I spent the first week of the Olympics in Stephenville Newfoundland. It was bad enough trying to stay awake in Mississauga with the 3 hour time difference, try the 4.5 hour difference. Suprisingly, the winter out there has been similar to ours, a little bit more snow, but not as much as usual.

I was scheduled to be back early Friday morning, things were going to plan, settled into my priority seat. There were electrical problems with the system, so they tried the Airbus equivalent of the Ctrl-Alt-Del. After a few attempts, they announced the flight was cancelled. When they cancel a flight due to plane problems in Toronto, they just shuffle things around and voila, a new plane, you’re good to go. In Deer Lake, when they cancel a direct flight back to Toronto on an Airbus 319, you’re pretty much screwed as there are no other planes.

Eventually they re-booked us on a 12:15 pm flight to Toronto, not bad, only about six hours to wait. Through the morning, things got worse, 12:15 turned into 13:00, than 14:00, then 14:45 and finally 15:15.

There was some consolation when they announced over the PA that the plane had left Montreal. The ground technician covering up the engines, as they were expecting some weather to pass through.

It was almost 12 hours later than my original arrival time, but it was good to be home. A lot of people on the flight were going to destinations beyond Toronto, so they were scrambling to rebook their connecting flights. Many were going to the Olympics and down south. When the second plane arrived, it was starting to look like Pearson.