Better late than never

My 11:55am flight out of Melbourne on Oct 10 was heavily delayed by “unscheduled maintenance”. By the time they rectified the problem the crew had missed their window to work safely and a whole new crew was required for the plane to leave. It took till 9pm that night for a full crew to be assembled in Melbourne and QF025 was finally on it was way and my trip began in earnest.

Melbourne sunset Oct 10 2008

Our flight took us through Auckland and on to Los Angeles where I was to connect through to Vancouver with Air Alaska. News of the delay in Melbourne saw Qantas move all but three of the passengers due to join us in Auckland to an earlier Air New Zealand flight to LA. When the majority of passengers disembarked in Auckland it quickly became obvious that only a handful of people would be joining me for the second half of the trip to LA. When we finally re-boarded the plane at 3am, 35 of us took a row each on the 747-300 and got comfortable. By this stage it was obvious that I would miss my connecting flight to Vancouver and Qantas were unsure which flight I would be included on.

For me the delay was a blessing in disguise. Not only did it make the flight very comfortable with more than a row each on the plane and as many meals as you could eat (four dinners and a breakfast) it meant I had to spend a night in LA at Qantas’ expense as the only available connecting flight for me was now on Saturday. I was put up in the Hilton for the night. With LA being in the same time zone as Vancouver this proved to be a comfortable place for me to catch up on some sleep and allow my body to adjust in comfort.

By 10am Saturday morning, fresh from the Hilton, I was on my Air Alaska flight to Vancouver and pretty excited to be on the final leg of the trip. We flew out of LA on a perfect blue sky day with the HOLLYWOOD sign visible from the runway and the flight North over the city a great picture of what a huge city LA is. The surrounding landscape of LA is also quite amazing. Again this flight was empty and I enjoyed and exit row to myself - all in all for my $290 I scored a pretty comfortable trip across the world.