The day arrived for my week away in Melbourne, where I will
have an afternoon wandering the streets of Melbourne. This time around I was
pretty slack in my packing as I left it to basically two days before I left on
the adventure. I was checking things within the hours before leaving for the
airport. Making sure I had everything that I needed as the time ticked ever closer and this time I didnt fill myself up with multiple coffee as I made friends with the toilets the last time I did that.
A neighbour picked me up to drop me off at the doors. There
was nothing ominous when we pulled up as it looked like a busy airport from the
outside. I thought it was strange some lady as I walked past was looking in the
windows, when I thought she couldn’t find the doors that was a metre away. I
set foot into the building and soon realised something was going on as there
were larger crowds than usual and no flight details on the boards. I asked one
of the workers, who told me there was an IT outage with the entire airport. I
looked at Twitter to see answers and there was nothing and then Facebook, where
it told me they operate 9 – 5. They did have an update to say they were down
from a power outage and IT issues. Were the guys from the IT Crowd playing games like unplugging things, or turning computers on or off? Did they type in a word to crash the search engine?
While people watching and chatting to the occasional Jetstar
lady including the one on her first day of work, which I wished her well. The
airlines were manually sorting out the bags for the flights and that meant
every flight leaving. A couple were being cancelled. I received some messages
from the media as I had posted a picture on the GC airport page, and they asked
for video and photos, which I obliged to do. They were Sunrise and Channel 6,
whoever they were. The entire scenario reminded me of the panic buying during
the pandemic and when the checkout lines were long when we had the flooding
this time last year in the Tween when the NBN outage meant there was no eftpos
for several days. As I told a Jestar lady, I was happy to stand and people
watch, and everyone from my corner of the world seemed calm. There were sporadic
people going through security, and if you had no bag you could go through to
boarding. They were announcing flights while I was there and I even heard the airport manager tell everyone about the delays and that they were working in the background to sort out the issue. It made me think of someone out there spinning around on their chairs as the computers are down.
I required a loo and the toilet wasn’t experiencing delays, which was lucky. Back to my standing spot, I spotted a camera, so I took a photo of the guy. I slowly crept up to where they were manually checking in the people and for the bag drops. I was starting to wonder if my flight was going to be canned, and I grabbed another Jestar lady to ask if I should line up. One step away and the announcement came over that the flight was cancelled. The nice lady told me to now get onto the site to manage my booking before others grab the website with their rush. Within minutes, I was on my way out the front door, hoping the website would work. I found I had two options for the Monday and I selected the last flight out for Monday. I kinda accidentally selected it, but it gave me a seat to Melbourne and I was happy for that. I got in before many other people overwhelmed the system, taking away my flight to the city of Melbourne. Today technology in my hand got ahead of people power and on the advice of a Jetstar lady. They all need a stiff drink tonight.
After the rescheduled flight, I got emails and messages letting me know about the cancelled flight. Since the flight was late at night and getting me to Melbourne just before Midnight, I might turn into a pumpkin while on the bus to the city. I did let my accommodation know, I will be late and they were likely happy with that. The flight change didn’t cost me anything so there is that and I will try again with my flight later. Hopefully Kaos doesn’t interrupt, unless its agent 86 from Control. Then I will be worried as things just happen that is out of anyones control. I accepted that and I even got things done after returning home. There was more washing and a haircut involved so it is all good in the crazy world where anything can happen and then it happens.
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