Updated: Never — Philip's Blog

07:55 EDT

I don't seem to have much luck with volcanoes. At least this time, I don't have any visa constraints and to be honest: there are worse things than being stranded in Canada.

Last night at 18:40, I intended to fly from Ottawa to Heathrow, but just before boarding time, the flight was delayed six hours. While sitting it out would have been an option, it would have been a serious pain (and probably an expensive pain) to find last-minute accomodation around midnight. I quickly decided to reroute.

I am very impressed with Air Canada's treatment of other Star Alliance carriers' Gold status passengers. While they don't have ticketing desks in the lounge, the friendly lounge dragon gave me an Air Canada "super elite" hotline number which answered me on the first ring. The lady on the phone could immediately book me on a 21:00 flight to Toronto and today's 18:40 flight from Toronto to Frankfurt and tomorrow's 09:35 flight to Brussels.

Unfortunately, she could only "book" and not "ticket". I'm not sure what the distinction is, but getting it "ticketed" seems to have involved virtual money changing hands between Air Canada and Lufthansa (with whom my original itinerary was booked). The friendly lady at the ticketing desk in Ottawa spent about 45 minutes on the phone sorting that out for me and all went well.

Unfortunately, there's no status tier which allows one to reroute friends who are similarly stuck, so I had to leave behind a number of FreeBSDists who would have been on the same plane to Heathrow. I hope they get home well in short order.

In unrelated news, I discovered why I was getting the "intimate" treatment at security the last couple of times I've flown. Something in my shoes seems to be setting the beepy machines off.

If all goes well, I should be back in Europe on Tuesday morning.

I think it's time they turned their volcano off.