I popped across to Dublin to give a workshop on Wireless Security to some clients on Wednesday. Little 1 hour flight from Edinburgh on Tuesday night so I could get an early start on the Wednesday morning.
Weather started being a bit mental at 3.30am with almost continuous lightning and thunder.
My workshop went well, although regularly punctuated by loud booms, and we did suffer a smaller turnout than expected as there was flooding in some areas and travel was very difficult.

My flight home was supposed to leave at 7pm Wednesday and as the skies cleared a little around 3ish I thought there would be no problems.

From late afternoon the lightning started again (the most amazing lightning I have ever seen - between 7 and 8 there was a flash every 20 seconds, in bright purple a lot of the time) and at various points flights were stopped.

Our flight kept getting delayed but finally at 11ish we saw our bags get on the plane and ground staff prepared to get us boarded.

Then it got hit by lightning - which did look very cool, as it was just about 50 feet away from us at the time!

So we all trooped off and I eventually managed to find a hotel which had a room (due to four other cancelled flights every other hotel filled up) although according to Aer Lingus they would not pay the bill for the hotel, as 'acts of God' are not covered. My argument that as an atheist there was no such thing as an act of God was dismissed.

Got back to the airport in the morning to find Aer Lingus were having a strike so out of 200 flights, only 18 were running.

No room on any.

And the bank holiday weekend means everything hugely busy.

Was informed, after a 2 1/2 hour queue to speak to one of the few staff left at the desk that Saturday or Sunday was going to be likely.

I eventually managed to wangle a flight to London, and after sitting as standby on a few flights I got back home late Thursday evening.

The big downside is that with all the faffing about I never got to get a good drink at any point. And I was in Dublin for f**ks sake.

Aer Lingus - oh how I love you.

Okay, rant over - move along - nothing to see here

My Ryanair Knock (County Mayo's international airport) to Manchester flight was delayed by some hours, a few years back. A soft Irish voice came over the PA: "If you lads want to go to the bar, they'll fix you all up with a drink and a sandwich, if you show your boarding pass - after a further wait, Ryanair's local manager came out and brought another round.
A customer service ethic, that I think AerLingus might get into!

Now that might just have cheered folks up. One group of guys (probably oil riggers or similar, judging by appearance, build and chat) became quite irate after drinking all afternoon on the Wednesday and at 11.30 as I was running to try and get a taxi/hotel, they started kicking off.

I would not have wanted to be the poor girl on the desk at that point.

Admittedly, during the epic queues on Thursday, a guy did come round with juice, coke, water, snacks etc every half hour or so.

And the guy who sorted my tickets did get me an upgrade to business class (probably 'cos I was the only one not shouting at him.)