London travelogue – nightmarish beginning

I visited London yesterday to attend a workshop. My flight left Helsinki at 7.10 in the morning, so I was awake a quarter to five — I never seem to learn when is the correct time to leave to the airport. If I think that I leave on time, I’ve some time to burn at the airport — on the other hand, I’m a nervous wreck if the schedule is too tight. Today I was through security 5:45, so I had to wait a few minutes for the shops and the SAS lounge to open.

The flight left almost on time, there was a slight delay due to traffic in London, but we were airborne fifteen minutes late. However, fog covered the ground in Stansted and after circling almost an hour over the airport, the aircraft was directed to land to Gatwick.

We got there in twenty minutes or, and landed quite fast. We were now something like 75 minutes late. Then we had to sit on the plane for an additional 50 minutes, first waiting for the bus and then for wheel stops — the bus driver had instructions not to let anyone in until the stops are in place. The airplane captain tried to negotiate with the driver with no avail.

I cannot fathom how on earth Gatwick airport could not manage to get the bus to the plane in something like five minutes. The plane needed to order the bus through Finland — very flexible and effective way of dealing surprising events. People in BAA, wake up!

Finally we packed into the bus and got to the terminal, about two hours late from the original schedule — and on a different airport. There was a silver lining, too, as Gatwick Express is faster than Stansted Express and the trains are in much better shape.

I switched to tube in Victoria Station and travelled to Covent Garden just to found out that the workshop is held near Carnaby Street. People familiar with London know that there is a few kilometers in between these two locations. Fortunately the weather was nice and walking was a viable option.

I also learned that I was not the only unlucky one — a colleague had sit on the plane in Helsinki airport for two hours.

After the workshop I had a couple hours to spend and I visited several shops in Carnaby Street and Oxford Street. Found nothing, but had the opportunity to visit Liberty department store that we had to skip due to blackout in August.

The return trip was not too straightforward. We took a cab to Liverpool train station, and tried to buy tickets to Stansted Express — we had a lot of difficulties to get our credit cards accepted by the vending machines. The transactions failed also with a clerk, and tickets couldn’t be bought onboard. Somehow we managed to get the tickets using several cards, and missed only one train.

The check-in went gracefully in Stansted, but the queue to the security checks were several hundred meters. I got a fastlane sticker due to my gold card, but my colleagues had to queue for an hour or so. We all got to the plane and the plane left almost on schedule, so the story has a happy ending.