An Eventful Flight Home From San Francisco to Sydney

Sunday, August 23rd, 2009 at11:59 am by Wanda

QF74 being serviced at LA Airport

The days starts out pretty ordinary, we have breakfast at the Terrace Cafe at El Rancho Best Western and then we go to the office to find out what there is to do in Millbrae until our shuttle at 7pm. It appears there isn’t anything to do where we are so, so we think we should go and drop off the bags and go back into San Francisco to spend a few hours.

We get to the airport really early and Qantas doesn’t open until 6:45pm to take check in for our 10:40pm flight. Damn so here we are at the airport with the bags. I ask a rather gorgeous looking security guard if there is anywhere to store the bags for a few hours. He doesn’t think there but isn’t too sure because he is new on the job ,so I check with the Lufthansa check in desk and sure enough there is.

The attendant says ‘yes at the FedEx counter’ with a vague wave of her hand in the general direction down the corridor. So I go back and tell the guard, who is a bit skeptical and asks if she said that FedEx was on the floor we are on. Uh no she didn’t actually say that.

He smiles sweetly and makes a call to check on the information that we have been given.

Sure enough there is an area for leaving your baggage so we are all happy, me because we can leave the airport and the guard because he now has this information the next time someone asks.

At the FedEx counter I ask for the cost and get tossed a sheet of paper with various charges. So okay, this isn’t helping much, what is it going to cost to leave two cases and a small carry on bag

A grumpy older attendant says “I don’t know till I see the size an’ you gotta bring em here cause I aint comin’ dere”. Oh for goodness sake you only have to tell me how this works. A young attendant then comes over and takes the bags, scans them and asks for $40.oo. Gulp. Okay cheap at the price if I can offload the bags.

Next stop the information counter to find out about catching the BART into San Francisco. The attendants get into a full on discussion about the costs and in the end I thank them and leave, deciding to hang around the airport.

So we plug in the laptop at one of the many points around the terminal and spend the rest of the day in the airport.

Flight QF74

Finally 6:45pm arrives and we head off to check in. We have been given seats in totally different areas but fortunately the attendant changes our seating so that we can sit together – in row 73 the very last seats on the side aisle of the aircraft.

We sit on the tarmac for quite some time and finally its time to go. The entertainment system for the last 10 rows in our section doesn’t work, great 14 and half hours flight with no magazines, books or movies.

I end up watching a movie minus the sound on another passengers screen 3 rows up.

About an hour into the flight the captain comes on and advises that there is a technical problem with engine number 4. The de-icer isn’t working which is okay while we are flying over the US but will be a really big problem when we approach Australia as the engine will ice up. I am not too sure I like this age of full disclosure of what’s happening.

We are going to fly for a bit longer and see if the problem fixes itself. Of course it doesn’t and the captain decides that rather than risk the lives of everyone on board he is going to divert to Los Angeles where the plane can be serviced.

So at around 4:15am we arrive in Los Angeles and it looks like a scene out of a movie, with fire trucks, police and various other safety vehicles on the tarmac.

Qantas have arranged for us to stay at the Hilton hotel and we line up to catch the bus to the hotel. I have to say that Qantas staff handle the whole situation in an efficient and professional manner. I am very impressed with how quickly everything is organized. Our baggage stays on the plane for the flight in the morning once the engineers have sorted out the problem.

A vacant LAX airport We line up in the almost empty airport terminal to wait for further instructions.

We have a Vietnamese lady from Liverpool, Sydney in our little group, who is a bit bemused what is happening and we are not sure that she speaks English and fortunately we manage to find someone who speaks Vietnamese to help her.

In the meantime have hooked up with Maureen, who is on her way home to the Central Coast of NSW from visiting her daughter and family in Edmonton, Canada. She is hanging out for a cigarette and just wants to get home after 5 weeks traveling.

Maureen is very friendly and chatty which helps the time to go quite quickly, and tells me about her trip and the enormous shopping center in Edmonton which I make a mental note to add to the list of places to visit.

At the Hilton we are given vouchers for both dinner and breakfast and check in is relatively quick considering the large number of passengers to be processed.

The staff on this flight are efficient and friendly and all go out of their way to assure passengers that everything is fine and that arrangements are all in hand.

We are told that after breakfast we are to make our way out to the airport in the shuttles that run every 20 minutes. Nobody bothers with dinner, it is getting onto 5am and everyone just wants to go to bed for a couple of hours.

The hotel room is quite ordinary, not at all what I was expecting, but the bed is deliciously soft and the linen is excellent quality with a soft, smooth feel to it. The pure white towels are also thick, soft and cuddly. There is a clock radio where you can plug in your iPod and you can set the alarm so that it wakes you with either a buzz, the radio or an assortment of music.

There is a coffee maker so Val makes a cup of tea before we shower and go to bed. I set the alarm for 7am, I just want to make sure that we don’t miss the flight home.

We meet the representative in the lobby and are given new boarding passes. Then after a delicious buffet breakfast of scrambled eggs, breakfast potatoes, toast, bacon and sausage links followed by fresh, juicy fruit, we head off to the assembly area to get the shuttle. Everyone is a bit bleary eyed as we have all had just a couple of hours sleep.

At the airport I can see our plane still in the fix it up area, hmm not sure this is a good sign. After a while the plane makes its way to the pick up point and we are able to board.

We have all be given the same seats as we started of with originally and sure enough my entertainment system now works.

By being at the back of the aircraft we are next to the pub corner where people congregate to stretch their legs and congregate, quite noisily at times.

The flight is uneventful and we land in Sydney at 7:35pm and rush through customs to get onto the transfer flight to Brisbane. There are a half a dozen of us going to Brisbane and the plane has been held up giving us time to transfer from International to the Domestic airport.

Jurgon and Stacy pick us up at 10:35pm and only another 45 minutes and we are home.

The Hilton Hotel Los Angeles:

The public areas are beautiful but I felt that the guest areas are rather dated and worn looking. The furnishings in the room are quite dated, but the beds are extremely comfortable as are the pillows and the bedding. In the bathroom there are soft fluffy towels. So the hotel is a bit of an enigma with high end bed and bath items lower end furnishings.

Chandelier in the Entrance Area

Hilton Hotel Los Angeles