mood.
As I was lining up for US immigration, this Air Canada agent ran up and asked if I was suppose to be on yesterday's flight to Seattle. He had apparently just put me on standby roster for the 8:10am flight! I literally ran to the gate and boarded the aircraft just in time. My luggage bags had express and standby tags tacked on and they managed to catch the plane as well.
Ended up being the last of Team McGregor to arrive into Seattle. MrMonk's 3rd of 4th trip to airport in 24 hours. More on that another time...