Runway 31
9th Jul 2006, 10:54
Yesterday should have been a fantastic day for me and my wife. After seeing pictures of last years Flying Legends show at Duxford, I had bought 2 tickets to the Gold Enclosure to ensure that I got a good view of the proceedings.. I arranged flights for myself and my wife from Prestwick to Stansted and hired a car to take us to Duxford from Stansted.
We set off from home at 0400 after having used RYR’s online check in the night before and was glad that I had when we walked into the terminal building and saw the queues at check in and was able to walk straight in to departures through security.
My wife went to get us a coffee and I met to a couple of work colleagues who were going on a stag weekend to Dublin. After a while I went to find my wife and my colleague said that is a hell of a delay showing for the Stansted flight and thought that he was winding me up. Sure enough the FR404 due to go at 0650 was showing a delay to 1330. We went back outside to the check in and found that the screen info was correct as their was a delay possibly due to a technical problem suffered the night before at Paris. We were given the opportunity to cancel but considered that I would loose everything if we did and I was so looking forward to seeing all those lovely Mustangs that I was consoled with seeing the last hour and a half of the display that we decided to travel.
After a long 7 hour wait we got on the flight only to be hit by more problems and the flight eventually took off at 1415. By the time we travelled down, got bussed to the terminal and got to the car hire desk it was 1545. I then took the decision to abort the mission as it would have been about 1630 before we got to Duxford and got parked etc and with the display finishing at 1700 it was now not worthwhile going any further.
We then went for a drink to cool down, watched planes landing through the glass, watched the first half of the Germany-Portugal game in departures and made our way home to Prestwick arriving 10 minutes early before getting back in the car and arriving back home in Motherwell at 2345.
All in all, discounting meals, drinks etc, I spent £270 on flights, entry tickets and car hire and spent 13 hours sitting in airports for nothing.
I am well p****d off at the moment and not very pleased. I hope the show was good and everyone saw what they expected. I will now go and by tickets for the Autumn Airshow in October and hope to see some of the beautiful aircraft flying then. Flying Legends will have to wait for next year.
We set off from home at 0400 after having used RYR’s online check in the night before and was glad that I had when we walked into the terminal building and saw the queues at check in and was able to walk straight in to departures through security.
My wife went to get us a coffee and I met to a couple of work colleagues who were going on a stag weekend to Dublin. After a while I went to find my wife and my colleague said that is a hell of a delay showing for the Stansted flight and thought that he was winding me up. Sure enough the FR404 due to go at 0650 was showing a delay to 1330. We went back outside to the check in and found that the screen info was correct as their was a delay possibly due to a technical problem suffered the night before at Paris. We were given the opportunity to cancel but considered that I would loose everything if we did and I was so looking forward to seeing all those lovely Mustangs that I was consoled with seeing the last hour and a half of the display that we decided to travel.
After a long 7 hour wait we got on the flight only to be hit by more problems and the flight eventually took off at 1415. By the time we travelled down, got bussed to the terminal and got to the car hire desk it was 1545. I then took the decision to abort the mission as it would have been about 1630 before we got to Duxford and got parked etc and with the display finishing at 1700 it was now not worthwhile going any further.
We then went for a drink to cool down, watched planes landing through the glass, watched the first half of the Germany-Portugal game in departures and made our way home to Prestwick arriving 10 minutes early before getting back in the car and arriving back home in Motherwell at 2345.
All in all, discounting meals, drinks etc, I spent £270 on flights, entry tickets and car hire and spent 13 hours sitting in airports for nothing.
I am well p****d off at the moment and not very pleased. I hope the show was good and everyone saw what they expected. I will now go and by tickets for the Autumn Airshow in October and hope to see some of the beautiful aircraft flying then. Flying Legends will have to wait for next year.