stranded @ Schipol

Does this LOOK like Cape Town to you?

If you said "no", you're right! It's my sub-compact hotel room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam, where I am spending the night.

It began with a frantic call from Delta on Friday afternoon asking me if I could get to JFK right away, because my 6 pm flight to Amsterdam was 3 hours late and they wanted to get me on the 4:20. I made it, and got to Amsterdam in plenty of time for my connection...not that I needed to worry.

After 4 hours on the plane they finally cancelled the flight. Not because of snow (which thwarted hundreds of other travellers) but because the left engine failed.


I don't fault KLM for the bad engine, but their lines of communication need substantial work. It took them an entire hour to get a gateway opened for us so we could get off the plane, two more hours to direct us to the hotel voucher line, and we didn't get to the hotel till after 5 pm. (The flight was to have left at 10 am.) The telephone vouchers they gave us to call and rebook ourselves ran out while we were on hold. And wouldn't it have been nice if they'd given us the KLM password for internet access while we were waiting?

So instead of a direct flight from Amsterdam to Cape Town, arriving Saturday night, I'll take three flights starting tomorrow afternoon: to Frankfurt, Windhoek, then Cape Town, and arrive on Monday morning. Can Air Namibia be any worse than KLM has been? Knock on wood.