Vivek’s Blog

Now I know that I failed to follow up on my “Broadband Farce India” entry but hey! I have a better chance now that I am using DataOne. I’ll write that part 2 once I get back to NY. For now, let’s move on with the horror stories series. It has 2 parts

So I got on board my flight at JFK on Thursday, December 22, 2005 at 9:35pm and the plane took off around 10pm. It landed at Frankfurt Aiport (Fraport) pretty much on time despite light fog. I was sitting around waiting for them to announce the boarding. They announced that the flight will be delayed by around an hour. I hated that. International Travel sucks as it is and delays make it worse. So the plane finally departed Fraport more than an hour behind schedule. Our pilot informed us that this was because they were expecting low-visibility conditions in New Delhi and so they had to switch aircraft. The one designated to fly to Delhi has issues with its low-visibility landing gear hence the delay. That was cool. The delay was just to ensure that we didn’t have landing problems.

So at around 2am, our flight approacjed Delhi. But I noticed a curious thing. The flight data showed that we were still at our cruising altitude and were just circling around Delhi airport. I thought maybe we don’t have clearance yet. And then our captain tells us that due to heavy fog, elhi airport has been shutdown. I was pissed. They wouldn’t let us land even though we had CAT 3B landing equipment - this was the reason for our delay!! We circled around for another half an hour hoping that conditions would improve but they never did. What happened next? We flew to Chennai. Apparently that was the closest airport that we could fly to.

So we landed at Chennai at around 5am and had to wait further until they had decided what to do with us. Finally, it was announced that those wishing to travel with Lufthansa back to Delhi would be put in a hotel while others were free to do as they chose. I decided to go along with the flow as went to the hotel - The Trident Hilton near the airport. I called up my parents to let them know what was happening and then tried to get some sleep. I saw the news for a bit and fell asleep around 8:15am. Slept soundly until 12:10pm when my alarm woke me up. I showered, got ready and went to get lunch. Lunch was good and free. Finally, I left for the airport in a hotel car, got on line, went through the procedures and got on board the plane. It was scheduled to depart at 6 but left around 6:30pm. Anyway, it landed at 9pm under foggy conditions again. My suitcases came in pretty much last which I gladly took and went out to meet my parents. Thus I came back almost 20 hours after I was supposed to land. It was tiring as hell and I was relieved to finally get home on Sunday. Part 2 will chronicle what happened between Sunday and today. As of now, I need to get off this UPS and find something to do until the electricity comes back on.