The day started so well, as we boarded our 6:20am flight from Adelaide. Then all hell broke loose, starting with a one hour departure delay due to strong winds at Sydney. That left us just over an hour to change terminals for our flight to New Zealand.
If you've traveled through Sydney, then you already know this is a difficult feat at best. The process for getting from the domestic to international terminal is the worst I've ever encountered. And yes, that means worse than Heathrow.
Ad to that my travel companion's wheelchair assistance, or in this case, lack of it. Despite our shortage of time, we were told to stay on the plane until everyone else departed (stress point 1). Then we had to wait another 20 minutes for a wheelchair to show up (stress point 2), which took us ~200 steps to a holding area, to be shuttled with all the other assist-needing people from various flights.
After waiting another ten minutes (stress point 3), we were all shuttled to the international terminal, where (waaiiit for it) we waited for 15 minutes (stress point 4).
Then were were wheel-chaired to rapid check-in. And waited 5 minutes for the agent to pay attention to us (stress point 5) before an attendant came and started wheeling us through security (or so we thought).
Are you keeping up? Good.
All along, were we told that all other flights were delayed, as was our connection, and that we were fine.
They wheeled us to a Qantas sales desk. Huh??? When I asked, the person admitted that we'd missed our connection and would be rebooked.
Then (it really gets better now) that sales agent spent 10 minutes doing SOMETHING without telling us anything (stress point 6), at which time two Qantas employees approached and said "Come on, we can still get you on your flight!". We rushed to security, where the person distributing folks from the queue to separate screening lines was taking so long that the Qantas employees helping us were yelling at her. The line of eight in front of us took 8 minutes to be distributed to crew & priority screening lines (stress point 7). I was the last through in our group, and she stopped me.
Her: "You have to wait."
Me: I'm with those two Qantas employees and my partner; we are rushing to our connection."
Her: "Doesn't matter. You have to wait for space."
Me: "There IS space with them."
Her: "Other people get to go first. You have to wait."
In the background, the Qantas helper is yelling at this woman to let me through. (Stress point 8).
Once through screening, we RUN through the terminal to our flight, which had been delayed soooo long that they were just closing the doors.
And THAT was our flight adventure from Adelaide through Sydney to Christchurch.
Oh, but wait! There's stress point 9. My bag didn't arrive.
What happened after that is, well, yeah, another two-pint tale for another day.
In the meantime, the lovely pictures from leaving Adelaide and flying over the west coast of New Zealand, at a point we'll be at in 10 days, with or without all of my belongings.