(written on Nov 27) It started with an early flight to Warsaw for an afternoon meeting and then a quick return flight to Munich - no fuss, and no luggage. The fog in Munich was thick, but still doable. After an hour delay we took off and headed NE to Warsaw. 3/4 of the way there, we were told that our landing was delayed. OK no problem, still 1 hr buffer to cust meeting. 1/2 hr later, we were told that the fog was too thick to land in Warsaw - so instead of circling endlessly, we would land at a 'local' location then continue onward when conditions improved in Warsaw. That's how I got to know Rzeszow. So we landed, at the same time as my scheduled customer meeting. Nothing I could do except reschedule - which I was fortunate enough to do. OK... twiddling thumbs on the plane (my laptop battery was well drained at this point). 1 hr later - sorry folks, please deplane and get more info in the terminal. The terminal was little more than a large room, filled with 3 plane's worth of diverted passengers... nice! No one in the terminal could tell us what was going on, so I started to wait with a boatload of impatients at the LOT counter... for 2 hrs! After the wait, I was told to standby for further info. Ouch! 1 more hr later by taxi - sorry, all flights to Warsaw are cancelled - good luck! hmm... what to do - so many possibilities; i) 7 hr drive to Warsaw ii) hang out at the airport til tomorrow, iii) 10 hr drive back to Munich, or option iv) take a taxi for 3 hrs to Krakow, generally regarded as one of the most beautiful cities in Poland, then fly back to Munich at 7am. We chose door #4. A 4 hr drive got us to Krakow, where I'm now typing this out - the fog is thicker here so tomorrow's situation looks uncertain - we have 3 backup plans just in case but now I'm just looking forward to a bit of sleep.

(written on Dec 9)

to complete the story, it turned out that during dinner late on the 27th in Krakow, I received the following SMS from Lufthansa "We apologize but your flight from Krakow to Munich has been cancelled". No surprise really given the heavy fog conditions, anyway I called the travel agent and booked ourselves into the next flight around 12:30pm. In the morning I picked up a few toiletries near the hotel (I was after all, prepared only for a brief half-day trip). We then loaded up all of our stuff and headed to the airport. It was complete mayhem - thousands of stranded travelers crowded into a small airport. But we were pleasantly surprised as the airline was letting people check in. As we did - the word came down - the flight is cancelled, and 30 seconds later, the obligatory SMS from Lufthansa. OK, so let's try for the next one at 5:30... but as a backup plan we decided to go to the train station and find out all of the possibilities - Krackow -> Warsaw and still meet with client -> not possible by any means as my CTO needed to catch an early flight on thurday to Canada. Krakow to Munich seemed the only possibility so we booked our backup tickets on a 15 hour train ride... just in case. As it was lunch time - we wandered over to a nearby mall, and was quite impressed, probably one of the shiniest and nicest shopping centres I've ever seen. Anyway after lunch and a bit of work we went back to the airport to await our fate. "Plane Delayed" was the result, so we waited, and waited, until it clear that no planes were landing or taking off in Krakow. Alright, so the backup option is the only option. We went back to the mall and worked there for awhile with the free WLAN while we waited. It turned out that that we had a tiny couchette for three; BZ, myself and an austrian who claimed he bought the last ticket for the train at 5pm that day. Good thing we bought our tickets early. The train was cramped and bumpy, but at least we were on our way. At 6am we pulled into Vienna and switched train stations to catch our next ride to Munich. Eventually we arrived at Hbf around 1pm, and I quickly grabbed the LH express bus to the airport, where I'd left my car in the short stay area.

So the moral of the story is that although I've only had good experiences with LOT, I will try to fly only with LH from now on - at least if the plane gets diverted, it should at least return to deutschland.

thanks to BZ for the pics