Winter-Vacation-Flight-Chaos

Today’s my “day of lift-off”, again down to Singapore, for my 10 day Christmas vacation in the sun.
Well… at least that’s what’s written on my passenger receipt before Europe was hit by the low “Petra” a few days ago and the European flight schedule doesn’t exist anymore.
London Heathrow and Gatwick are closed, Frankfurt cancelled more than 400 flights on Sunday – and even the Deutsche Bahn (Germany’s train company) informed the passengers not to use the train on Sunday afternoon.

Originally the itinerary reads:
   19:10hr   flight Stuttgart – Frankfurt (ETA 20:00hr)
   22:10hr  flight Frankfurt – Singapore (ETA 16:55hr)

Due to the fact that Europe is drowning in snow & ice these days the flight Stuttgart – Frankfurt was already cancelled yesterday around 11:30hr.
So I went directly to the airport (there’s absolutely no chance to get through at the Lufthansa free call hotline) to change my domestic flight into a train ticket, which results that I have to take now the train from Stuttgart to Frankfurt at 13:27hr (ETA at my “main airport” at 14:38hr).

Meanwhile the Lufthansa iPhone app informed me in the wee hours today that the “main flight” is also delayed – ETS from Frankfurt will be now 22:44hr with ETA 17:09hr).

Now I can only hope that I’ll be able to get a seat in the train and that the way at the airport to the check-in counter will not be too crowded (can’t the people inform themself before they go to the airport?!).

At least I’m still in a better position than my co-worker Frank, who went to a weekend shorttrip back on Friday to London itself. Actually, I doubt that he was able to leave the island to be in back in the office today… not only that all airports are closed but also the Eurotunnel.

Interesting side note: none of my flight status iPhone apps (Worldmate , Kayak and TripCase) informed me within time about the flight cancellation during the morning – these 3 apps gave me this quite important information in the late afternoonn / early evening while the official Lufthansa app was something around 6 hours ahead.

---

Related articles

• Travelers in Europe Face Third Day of Disruption on Snowfall (businessweek.com)
• Snow grounds thousands of European flights, stranding passengers (dw-world.de)
• Heathrow, Frankfurt Airports Cancel Flights on Snow (businessweek.com)
• Harsh Weather Snarls European Travelers (online.wsj.com)
• Snow stops nearly 500 flights in Frankfurt - airport (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Winter weather disrupts flights, leaves drivers stranded (theprovince.com)
• Snow and ice bring holiday havoc to Britain (reuters.com)
• Heathrow, Europe Travelers Face Third Day of Disruption on Snow Forecast - Bloomberg (news.google.com)
• Christmas getaway misery as snow stymies Europe (expatica.com)
• Heavy snowfall in Europe leads to holiday travel nightmare (cnn.com)
• Heathrow, Frankfurt Airports Cancel Flights on Snow - BusinessWeek (news.google.com)