Traveling home for the holidays. This time I booked a flight in the afternoon, so no early alarm clock or other annoying stuff. 🙂

Since I have two pieces of luggage, I opt for the taxi to the airport. Expensive, but much much easier. All three flights are operated by SAS and I should be home at 22:00 (10 pm).

Fast flight to Oslo. Beautiful weather in Molde, a little bit cloudy and cold in Oslo. A short transfer and a snack in the international lounge later it is already time to board the flight to Copenhagen. This is a travel of short flights. As soon as you are up in the air, you are down again.

The overlay in Copenhagen is a little bit longer. About 3,5 hours. That gives me time for a stroll through the TaxFree shop, an old fashioned Danish Hot Dog and then a stay in the lounge for the rest of the time. Watching some videos to pass the time.

Time to go to the gate. But instead of SAS staff at the gate, there is a message on the board, that we will get information about out flight at 21:00 – 15 minutes after departure time. Yeah… delay on the last leg. But some of us, who like to travel and travel a lot, check on different apps. Our plane should come from Gdansk (Poland) but was diverted to Warsaw and is still standing there. This smells a lot like a cancellation going to happen.

Just before 21:00 the SAS app tells us “New departure time 21:30”, while others get the information “New information 21:30”. We are now sure that the flight will be cancelled. Even if they find a new plane, the airport in Düsseldorf has a ban for flights after 23:00. We will never make that. Now we have to remember the rights a passenger has in the EU.

Before everybody else got the cancellation message, we are already on the way to the service counter (apps are faster than some SMS). I have been rebooked to a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt at 6:40 in the morning and a connecting flight to Düsseldorf with arrival 10:15. I am lucky, some other people have to take later flights through Vienna (and other cities) and arrive in the afternoon.

The staff is very nice and give the needed information about what happens next. (some idiot passengers are complaining and rude to the staff – this is not their fault!). I get two taxi vouchers to/from the hotel which is the Scandic Sydhavnen. Getting my luggage and checking it in for the next morning. Just a quick call home that I won’t make it today (my parents already got the information from the net and were smart enough to wait at home) and then into the taxi to the hotel.

Arrival at 22:30. The hotel has organized some baguettes and drinks for us. I buy a toothbrush (checked in the luggage of course) and hit the hay. Unfortunately, someone thought that it was a good idea to warm up a bedroom to 24 degrees… I don’t manage to cool it down enough, so it is a short night and not the best sleep I get in the warm room.

Next morning a taxi to the airport. Security is empty and I am at the gate early. Getting some breakfast at Lagkakehuset and then it is time to board my LH flight to Frankfurt. Sitting in the back of the full plane. No big deal – the flight only takes 70 minutes and I am between sleeping and awake all the time. We have a 30 minutes delay, thanks to necessary deicing.

At Frankfurt a long walk from the A-gates to the B-gates (the airport is just to big) and getting there just minutes before they start boarding. Perfect. Just four idiots that checked in luggage, but never showed. So we get 30 minutes delay because the bags have to be found and unloaded.

Finally om the way to Düsseldorf and this is a very short flight. So everybody is happy to get the luggage. But wait… the staff behind the scenes is working like 1 bag on the belt a minute… unbelievable. And after waiting a looooong time, 6 of us (all from the Copenhagen flight) are still waiting for their luggage. I got 1 of 2 (yeah), but of course we have to get to the luggage counter and give them all the information to get the luggage delivered. I my case, it was found fast and came from Frankfurt two flights later. Delivered home the next day.

Home more then 12 hours after planned arrival. But home! 🙂

And now the EU261 claim (SAS says it was the weather and doesn’t want to pay… so still writing to them).