Hi Gang,
Made it to San Diego safe and sound. No thanks to Qantas though. We left Melbourne an hour late and were given the customary excuse, "due to the late arrival of the aircraft." Why is it that we all have to work doubly hard if there is a deadline, but big companies obviously do not care? So then we get onto the plane and as we taxi out to the runway, we lose all power. Promising. The captain restarts the engines and the air conditioning system and we take off. Then, we find out that the power spike has fried the entertainment system. We are stuck with reduced list of movies for 14 hours, even better. Oh, forgot to let everyone know that when the airline says to you, "we realise you are concerned about your connections due to our late departure and we will have staff on the ground to assist you." They are simply telling you what you want to hear to get you out of their face. no help. No ground crew. The quickest process was the US Customs, which is usually the reverse, they must have improved. Again waited an inordinately long time for bags and then managed to get to my connection with ten minutes to spare and probably a year or so less life.