Wake, Work, Walk and Wait...

Today was our last day in the Genoa office for this week. The weather yesterday was warm (15C) and sunny, but today colder and greyer. The day passed without event, so we headed for the airport on foot from the office in plenty of time for the flight home. Neither of us has stopped for lunch, so we found something in the sole cafe apparent before the security controls, ahead of the rigmarole of emptying pockets, removing belts and watches and all the rest for the x-ray machine and scanner.

The airport is small by most standards, which is a good thing for a relatively frequent traveller wanting to get home. The gate opened just as we arrived and with my priority boarding pass, I headed along the air bridge towards the tarmac. It was cold. My travelling companion towards the back of the queue was enjoying relative warmth, with another priority boarder unable to get to the front due to her late arrival at the gate. In the warm.

And there we waited for quite some time. A plane had arrived, failed to land and circled for its second attempt, thankfully successfully. It was the plane we should have taken back to Stagnated airport but due to a technical failure, it was going nowhere.

Consequently, we were all called back into the departure lounge. The next seven hours passed slowly, although our fellow passengers were providing plenty of entertainment.

Due to the technical failure, another reserve air crew had to be mobilised, the spare part brought onto a replacement plane and flown all the way from Stagnated airport to collect us from Genoa. All but one of us managed to get on board with our boarding passes (isn't there always one) and to top it all, a discrepancy with passenger numbers had to be resolved (by one passenger eventually leaving the flight).

Instead of 7pm, it was 2am before I arrived at home. The cabin crew had been on duty for just about 12 hours when we landed.