Friday, September 08, 2006
Monday Sept 4th – Wed Sept 6th flying and waiting
Our flight was leaving at 18:10 on Monday evening so we had plenty of time to goof around. I updated my blogs and we left the hotel (Four Points Sheraton at Pearson) just around noon time.
We found a place at the airport close to a power socket so I kept on writing. Same thing on the plane until my laptop battery died…
To my experience flying overseas eastwards has always been more difficult than flying west. However, this time I did not fly all the way to Finland so we flew through only 6 time zones and the flight itself was relatively short, too. Only 6:45 hours. We had booked our Frankfurt hotel at the same Intercity Hotel in Cargo City South where we stayed three weeks earlier. Hotel is within walking distance from Aviapartners cargo terminal.
Anyway, the hotel was not going to give our room before 14:00 Tuesday and we arrived to Frankfurt at 08:00 so we just sat at the airport.
When we finally got to the hotel we took a nap of 1,5 hours and went to bed at normal time in the evening. This was by far my easiest getting over the jetlag.
The bikes were supposed to arrive around 09:00 on Wednesday morning so we figured that if we are at the Cargo center around 11:00 the bikes should be pretty much ready to go.
We left our bags to the hotel, walked the ½ hour distance to Aviapartners Cargo and went to the import department. It turned out that the plane had arrived only some 20 minutes earlier. The official filled out some papers, asked for 12 euros from each of us and advised us to visit the customs office some half kilometer away. Customs visit was smooth, about 15 minutes and we went back, this time straight to the cargo hall.
We were very surprised to see our bikes standing on the floor, all unpacked and practically ready to go! We were prepared to unwrap them ourselves. We saw right away that most of our tie down straps were missing. (Yes, this time the guys at Toronto did use them unlike the Germans three weeks earlier.) We found the straps among dozens of others on the pallets.
We got the bikes ready to go and rode away.
As our ferry to Finland was due only on Friday evening we had plenty of time so we drove to Lindlar to see Tom and Hartmut and to pick up some extra gear that I left there on our way out.
Tom and Hartmut had arrived from their flight some two hours earlier and they had actually seen our bikes being loaded in Toronto – but not on the same Air Transat as they were flying but on a German LTU plane! And now we also got the explanation why we did not need to do the unpacking ourselves…The bikes were not packed at all. They were just strapped on a pallet and that was all.
In any case, we did not see any damage done to the bikes so the guys in Toronto obviously did not drop either one of the bikes…
We stayed overnight at Hartmut’s hotel and tried to keep him awake together with Tom until his normal bed time. We managed until 19:30 but then Hartmut gave up and went to bed.
Air Transat aircrafts in Toronto on Monday. We thought that our bikes will fly on one of these but it later turned out that the flying was subcontracted to German LTU.
Writing the blog in Toronto.
Aviapartners cargo center in Frankfurt Cargo City South
Bikes almost ready to go in the caro hall.
Packing the bikes in front of the Intercity Hotel in Frankfurt.
We found a place at the airport close to a power socket so I kept on writing. Same thing on the plane until my laptop battery died…
To my experience flying overseas eastwards has always been more difficult than flying west. However, this time I did not fly all the way to Finland so we flew through only 6 time zones and the flight itself was relatively short, too. Only 6:45 hours. We had booked our Frankfurt hotel at the same Intercity Hotel in Cargo City South where we stayed three weeks earlier. Hotel is within walking distance from Aviapartners cargo terminal.
Anyway, the hotel was not going to give our room before 14:00 Tuesday and we arrived to Frankfurt at 08:00 so we just sat at the airport.
When we finally got to the hotel we took a nap of 1,5 hours and went to bed at normal time in the evening. This was by far my easiest getting over the jetlag.
The bikes were supposed to arrive around 09:00 on Wednesday morning so we figured that if we are at the Cargo center around 11:00 the bikes should be pretty much ready to go.
We left our bags to the hotel, walked the ½ hour distance to Aviapartners Cargo and went to the import department. It turned out that the plane had arrived only some 20 minutes earlier. The official filled out some papers, asked for 12 euros from each of us and advised us to visit the customs office some half kilometer away. Customs visit was smooth, about 15 minutes and we went back, this time straight to the cargo hall.
We were very surprised to see our bikes standing on the floor, all unpacked and practically ready to go! We were prepared to unwrap them ourselves. We saw right away that most of our tie down straps were missing. (Yes, this time the guys at Toronto did use them unlike the Germans three weeks earlier.) We found the straps among dozens of others on the pallets.
We got the bikes ready to go and rode away.
As our ferry to Finland was due only on Friday evening we had plenty of time so we drove to Lindlar to see Tom and Hartmut and to pick up some extra gear that I left there on our way out.
Tom and Hartmut had arrived from their flight some two hours earlier and they had actually seen our bikes being loaded in Toronto – but not on the same Air Transat as they were flying but on a German LTU plane! And now we also got the explanation why we did not need to do the unpacking ourselves…The bikes were not packed at all. They were just strapped on a pallet and that was all.
In any case, we did not see any damage done to the bikes so the guys in Toronto obviously did not drop either one of the bikes…
We stayed overnight at Hartmut’s hotel and tried to keep him awake together with Tom until his normal bed time. We managed until 19:30 but then Hartmut gave up and went to bed.
Air Transat aircrafts in Toronto on Monday. We thought that our bikes will fly on one of these but it later turned out that the flying was subcontracted to German LTU.
Writing the blog in Toronto.Aviapartners cargo center in Frankfurt Cargo City South
Bikes almost ready to go in the caro hall.
Packing the bikes in front of the Intercity Hotel in Frankfurt.
