17 Hours to make a 3 hour journey

Written 26th June 2012
You may have read my previous post about how I had to get a connecting flight in Brisbane to go to New Zealand, when I was starting in Melbourne. Well, after I got on the plane from Melbourne to Brisbane I was already 20 minutes late, add that to the four hour delay I had thanks to the cancelled flight, plus the two hours I had already been at the airport and you can see where this is going...

My view of Brisbane

An easy flight next to the emergency exit on the wing (those wings seem to wobble a lot) followed by getting a train to Brisbane International as the domestic part isn't attached and onto the 6pm flight to Auckland. Which is now leaving at 8pm.

Thanks, Virgin Australia! Now I will have spent 12 hours going nowhere/the wrong bloody way before even moving an inch towards Auckland.



Oh, it gets better...

The look on everybody's faces was one of just straight up pissed offness. Nobody was impressed and no amount of 'refreshment vouchers' could change that. I very highly doubt anybody there will be using Virgin Australia again after today.

With my ETA hitting the '12 hours later than I should have been there' I asked a staff member about Virgin doing the decent thing and paying for me to stay at a hotel for the night as they had ruined my plans to stay at my cousin's place. 'No' was the short answer 'because I will have reached my destination and they only pay for accommodation if somebody misses a connecting flight because of the airline' but I did get a number to call to try and claim back the cost of a hotel room, which I will call later on and they had better be willing to help or else they're going to have one hell of a recorded conversation for training purposes. I might even ask if I can get my fare back too, seeing as $300 for a flight that was 12 hours late is not what I was paying for.

I'm about to board the plane. It's 21:00

I had a chat with Tim, explaining why I was still in Brisbane then got on the plane. The plane takes off at 21:30.

The pilot informs us that there is a good tail wind that will speed up the journey. I just think he'll have to go a lot faster to get to Auckland 12 hours ago. It's 21:45

Written 27th June 2012
The plane lands at 02:25 (New Zealand time) but after collecting my bags and getting a shuttle bus to the nearby Formulae 1 Hotel, it's now 03:30, 12 hours later than expected and 17 hours after I checked in at Melbourne I'm in Auckland, in a hotel, that cost me $79, the money over here looks weird and it's windy outside. Now I'm going to sleep, but tomorrow I will get that $79 back and not in 'refreshment vouchers'.