EI723 LHR-ORK 14 JUL 11 (ECONOMY)
Posted: 20 Jul 2011, 23:29
I trundled my trolley out of the Arrivals area at 1:20p.m and with one wistful look at the sign pointing towards Revivals
I negotiated my way through the myriad of people waving placards trying to attract their customers to whisk them away to exotic places in the city or else to boring meetings. Dodging my way through the families meeting and greeting each other I made my way to the ramp leading to T1 as a silent tear rolled down my cheek 
at the nice shower and the tasty breakfast I would be missing, conveniently ignoring the fact that I had already had breakfast on board.OK, cut the violins! At this stage it is necessary to apprise you of aircraft movements in and out of Cork as it is pertinent to this trip report. Early in the morning a flurry of aircraft leave Cork airport including 3 Aer Lingus aircraft, one to Amsterdam, one to somewhere on the Med and the third to LHR. This latter aircraft shuttles back and forth four times during the day leaving at 7:15 or 7:30 depending on whether it is the the winter or summer timetable returning on the last flight at about 11:30pm. The other two aircraft serve various European destinations of which a flight to CDG and a second AMS (apart from Saturday) are a given. That timetable therefore is much more fluid than the LHR route and there are days when a flight might come in at quite an early time and be on the ground for some time but on others there is a rather tight turnaround. When I had booked my flights VS were on their original earlier schedule but a week later had pushed back to a later time. I had agonised earlier about the 2pm flight to Cork given it was quite tight but with the new schedules I had no choice but to take the 6:15pm. OK, back to the violins!
Feeling that all the world was against me, I trudged along to T1 and headed for the Aer Lingus area. Now at this stage I have a confession to make (Increase the violins) On the approach to LHR on my VS flight I started wondering which seat I was in on my EI flight and suddenly realised to my horror I had not done OLCI.
Omigod! The end of the world is nigh! True I had been on the Aer Lingus website to book and pay for an extra bag but I had not gone back once OLCI opened to check-in! Shock! Horror! I had to throw myself on the mercy of those for whom OLCI is a completely foreign language to nab a reasonably decent seat. I checked in at a kiosk to find I had been allocated 21C but 21A was open. There was nothing decent at the front of the aircraft and in any case Cork uses steps at both the front and the back of the aircraft so it wasn’t too much of a bad deal. Aer John recently selected the back seat and was the first off the aircraft. Having checked in at a kiosk and obtained my boarding pass it was now time to throw myself on the tender mercies of Aer Lingus. One of the joys of VS is that one can check in one’s bags first thing in the morning for the last flight of the day. The same applies to most airlines in the USA but with Aer Lingus they normally will not accept bags until 2 hours before the flight so it was with some trepidation I approached the desk. The lady there didn’t think it was possible as there was some sort of a delay
but said she would check. A few tippety-taps of her keyboard she came back to me and confirmed that there was a slight delay on EI715 and to come back around 3pm. Well I could live with that and so I managed to find a seat and gave myself up to the delights of my new iPad - indeed a life-saver at that moment. 
At 3pm I presented myself once more and my bags were taken and I was advised of a possible delay. Security was quiet so I decided to go through and soon was through the first lot of security and into the main departure lounge of T1. As I was going past the Information desk I heard someone ask about where to go for the Ireland flights and said something about her flight being delayed. I glanced up at the departure board and sure enough EI715 was flagged as delayed with no time alongside it. Ah well, it was still early yet and I headed to the gate to see what was what.Arriving at the gate area used by Aer Lingus the place was reassuringly deserted and certainly not reminiscent of a place where a flight is seriously delayed. Moreover there was no sign of an Aer Lingus plane. “Oh good” thinks I to myself, “the flight must have left”. Ha! Earwigging on to a conversation being held on the seats in front the flight hadn’t left London; it hadn’t even left Cork!!! OMIGOD!
I could foresee a delay of some four hours looming ahead as we waited for the plane to shuttle back and forth between London and Cork and resigned myself to a long wait. What was worse no information was forthcoming, unlike my Virgin America a couple of days previously. 
A couple of Dublin fights came and went but the staff manning the gates were outsourced and none the wiser. They too were waiting to hear from Aer Lingus! The best information was being received by the lady on whose conversation I was unashamedly eavesdropping whose daughter was calling her from Cork. Eventually, by proxy, I learned that the 6:15 flight (mine) would go ahead but people from the 715 would not be able to transfer as it was a full flight. I guessed that one of the flights from the Med had been press-ganged into service leaving some poor sods having a delayed start to their holidays but quite frankly, in spite of a reasonable night’s sleep, I was getting tired and just wanted to get home. In the meantime though, text messages flew between London and Clonakilty and I was quite content with my iPad. Oh and I did my TR of my SEA-SFO flight so all was not lost.Eventually an Aer Lingus A320 hove into view and settled itself at the gate and EI723 flashed up on the sign at the gate. As soon as was feasible boarding commenced and one of the advantages of 21A was that I was able to board early and settle down. 21B remained delightfully empty so honey lamb was more than pleased. The captain apologised for the late departure (about 30 minutes and certainly not as bad as for the poor souls on EI715 who had to wait till 8pm for their flight) and soon we were on our way. The flight was as satisfactory as ever but......
….... wait for it!
…....I didn’t have a G&T!!!!
I couldn’t find either my sterling or euro and so couldn’t pay for one! Oh, the shame! Still I had my iPad.The flight landed and the bags came off reasonably quickly. Once out of the airport I called Aer John to ask where he was with the car. “I’m at home, why?” Oh no he wasn’t. He was just about to be moved on from the waiting area by the police when I arrived to save his bacon.
So there we have the final leg of my saga - Honey Lamb and No Goblet of Gin!
