Hiccup
Our flight out of Perth was half an hour late in arriving, and subsequently late in boarding. As a result, it lost its slot in the take-off queue and had to wait on the tarmac for another forty-five minutes before departing. The flight crew managed to claw back half an hour during the flight to Singapore, but we had now missed our landing slot at Changi and had to circle until one became available. Consequently, we landed fifteen minutes after our connecting flight had started boarding.
We figured that, with the help of the ground staff, we could still just make our flight. However, we didn’t realise that some flights out of Changi run their security screens at the boarding gate, not at the entry to the departure area, and ours had already finalised security and packed up. The plane was going to be sitting on the tarmac for another twenty minutes, but we couldn’t get on it.
With a professional feigning of concern, the Singapore Airlines liaison staff advised us that, because there was only one flight a day to our destination in India, they would put us up in a hotel overnight and pay for taxis there and back. Our checked luggage would be held at the airport and loaded onto the new flight behind the scenes when we came back. For some reason, the airline uses a central city hotel rather than one out at Changi, so it took us half an hour to ride into the city and be ushered into our rooms.
The Penninsula Excelsior turned out to be a rather nice international hotel, and the airline was covering two twin rooms, the taxis, and all of our meals for the 24 hours before the next flight. By now it was after 10.30pm, so we just ordered some room service food and resigned ourselves to sleeping in our clothes, because all of our clothes and toiletries were in our checked bags back at the airport.
We were all fiercely disappointed, but this was softened by the unexpectedly swanky hotel facilities, and by Delaware and Maryland helping to make the coffee.
We figured that, with the help of the ground staff, we could still just make our flight. However, we didn’t realise that some flights out of Changi run their security screens at the boarding gate, not at the entry to the departure area, and ours had already finalised security and packed up. The plane was going to be sitting on the tarmac for another twenty minutes, but we couldn’t get on it.
With a professional feigning of concern, the Singapore Airlines liaison staff advised us that, because there was only one flight a day to our destination in India, they would put us up in a hotel overnight and pay for taxis there and back. Our checked luggage would be held at the airport and loaded onto the new flight behind the scenes when we came back. For some reason, the airline uses a central city hotel rather than one out at Changi, so it took us half an hour to ride into the city and be ushered into our rooms.
The Penninsula Excelsior turned out to be a rather nice international hotel, and the airline was covering two twin rooms, the taxis, and all of our meals for the 24 hours before the next flight. By now it was after 10.30pm, so we just ordered some room service food and resigned ourselves to sleeping in our clothes, because all of our clothes and toiletries were in our checked bags back at the airport.
We were all fiercely disappointed, but this was softened by the unexpectedly swanky hotel facilities, and by Delaware and Maryland helping to make the coffee.
posted by Blandwagon at 11:09 PM
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