It started at 4:45pm UK time when my last meeting ended on Wednesday and I headed off to the London City airport for my flight taking off in a little over two hours. 45 minutes later as I got out of my cab at the LYC airport, I got a text message saying my 19:05 was cancelled :-(  I called Lufthansa and they suggested to rebook me on the London Heathrow at 20:05. It was 17:30 and the taxi driver estimated 1.5 hours to Heathrow, so I went for it. The taxi ride was smooth and we made it in 75 min.

As I get out of the taxi, I get another text message that my 20:05 was cancelled :-( Off to the Lufthansa ticket counter. I was informed no more flights out to Munich where snow has been falling for nearly 24 hours. Among other tasks, the lady at the counter was writing up my hotel voucher. I saw the previous traveler's voucher being written up for Novohotel. A fine hotel, but nothing special. At this point I was taking everything with humor and facetiously said "oh great, I am being put up in the luxurious Novohotel". She clarified that actually the 4-star hotel is only for Senator class travelers, and as I am only frequent flyer, I am to be booked in Ibis. (Ibis is two or maybe three stars). I told her that I normally stay at very nice hotels and if there is any way I can upgrade and pay the difference. She went off and came back smiling saying she worked out that I can go to the Novohotel.

I waited 20 minutes for the bus and another 15 minutes later I got out at the Novohotel and see that it is very new and quite cool. I went to check in and they ask if I reserved. I said, "Reserved? Lufthansa just sent me over so I presume you have a block of rooms." Well they didn't. The chap at the desk was friendly, though my patience was tried. Two cancelled flights and now no room. He quickly organized an alternative for me at the Ramada. Supposedly 4 stars as well.
I was there about a half hour later. It was fine, but a step below the surprisingly neat Novohotel.

Meanwhile, the Lufthansa ticket agent had also rebooked me on the next morning's 7:15. My alarm went off at 5:00 to catch it. I called my Lufthansa frequent flyer hotline to check in, and was informed the 7:15 was cancelled :-(  She rebooked me onto the 9:35. I dozed off for another hour or two. Took the 8:15 Hoppa transfer bus to Terminal 2. As I enter the terminal, I get a text message. Oh no, I thought. But this time no cancellation - just a delay to 10:10. Okay. Off to the business lounge. Lufthansa sharesone  with BMI. They had just refurbished one of the coolest business lounges I have seen. Nice place to hang out, but I still felt like a prisoner not able to get where I wanted to. This feeling was exasperated as my flight was delayed to 11:10. Still not cancelled, so I took this all very positively and got some work done.

Boarding began at 10:50. We all get on the plane and settle in. Boarding is complete, the pilot announced. A couple of minutes later the pilot got on to inform us that the on-board generator which powered the starter for the engines was defect so they are awaiting a special machine that blows air into the turbines enabling the pilot to start the engines. A while later he gets on to say they have the machine now, but they engineers can't get it started. It is used so seldom that he couldn't say if they would get it started or if there was another one at the airport. A while later he gets on the speakers to announce that things got a bit worse. The engineers did get the machine started but not in time for us to use our allocated start slot. The next slot available is 90 minutes later, so around 13:00. Our new slot was actually moved forward about 20 min :-)

We landed in Munich "on time" at about 15:45 CET, but there was no gate available for us. The airport found a gate for us so we moved forward, but then needed to wait until they cleared some snow. We got to the gate a half hour later, but the ramp wasn't working. They got the ramp to move fairly quickly and I was out of the plane after 4 1/2 hours for a 90 minute flight. I needed to unwind and did some shopping for a half hour. Headed off to the car. Yes, it started without a hitch. But it was now 5pm local time. Yup, rush hour after two days of non-stop snow. Not tons, but enough to cause problems. My usual 75 min drive home from the airport took over 2 1/2 hours!