Tag Archives: england

I’ve arrived safely in Manchester, despite severe delays in London Heathrow and last week’s threat of a British Airways strike. Fortunately the strike was averted due to court order and my flight was still scheduled. I left Sunday night and we were late leaving from YVR (Vancouver, BC). I was worried I wasn’t going to make my connecting flight up to Manchester. I was running through the new Terminal 5 in Heathrow, which is owned and operated by British Airways.  There were about three security checkpoints and insane queues, I didn’t think I was going to make my second flight. Fortunately (for me) it was delayed about an hour so I was able to make it to my gate on time. Then it began to snow and we sat on the plane for hours waiting for a de-icing rig for our plane. All the planes in Heathrow were in the same situation — there were only seven de-icing rigs for the entire airport. Incoming planes had no gates to unload at and were sitting on the sides of the runways. Outgoing planes were stuck until we could be de-iced, and any flights originally scheduled for after 7:00pm takeoff were completely cancelled. Finally, after three hours on the plane, my flight left around 8:45pm. We finally arrived safe and sound in Manchester where CW had been waiting for me. Yesterday was spent recuperating, I slept in pretty late and then we went into Manchester city centre to finish our Christmas shopping. [...]