On the way back from the UK to Japan after a short Christmas visit my flight (with $DAUGHTER who is three and a half) from Manchester to Frankfurt was seriously delayed. Given that we'd got up at 4am (having stayed at an aiport hotel) to get the am flight, this was unpleasant. Our flight finally left Manchester after 11am. At Frankfurt there was a large queue at the airside Lufthansa service centre and they ordered (well, strongly requested) that all EU US and Canadian citizens go through the immigration and check in at the normal counter. I already knew we'd been re-booked onto an ANA flight in the evening (this was about 14;00). I should have realised that this wasn't sensible for me, but having been awake since 4am with about 4 hours sleep I wasn't at my best and complied with their instructions. That left me with lots of hand luggage and a tired $DAUGHTER looking at waiting until 17:00 when the ANA check-in desk re-opened. We had business class tickets so could use the lounge if we would only get our boarding asses. Luckily someone in the "special assistance" Lufthansa office, even though it wasn't their job, really helped out and hassled the ANA office to come down and open up their desk to give us our passes. She did ask if I could check in online, but I couldn't get the Frankfurt aiport wifi to work.
Watching the sun come up in the lounge in Manchester and go down in the lounge in Frankfurt was not a fun way to spend the day, but at least I had lounge access (actually since I do stupid amounts of travel I would have had access even without the business class (airmiles-booked) seats). $DAUGHTER was actually brilliant about all this and actually enjoyed some bits immensely like running around the lounge with a slightly younger German/Chinese boy for half an hour.
If stuck in a similar situation again, consider whether there's any way to do online check-in. I did that at the UK on a flight last year, too. I arrived a couple of hours early at LHR T2 having done everything with the day I could reasonably do to find the check-in desks not yet open. They had free Wifi so I was able to use the wifi on my smartphone to check in and get the boarding pass.
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dancing_serpent
(no subject)
Date: 2015-02-05 03:10 am (UTC)Watching the sun come up in the lounge in Manchester and go down in the lounge in Frankfurt was not a fun way to spend the day, but at least I had lounge access (actually since I do stupid amounts of travel I would have had access even without the business class (airmiles-booked) seats). $DAUGHTER was actually brilliant about all this and actually enjoyed some bits immensely like running around the lounge with a slightly younger German/Chinese boy for half an hour.
If stuck in a similar situation again, consider whether there's any way to do online check-in. I did that at the UK on a flight last year, too. I arrived a couple of hours early at LHR T2 having done everything with the day I could reasonably do to find the check-in desks not yet open. They had free Wifi so I was able to use the wifi on my smartphone to check in and get the boarding pass.