Getting the Flights.

Naturally the weather in Calgary on the departure day was as bad as we have had this year. So U was at the airport five hours before the flight. scheduled for 19:30. This connection was tight, leaving under an hour in Frisco to make the change. The person at the counter said this flight was delay so I was put on an Air Canada flight leaving at 17:30. How lucky I said to myself, plenty of time to make the change in Frisco.

The flight was meant to board around 17:00. A slight problem arose. I had cleared US customes but right after their computer went down and they were clearing no one. We could not board since there was no flight crew. Eventually, around 17:30 most of the crew arrived and we boarded. No departure as we had to wait for people on late arrivals who were to be on this flight. And one crew member was still missing in action. Finally, a bit before 18:00 every one was on board. Of course then another problem arose. There were no ground crews as many had been pressed into service to clear snow and to care for the backlog. Finally one arrived and the plane was towed 30 meters or so, to what the Captain told us was the deicing area. But of course the deicing trucks were all busy. Not to worry sad the Captain as one truck was almost finished with another plane and it would not take long.

During this time we were given complimentary juice and the very nice av system was turned on. Each of us had our own screen on the back of the seat in front and had a wide choice of things to view. I went to the Hollywood movies section and decided, since it was a movie I would never pay to see, to watch the Abba based movie Mamma Mia. Of course every time an announcement was made the movie shut down.

Around 19:00 the truck came and deicing began a bit after 19:00. Oh well I said there will still be time and I should leave before the United flight had been scheduled to leave. Deicing began and it was not speedy. Finally around 19:45 they finished and we were cleared for takeoff. Oh well I said I should still make my flight in Frisco, though of course the luggage change was doubtful. I had not realized that there was a three mile journey taxiing before the actual takeoff. Finally around 20:00 we were in the air. I was not optimistic.

Our treat for the delay was one free drink. Nothing like a Caesar to calm the pessimistic Steven. The movie kept getting interrupted as they do not use the av system at any critical point. During the course of the flight I did manage to watch all of the movie- the resume where it stopped function kicked in. The movie was not very good but was watchable save for the poor performance and ghastly singing of Pierce Brosnan,

In the middle of the flight the crew contacted the 8 of us (4 UAL and 4 Quantas) who were heading on to Sydney. We would be deplaned first and met at the gate by airline personnel.

We arrived in Frisco after 21:30 and were met by the airline people. Then the run started as of course we had to clear various check point. The person leading our pack of four was a good runner and seemingly in good shape. One of our party was a man of roughly my age who had one bad leg- he more or less kept up with a rather lopsided trot. At one point I fell behind him as I was out of breath. The run was around half an hour including the clearing of the checkpoints. But we did arrived on time as the boarding on the Sydney flight had been delayed and was just starting.

The plane departed only a few minutes late.