The flight ended up boarding at 12:45am, departing at 1:15am and landing at 1:35am (Manchester time) – three hours and fifteen minutes behind schedule. Unfortunately, the captain announced that the long delay was due to “the crew being delayed on their incoming flight due to severe thunderstorms”. I’m pretty sure that weather conditions qualify as “extraordinary circumstances” as far as EC261 is concerned, so I doubt whether I’ll receive the EUR250 compensation. I’ll still apply for it and see what happens, but with no expectation of receiving it.
Darn. All that delay and nothing to show for it. Which is exactly what would be the case anyway if the delay happened anywhere else in the world.
The flight itself was my first on an Airbus A220. This plane was an A220-300, which had 31 rows of seats – the same as on a typical 737-800. So it was a big plane. I had seat 27D, which was an aisle seat. At one point I used the “How to put your aisle armest up when the tray table is down” micro-hack to get out and use the toilet – thanks AFF!
The seats:
Nice big windows...
The snack...
The toilet was larger than a 737 toilet...
Manchester airport. I came here for the first time in January on my way to Houston, and I wrote at the time that I’d be happy to never come here again. Little did I know…
Credit where it’s due, though: I was through passport control in less than 5 minutes (they let Aussies use the smartgates), the luggage was out less than 10 minutes after that, and (as seems to be the norm in Europe) there was no Customs control at all.
I was very grateful that I’d decided to book an Airport hotel overnight, rather than a hotel in the CBD. The hotel I’d booked was TRIBE Manchester Airport. It was a poorly-signposted, 15-minute walk which involved several wrong turns with my luggage and which I did not enjoy at 2:30am! Eventually I got there and checked in.
The cost of the room for one night was GBP 92 which the front desk agent asked for immediately. I told him that I’d like to pay with my Accor ALL points. He looked puzzled and told me that I could only do that if I’d paid in advance.
With as much gentleness as I could muster at 2:30am (ie. with probably not enough gentleness) I responded I should be able to pay with my Accor points at an Accor hotel.
He looked genuinely puzzled and spent several minutes closely examining whatever was on his computer screen. After a while he told me that he could take out 5000 points from my account and that I’d need to pay the extra GBP 5 or so on my credit card.
I don’t think he’d been lying to me; I just think he’d been poorly trained. After the points were deducted I said, with as much friendliness and goodwill as I could, “Now you know how to do it!”.
It was a long walk to my room on the 6th floor.
My room: small but functional. Doesn't look like I got an upgrade despite being ALL Gold.
I had a much-needed shower and was in bed by 3am. Breakfast was between 5:30am and 10am; I set my alarm for 9:15am...
