No Go With Air Canada 7743
By Lothar. Filed in France, Norway, Sweden |
We have to go (fly) the extra mile(s) to get to Marseille, our summer vacation destination.
It is Thursday, June 26, and we are in Newark Airport, trying to check in with Air Canada. I had booked our flight on December 4, 2007, taking advantage of an excellent airfare to fly Air Canada from Newark to Paris, connecting in Montreal. This fare was actually less expensive than the non-stop flight from Montreal.
This is all academic now. We are being informed, that the Newark-Montreal flight has been canceled (for the third day in a row). We are going through the usual tug-of-war negotiations with the gate agent: I decline offers to fly the next day or fly on Air Portugal via Lisbon later that night. We are going through all the Star Alliance partner airlines. United has a flight from Dulles Airport, Lufthansa from Newark via Munich. By the time the agent tries to ticket and confirm our new flights, the seats are gone.
We persevere, asking the agent to keep searching, and finally Fortuna is on our side. We manage to get confirmed seats on SAS Scandinavian Airlines, leaving only one hour later than we would have with our original itinerary with Air Canada. Naturally,we have to pass through the SSSS special security screening, which this year seems to happen to us on every flight. Afterwards, we even have enough time for a greasy meal in the airport, which unfortunately gives Gabi a good case of indigestion during the overnight flight. I call Air France, canceling our flight Paris-Marseille, which we will miss and lose 100 Euros for each ticket. My next call is to Travel Guard and their travel desk books us on a later Air France flight (at a steep price).
Our SK 904 Airbus A330 takes off from Newark at 6:45PM (again 1 hour late) and I can worry already about making our new connections. I forgot to mention the fact that we are flying to Paris via Scandinavia. Our European odyssey takes us first to Stockholm, Sweden. We arrive with sunny weather and good views of the green woods and many lakes. We are in Arlanda Airport around 7:30 AM and are greeted by very friendly border patrol and customs officials, who smile and treat us as normal human beings. We are stunned and actually feel welcome here, not being used to this normal behavior from customs officials in an unnamed country, which we call home.
Our journey continues, flying on Scandinavian SK 849, leaving Stockholm at 9:00, to Oslo, Norway. Again lots of green forests and lakes below us. We notice, how many blond Scandinavian kids are on our flights and make a mental note to check Sweden’s birth rate. We have breakfast in the “Oslo Lufthavn” and pay 170 Norwegian Krone for 2 Baguette sandwiches, a chocolate croissant and a bottle of water from a food stall. The $35 bill justifies the name and intended clientele of the bakery: “Upper Crust”! The bill is in Norwegian, but on the bottom is printed: “Have A Nice Flight”. And we follow the good wish, flying on SK 837 from Oslo to Paris. Today, we have been flying the extra mile, finally arriving in Paris CDG airport at 13:30 on July 27.
Our Air France flight to Marseille leaves at 15:45. Our luggage finally comes and we are pleasantly surprised that it has not been lost with all these connections. We take the shuttle train from Charles De Gaulle Terminal 1 to Terminal 2, followed by a long walk to the Air France counter in 2D. I had only booked this flight from Newark 18 hours ago, with no written proof, but the Air France agent checks us in, “pas de probleme”!
We fly to Marseille in 1 hour and 15 minutes, arriving late at 17:45. We are very tired and happy to be here. It only took us 4 flights, and we made it with just 6 hours behind schedule. Sunny, hot weather and a stiff breeze off the Mediterranean Sea greet us, as we walk out of the airport. This wakes us up and we drive our Sixti Smart Car over the hills to our Novotel in Aix-En-Provence.
We arrive at the hotel at 19:30, 27 hours after leaving Clifton Park. Travel can get a little complicated and we are ready for some major R+R in the Provence.