Published 20 Nov 2016
A companion-piece to my post, Fly me to the Moon, it is the story of how I got back home from Vancouver to England.
It was about eleven in the morning when I entered the airport terminal in Vancouver. After checking in my two suitcases and getting a boarding pass, I marched off, rucksack on my back, to await boarding time over a cup of coffee. When that time arrived I passed through a security gate to find my way blocked by a desk managed by a frowning woman who requested ten dollars from me. Well, I must say I was a bit baffled by this, for I'd never before been solicited for money by anyone with his own desk.
“What for?” I asked, because ten dollars was all the Canadian money I had left. This small sum I had reserved for any petty purchases I might need to make during the day. After all it was still morning. I would not be leaving Canada until almost ten o’clock that evening. Anyway, what kind of racket was this?
She told me it was ‘airport tax’. Well, I’d passed through many airports before, in several countries, but no one had ever demanded money from me in any of them. But it was useless to argue. Functionaries like her didn’t even know how to be polite. I pulled the bill from my pocket and handed it over.
Moving on, I came to a row of seats near my departure gate. The massive face of a jumbo jet peered in through a big window. That couldn’t be my plane, I reasoned, for surely Air Canada wouldn’t use a jumbo jet just for a domestic flight. I stepped over to a nearby kiosk, asked for two bottles of water and paid for them with my MasterCard. After stuffing them into my rucksack, I returned to the seats and sat down to wait.
A sign nearby read 'Departure Time:' but the box under it was blank. A little later, however, I saw that the box read ‘1440’. Bloody hell! I thought. Just my luck. I get here two and a half hours before my flight and there’s a delay!
It was, however, only just after three when passengers were called to board Flight AC1144 to Toronto and the plane was in the air just after four. But the delay and the unexpected use of a jumbo jet sparked the memory of a couple of snippets of news I'd heard during my visit to Canada. First there was that great power failure in the east. Because of it many flights had had to be cancelled, so that there was a monster backlog of passengers to move. Then there was the virus that had temporarily brought down Air Canada’s computer network. It was clear that jumbo jets were now being pressed into service for domestic flights to help clear the backlog. Apart from anything else, the use of jumbo jets would result in delays because of their longer boarding times.
A quick mental calculation told me that the impact of this delay upon me would be a failure to make my connecting flight to Manchester. How would I get home now? But just then a voice on the intercom cut short my thoughts. Passengers heard first the inevitable apology for the delay and then several words aimed at passengers planning to join connecting flights. I'm sure they were all charmed to learn that no information was available yet.
Taking off from Vancouver
What a ridiculous predicament to be in! You couldn’t just relax and enjoy the flight because you had a constant worry about how you were going to get home! Still, at least I had a window seat and thus a superb view to occupy my thoughts. Dusk was just falling when an immense lake inched into view. It was Lake Manitoba, I knew. A bank of cloud obscured its eastern shore but several minutes later a second silvery span oozed out from under the wing: Lake Winnipeg.
Lake Winnipeg
We were a little to the south of its southern limit but its western shore could be clearly seen and also the complex web of lesser lakes, lagoons, ponds and brooks that compose the delta of the Red River. And then darkness fell as I strained to see the dimly lustrous lakes of the Canadian Shield, a boundless wilderness of endless rock formations, infinite forest and unimaginably numerous lakes and rivers spanning 8.4 million square kilometres, and whose western edge marks the beginning of the Province of Ontario.
About an hour out of Toronto a low-volume voice was heard once more on the intercom giving information to passengers with connecting flights.
"Get a pencil and piece of paper", it said.
From where? I ask you! I had a pen and paper in my rucksack to be sure, but that was stored in one of the bins overhead. Certainly none of the crew came round with pencils and paper. I had to try to remember the information, but the fact was that I couldn’t even hear the message properly, muffled as it was by the drone of the aircraft engines.
Some indistinct words were uttered first and then I thought I made out:
"Passengers... Manchester... Flight 858... London Heathrow... 2355".
I gathered that I'd have to catch a flight to Heathrow, leaving Toronto at 23.55, but surely the flight number was not 858. It was likely I had missed something. I waited for a repetition of the announcement but it never came. How could the airline be so cavalier about such an important message! At the very least a flight attendant should have made himself available to answer questions. After all, some passengers might even have been asleep. But not a solitary member of the cabin crew appeared until preparations were in train for landing.
Toronto
Clusters of tiny golden lights in the darkness down below signified the approach of Toronto, and soon we were descending over the city itself, a chequered carpet of black and gold bordering the vast shadowy expanse of Lake Ontario. As the pilot aligned his aircraft for landing, the passengers tilted to the left, and moments later they swayed again upright. Now they tilted to the right, and again they swerved upright, attended now by a whirring sound that announced the lowering of the wheals. Seized with curiosity, I leaned against my window and saw us swooping over rows of darkened houses with lighted windows, strings of shining streetlights and ashen-coloured roads conveying cars with beaming headlamps. It was a striking display that gave way to a shadowy extent of flat land bordered by obscure buildings; a land suddenly illumined by the arrival of a lighted runway, and then suddenly there was a colossal knock and shake announcing we were down!
By the time I’d descended from the aircraft the time was half past nine. Did I need to trans-ship my baggage? That was the first question nagging at my brain. The muffled message delivered on the plain may have carried that information, but if so, I hadn't heard it. Thus I followed the troupe of disembarked passengers to the baggage retrieval hall where hundreds thronged the carousels. I located the one serving the flight from Vancouver, installed myself in the third row of watchers and waited. And waited. I waited until ten past eleven, but there was no sign of my two suitcases. They must have been trans-shipped to my connecting flight. But I needed to find out, and fast too because my flight to Heathrow was due to take off in about forty-five minutes.
Turning about to survey the place, I spotted a counter located in front of a wall. Two fellows were loitering behind it. I scooted over.
“I’ve just got off the flight from Vancouver,” I said, and I’ve been told I have to catch a flight to London Heathrow. Do I need to collect my baggage?”
“Oh, no,” said one of the loiterers, “just go and get on your flight.”
“But what about my baggage?” I wanted to know.
“It’ll be sent on the first plane out in the morning.”
Well, that was a relief to hear. My suitcases should arrive in Manchester before me.
“Where do I catch the flight to Heathrow?” I asked now.
“You’ll need to go to terminal 1,” was the reply.
What? Where was that, and how would I get there?
“Oh you just catch the shuttle,” he said.
“Shuttle? Where?
”
“Outside.”
You’re joking! I had a flight to catch to Heathrow that was taking off in forty-five minutes – if I had a right to catch a flight to Heathrow in forty-five minutes, for I possessed no papers to prove it – and I had to undertake a journey on a shuttle-bus to find the place of its departure! This is the stuff that comedy is made of. The tension of this farce was now seizing hold of me as I struggled uselessly in the coils of its maze.
However, I had no other option but to carry on, so I made my way outside. But when I got outside the door I saw no trace of any shuttle-bus, just a bus stop located in the glow of a streetlamp. And there was not a soul out there to whom I could apply for information. I didn't even know if I was in the right place to wait.
I waited several moments in solitary silence with the thought growing in my head that this was not the right place to wait. I was just heading back inside to inquire when an Asian fellow wearing a jacket and tie and bearing a suitcase came out the door. I asked him at once if this was the place to catch the shuttle to Terminal 1. He said he thought so. Was he going there too? I wanted to know. Yes, he was, he replied.
“I’ve got a flight to catch there at five to twelve,” I said, glancing at my watch, “and it’s now eleven twenty-five.”
I needed to share my anxiety with someone.
“I have lots of time,” he smiled indifferently.
We waited in silence for five minutes more but no shuttle-bus arrived. Only twenty-five minutes left! Was it even in the realm of possibility now to catch this flight? I asked the Asian again if we were waiting at the right place. He said again that he thought so. Couldn’t he be more affirmative? I fretted, scanning the dim and empty street.
“I’m going inside to find out,” I said, returning to the door. But the place was empty inside, apart from a pair of women cleaners occupied in silent sweeping of the floor and a couple of youngsters murmuring furtively. Turning towards the door again and peering back outside, I saw a small bus appear beyond a building across the road and turn towards the shuttle stop.
I wrenched open the door, almost galloped out to meet this timely saviour as it came to a halt, and climbed aboard on the heals of my placid Asian fellow passenger. At last I was on my way! At last! But look at the time! Look at the time! Twenty-five to twelve!
The driver engaged gear and we moved off… and then stopped again at another entrance to the same terminal! A young couple without luggage got on and the fellow began a conversation with the driver.
Come on! Come on! I urged in silent anguish, drumming fingers on my thigh.
After a moment or two we moved on again and built up speed. I might just possibly make it! I told myself hopefully, if Terminal 1 wasn’t too far away and if we didn't stop too often and if the place wasn’t too big or too complicated to find my way through it quickly... Two many 'ifs'! I grieved. But then, as though to verify my fears, the vehicle slowed and stopped once more seemingly nowhere. All I saw outside was a short portion of pavement, glowing lonesomely on the edge of a far flung darkness.
The young couple got off now, but the young man, peering back through the open door, began another conversation with the driver, while I thrummed my fingers once more. At last the door closed and we moved on again. Again we built up speed and to my delight this time we kept going... And going! Anxiety was biting at my brain again. Just exactly how far away was this Terminal 1 anyway?
Several miles from Terminal 2, that was certain. We seemed to follow a circuitous route around piles of earth and construction debris that loomed again and again in the light of the headlamps. I saw myself making a mad dash for the aircraft once I'd got off this bus. There would be time for nothing else, not even a phone call. My wife would be waiting for me at Manchester Airport at a quarter to ten tomorrow morning, but I would not arrive. What would she do? I pondered. Would she be able to find out what had happened to me?
At long last we pulled up outside Terminal 1. I grabbed my rucksack, shot off the bus and rushed inside. The place was empty of any passengers, but my eye was caught directly by a huge clock supported on a stanchion. It snickered the time at me: 23.45. My flight was due to take off in five minutes! But a quick glance at the information board informed me at once that there was no Flight 858. All that lunatic dash and consequent anxiety had been for nothing! And whatever was I to do now? Where would I sleep? I must be miles away from any hotel.
But wait a minute, wait a minute… There was a flight to Heathrow. Its number was AC862 and it was scheduled to take off at 23.50 – in just five minutes’ time! Was that my flight? Who could I ask? But surely I was too late for it anyway.
Now I noticed several members of the Terminal 1 staff seated nearby clasping cups of coffee. I advanced and asked where I could get information about flights. One man pointed behind me. I swung round to see a desk occupied by a young man busying himself with papers. It was in fact an Air Canada desk that I’d simply passed by in my anxiety. I hurried over and practically babbled my predicament. The fellow asked to see my ticket to Manchester and my passport. I fished them out of my rucksack and handed them over. Then he took a blank form and began filling it in. I followed every stroke of his pen, willing it to move faster. Just then a loudspeaker announced the last boarding call for passengers bound for London Heathrow. Several names were then read out and the last one was Wingfield!
So I had come to the right place after all! The official ignored the boarding call and concentrated on his pen inching along the paper. Seconds later the boarding call was repeated and my name called out once more. Finally he finished writing and handed back my passport in company with a boarding pass and a ticket for a BA flight from Heathrow to Manchester.
“Thanks,” I said, elated, “but which way do I go?”
I set off along the way his finger pointed to, hurried through a security check point, deserted now except for its attendants, rushed along a corridor, descended a ramp and stepped aboard a brightly lighted aircraft where a smiling flight attendant inspected my boarding pass.
Now I shimmied along an empty aisle between rows of expectant heads propped on bodies belted into seats and stowed my rucksack in a luggage bin above the seat I had located. Then I collapsed into it and buckled myself in. I had made it!
A welcome feature of this flight was it's many empty seats, a luxury I employed to good effect by raising several armrests and settling myself for sleep, using a folded blanket for a pillow. But sadly sleep evaded me. When the light of dawn gleamed in my window I rose to focus my gaze outside, and later when the sun had risen high I saw the entire County of Cornwall spread out before a bank of cloud, bordered by a sparkling azure sea.
Heathrow Airport
The time was about 11.15 in the morning when the aircraft landed at Heathrow. We passengers were ferried by shuttle-bus to the terminal, where, after clearing passport control, I made my way quickly to the BA desk in the departures hall. Since no departure time had been written on my ticket, I was anxious to avoid missing my flight. After I'd got my boarding pass I approached the departure gate, where, crestfallen, I read the departure time. Flight BA1398 to Manchester would take off at 16.45. I would not be starting the last leg of my journey home for more than four hours!
I now found a phone and tried to ring my wife. My son answered and told me she had not yet returned from the airport. I explained what had happened and told him to tell her that I was at Heathrow now and should be in Manchester at about quarter past five. Next I plodded across to one of those long seats you see in airports and sat down there, leaning sideways with my elbow on my rucksack and my head supported by my hand.
God! Four hours to wait! Why didn’t I just lie down and go to sleep? I was tired enough for that. But no, I couldn’t. I wasn’t a tramp. So I remained slouched at an angle, drowsily watching passengers collect their luggage from the conveyor belt next to the security barrier in my forward view and advance towards me in ones and twos and groups on either side of the centrally arranged seats, and then disappear on either side of my peripheral view.
But any amount of time passes eventually, and eventually I found myself on Flight BA1398 to Manchester.
It took off at quarter past five and touched down at quarter to six. Inside the terminal I headed straight to the baggage office to collect my cases. Well, surprise, surprise: – they had not arrived. But at any rate my wife was waiting in the arrivals hall to drive me home.
M6 Moterway
My suitcases were delivered there next day.
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