I'm in Mexico. Been here for a week now. Things turned out quite well in the end, but I was lucky, very lucky! Here is a quick sum up of how lucky I got.
Friday evening: packing, got a phone call from my friend Viviana (who was travelling with me together with Maite) "flights are cancelled". Calling KLM who tells me there are no availabilities before Monday... Deciding with V and M to go to the airport on Saturday morning with the luggage and see how things are going.
Saturday morning, 8 o'clock: after 4 hours of sleep (couldn't sleep the night before so I watch Entourage until 4AM), we're going to the airport and the KLM disk. All major airports are closed heathrow, Amsterdam, Frankfurt... It's a total chaos in Europe. But Paris is still open. The girls are flying business, me economy. The business line is muuuuch shorter so they ask the lady if she can help me as well. The lady says she can't because she has too much work and keeps processing Maite's file. After that she tells us to keep our voice low and that she's been processing mine as well. We are flying to Paris the same day and to Mexico the day after. In business all 3 of us: she gave me an upgrade!!! We renamed her "Sunshine".
After that, we go and check in our luggages, pass security and to the Business lounge. The clock is 11 something and we finally get some breakfast. Wait for a couple of hours since the flight is delayed and finally depart to Paris.
Get our luggages back and go and check in at the hotel we booked from the business lounge. Shower, TV, dinner and sleep. Tomorrow is another day.
Sunday: morning: Maite studies, Viviana reads her mail and plays on her iPhone, I watch TV. At 12.30 we leave the hotel and head towards the terminal 2E and check-in for us, lucky business travellers. Took around 2 hours. Umpf! Under that time, we learn that Gothenburg airport is closed and that there are no connections between Got and Paris... We made the good choice to leave on that Saturday! (Amsterdam was still closed...)
Our flight was initially planned at 16.15 but delayed at 18.15, when we checked-in the stewardess mentioned the possibility of a departure at 22.54, ouch! We decided to forget that possibility and went to the business lounge. There, they said they would announce the boarding time. So we start eating, reading and anything to try to kill time. After a couple of hours (we arrived there around 15), Viviana and I decide to go duty free shopping, on the way there we check the screen that shows 18.45 instead of 18.15. "At least things are happening" we think... When we get back to the lounge, it now says 19.15... eh, I hope we're not going to be delayed 30 more min every 5 minutes! Back at our seats with more food and more drink and more bore... Every once in a while during the whole afternoon I was checking the screens when suddenly our flight says boarding. So I go to the info disk and ask "yes, they started boarding, you should go there now". They never announced anything! Thank God I checked!
So we start going to the gate, and do the boarding. There's no queue. Mmmh... are we first? After that we arrive in those glass corridors but the doors to the plane are closed, we push the door anyway, get in the plane: empty! Dirty like after a flight! But not a single person! We take a couple of pics in the pilot cabin and then leave: this can't be our plane... That's when I spot a bus under the glass corridor with Mexico and our flight number on it. We go down and get in the bus together with another couple. "Is this the first bus?" we ask. "No, it's the third, you're the last passengers". Ooops! When we get in the plane, the crew greats us, closes the doors and says Let's go! They were really waiting for us!!!
The plane was half full only due to all the people that couldn't reach Paris for their connection... But anyway in business you don't notice such a big difference... What a service, what a level of comfort. AirFrance for long and short flights is really not the same. Oh my god the food! And the quality of the staff. Let's pray I get and update on the way back too! ;)
When we landed in Mexico City, the pilot announced us that after we left, it started snowing again in Paris and that they had closed the airport again. Lucky is the name for this trip for me.
After that, all has gone very well but that will be another post. Stay tuned! Pics to come as well...
