Flight info - or not?

[fifty5]

The SO is flying home tonight, I'm picking her up at the airport, but she just phoned to say the flight is delayed.

Leeds Bradford Airport has a good website, which is lucky, because Schiphol doesn't. The best for that is an independent tracker - www.flightstats.com - but... that says expected take off time is 10 minutes late: 9:10 instead of 9:00. However, it isn't that bad because, despite a late take off, Flightstats expects it to land early: 9:02 instead of the scheduled 9:15.

I'd be laughing my arse off if the actual facts didn't matter to me!

The LBA site Arrivals page automatically refreshes - and that's now showing expected arrival time of 22:40, 1:25 late.

Back to Flightstats and refresh - they may just be slower getting the info.

Ah - "Flight delayed by 90 minutes" - not too bad,
thus - "Departure time - 10:30 pm" - hey forget the 90 versus 85 minute thing, this info is OK
so - "Arrival time - 9:25 PM (runway) Estimated to land on runway 10 min later than scheduled at gate." !!!

I think I'll be using the LBA info.

 

[neonlyte]

So... what time is it in Schipol?

 

[fifty5]

So... what time is it in Schipol?

Dunno to be honest. I believe all the times I quoted are in BST.

 

[glynndah]

I can't solve this until I know what time the one travelling in the opposite direction took off.

 

[neonlyte]

If it's any consolation, Flytcomm says there are no flights between Schiphol and Bradford tonight

 

[alyxen]

Glynndah beat me to the 2nd train punchline....

 

[fifty5]

What a farce!

LBA is holding firm on arrival at 10:50. Unless that changes, I'll leave here about 15 mins before that - same time as their flight's supposed to take. It shouldn't take me more than twice that, so I shouldn't have to wait as long for the baggage...

For complete clarity, I did mean her luggage!

 

[oggbashan]

If I were to leave home when my wife's plane passes overhead I would arrive at the arrivals lounge at the same time as she does.

The delights of local airports...

Og

 

[Boxlicker101]

What a farce!

LBA is holding firm on arrival at 10:50. Unless that changes, I'll leave here about 15 mins before that - same time as their flight's supposed to take. It shouldn't take me more than twice that, so I shouldn't have to wait as long for the baggage...

For complete clarity, I did mean her luggage!

Whatever time the plane arrives, you'd better be there waiting for her, if you know what's good for you.

 

[fifty5]

Whatever time the plane arrives, you'd better be there waiting for her, if you know what's good for you.

Oh, I was! Not that I didn't sweat a bit...

I'd waited outside the airport, about a quarter of a mile away (you all know how 'cheap' airport car parks are - and many of you know I'm a born-and-bred Yorkshireman), so when I got into the terminal, the arrivals board said the flight had landed just 10 minutes ago. At the moment that seemed like excellent timing.

Having, I thought, a few minutes to spare, I went off to check the car park payment system. By the time I got back, there was a stream of folk going by.

And then the flow dried up...

Another flight, from Dublin, landed 3 minutes earlier than the one I was interested in - and it seems that the luggage for 60 or so of those passengers hadn't been loaded on board. (No Irish jokes, please!) That delayed the passengers that I was interested in.

With 20-20 hindsight, that first flow had been the Dublin passengers whose luggage had been loaded, but, of course, I'd convinced myself that some of the folk looked Dutch (hindsight again - WTF did I think that meant?)

Had she gone past while I was away? I tried the mobile, but her earlier call came to an abrupt halt because, "My battery's going...", so either she hadn't got far enough to miss me, ... or ... she had and couldn't tell me so.

Just to complicate the issue, the Arrivals Board identified 2 arrivals locations: "I" and "D". On the ground, I could only see one exit route, but ... And I didn't dare go off to find someone to ask, 'cos she might come out while I was away!

You can have a good laugh at the image of me dashing to and fro, searching outside and in, but in fact LBA is tiny: that didn't mean walking more than a few dozen yards.

Finally she came out - and all was well. She's in bed now. Thanks to the delays, by the time we were in the car heading for home it was 26 hours since she'd got out of bed (in Tokyo).

I seem to be unfortunate with meeting flights. The time before last I spent well over an hour waiting at the wrong terminal at Manchester - while the person I was supposed to meet did the same at another one - and we both eventually gave up. We hadn't had the foresight to pass on actual flight numbers and I was waiting where the only direct flight from her original embarkation point arrived, while she'd actually come in two legs. (For the story as it unfolded see here - post 387, through to 436.)

Following on that, the guy I was meeting was the only one whose luggage had gone astray, so he finally came out nearly 20 minutes after the penultimate passenger on that flight. It did work out in the end, but I was getting to the point where I was thinking of giving up.

That history didn't boost my confidence this time.

But apologies to neon - it turned out that the times on the Web were all local to the location, not BST, so it wasn't a 15 minute flight (which had seemed a bit quick), but 75 mins (Amsterdam is an hour ahead).

 

[neonlyte]

Fifty,
You sound just like me at the airport! We once waited for friends at Heathrow, they arrived at Gatwick

At least you were there when and where you were supposed to be.

I fly more than most I guess, the vagaries of flight arrival are almost second nature, Flytcomm (a Mac widget) is usually pretty reliable, but last nght it didn't even want to acknowledge Schiphol!

 

[Trinique_Fire]