I knew I was going to have a long flight when going to Australia but so far it’s been much, much worse than expected.

I was supposed to go from Boston to San Francisco where I was to take a plane to Sydney and then finally catch a plane to Canberra.

I got to the airport around 3:30 on Thursday afternoon for a 5:50 flight. I was told the flight was delayed and as a result I’d miss my connection to Sydney in San Francisco. Luckily there was an alternative. I was booked on a 5:00 flight to Denver where I’d take another plane to L.A. and from L.A. I’d be off to Sydney… a bit of an inconvenience but all in all not too bad… or so I thought.

The flight to Denver took longer than expected due to strong head winds. When we landed I had 15 minutes to get to my next flight (on the other side of the airport). I ran off the plane throwing little old women and children to the ground as I went in a desperate attempt to stay on schedule.

I arrived completely out of breath with 5 minutes to spare only to find out the flight L.A. was an hour late. I was told that I’d still be able to make my connection to Sydney in L.A. so I wasn’t worried. I grabbed a sandwich, an apple and a water and stretched my legs. While waiting I had a nice conversation with an engineer for an energy company from L.A. All was well.

Then came the snow….

We boarded the plane but before taking off we had to wait while the wings of the plane were de-iced. Unfortunately the snow was falling too fast so they decided to de-ice again and put some anti-ice on the wings. The chances of me catching that flight were getting slimmer be the minute. While all this was going on we received news that a fog had rolled in at LAX, so now we had to get more fuel in case we’d have to land somewhere else. At this point we had been waiting on the plan for almost 2 hours, not to mention the hour we waited off the plane.

Then came the announcement…

The pilots had gone over the legal limit of hours they can fly so the flight was canceled. Unfortunately for the passengers it was late into the night and the next possible flight was at 8AM the next morning and there appear to be only 2 people working at the airport so getting rebooked was painfully slow.

At 2 in the morning local time (4AM my time) I finally got a new itinerary and a hotel voucher for a lousy hotel 15 miles from the airport. The best they could do was to send me to Honolulu, a 7 and a half hour flight, where I’m to catch a plane to Sydney, an 11 hour flight, wait 3 hours and get on the final leg of my trip to Canberra.

12 hours after leaving Logan airport I get to the hotel and to top it off… they’re out of non-smoking rooms at the hotel.

Hopefully I’ll have better luck tomorrow.

(in case you’re wondering who provides this great service…. it’s United)