French Air Traffic Control

I was still full when I woke up the next morning, so we didn't rush out for breakfast.

Instead I had to pack, and make room for the bottle of wine in my case. Our flight was later this afternoon, so we had time for a leisurely latte and a croissant. We decided to take the metro to the airport as it wasn't too complicated, just a five minute walk, then a straight ride to the airport.


We passed through security and headed straight to the lounge; this was the last opportunity to have more Bulgarian red wine as I'm never 100% confident if my luggage, or in this case the wine, is going to make it back in one piece. We were enjoying the hospitality, but there was no sign of our flight boarding. And this seemed to continue even past the scheduled departure. 


We were eventually called to board, and the pilot was extremely apologetic; turns out French Air Traffic Control was on strike and the whole of the world was impacted. We sat on the tarmac for an indiscriminate amount of time, and it was looking more and more like we were going to miss our connection.

Aside from the fact that we might not make it home, we had a great flight but I think that was mostly due to the Champagne. We landed at Heathrow and followed the flight connections sign; unfortunately, as we tried to use our boarding passes to get through, we were blocked. We had already been taken off the flight so we had to go to customer services, but the queue was massive. There are, however, benefits to flying Business Class as we got taken pretty quickly. 

Unfortunately, there were no available seats for the rest of the day so we were put in a hotel overnight with dinner and breakfast vouchers. Now that would have been ok, had I had my original carry on, but I had to put my case in the hold because of the wine. So I had no clothes and no toiletries.

We set off to find the bus to the hotel, it wasn't particularly clear which one we needed, but we knew it would be the one with the massive queue. We decided to ask the other bus driver just to be sure, and he offered to drop us across the road from our hotel, which we happily accepted. 

To be honest, I wasn't expecting much, but the hotel looked like a prison. We checked in and headed for dinner and I am wishing we didn't. It was obviously quickly put together as there were a huge number of people in the same position as us, and it was terrible. We decided to have a drink at the bar then head to bed; we even got overcharged for that! (£18 for a pint and a wine, it should have been £17...!) I did get a half pint as an apology though.



The bed was at least comfortable, and breakfast wasn't as bad as dinner. 

We decided to leave for the airport straight away as we had lounge access and it wouldn't quite be as depressing as the hotel. This is when we realised the next problem...

There were a large number of people waiting for the bus to transfer us to Terminal 5, we had even heard some people had been waiting for over an hour. Unfortunately, if the bus was full, it wouldn't even come into the hotel car park so you can imagine being one of the closest hotels to the airport and the huge number of flight cancellations and delays, we were screwed. We decided to be smart and get the Terminal 3 & 4 bus which seemed to be quiet, and at least we would be at the airport and could get the train over to Terminal 5. 

It was slightly inconvenient, but we made it to the lounge and then onto Edinburgh. Thankfully, my luggage made it, and also the wine!

It was the end of a very interesting holiday, and it ignited a spark and a plan for the next adventure, or two!









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