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05:56 Singapore time
We’ve made up a little time, but are scheduled to land at 06:35, giving us just 40 minutes to make our connecting flight before it departs. We’ve asked the cabin crew if we’re likely to make the connection or not, and they say that it will very tight, but that it will be up to the ground staff if they hold the plane for us (and others making the same connection) or not. If they are, they’ll probably have staff meet us at the gate to take us straight to the next flight. If not, there will be staff there to reassign us on to later flights.
07:48 Singapore time
That was a much, much faster experience in Changi Airport than on the way to Frankfurt. When our plane landed at 06:35, the flight crew announced that passengers for the connecting Sydney flight were to make their way directly to gate B3 for immediate boarding. We pulled up at gate B5, immediately adjacent, so it was a simple matter of walking maybe 50 metres, passing through a security check, and getting on board our next flight. Compared to the 28 hours or so we spent in Changi last time, we were in the terminal building maybe 15 minutes at the most this time. Our second flight pushed back from the gate bang on time at 07:15, and took off soon after. It was so quick that I wonder how they managed to get all the economy class passengers over as well as all the checked luggage. Fortunately for us we don’t have any possibility of checked bags going astray.
Home
The final flight landed about half an hour early, around 16:30 Sydney time. Our seats happened to be right next to the door that was the first one open, so we were the very first passengers off the plane. Sydney Airport was completely empty. We must have been the first plane to arrive for at least an hour, as there was nobody ahead of us at any of the immigration, baggage claims, or customs areas. As a result of this and not having any checked bags to wait for, we were out into the arrivals hall within just a few minutes.
We headed to the station and caught a train 3 minutes later. Changing at Central, we got the next train within 3 minutes to, and we were home and in the door by 17:30. We’d been in Amsterdam just 21 hours earlier.
We had quick showers and then went to Loki and Rachel’s place to pick up Scully. Family reunited, we came home and relaxed a bit in the evening before bed time.
Coda - Flight delay compensation
When I told Dietmar at the ISO meeting about our 24-hour delayed flight in Singapore, he mentioned the EU Air Passengers Rights Regulation, which guarantees compensation from the airline for delays over three hours. I checked and we were entitled to 600€ compensation each from Lufthansa. After looking into this, on 2 July I prepared a claim and submitted it to Lufthansa, with receipts for evidence of our expenses.
The claim was for:
After a simple confirmation of receipt of our claim, we heard nothing from Lufthansa until 20 August, when they offered us a total of 600€ in compensation. I replied that this was less than the legislated amount of 600€ per passenger, and did not take into account our additional expenses incurred because of the flight delay.
We heard nothing back until 20 December, when Lufthansa agreed to pay us 1500€ total in compensation. I figured this was okay and decided not to bother chasing the extra hundred-odd euro. The deposit was made to our bank account within a few days, finally drawing an end to this trip's aftermath.
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