ICWSM25 & UGent: Delays^2
I didn’t want to write a dedicated entry for these trips, but given that the same issues happened back-to-back in the timespan of ~1 week, I decided it was worth doing so.
Copenhagen
I was going to attend ICWSM’25, in Copenhagen, from June 23rd to June 27th. On the surface, the journey is straightfoward: flights between CPH and ZRH are frequent, direct, and typically last ~1h or so. Of course, things didn’t go as expected.
Reaching CPH. My ZRH->CPH flight was supposed to depart at 12:30pm, so I planned to reach ZRH by 10:30; to be precise, my ETA in ZRH was 10:32am (by leaving at 8:17am from Feldkirch, with two changes). Of course, the second train I took had 30m delay, which led me to miss my connecting train, and which resulted in me arriving at ZRH roughly ~1h later. But this is the norm—or, at least, it is if you are used to Italian railways; it shouldn’t be when you take trains from SBB, who take pride in their timeliness/punctuality.[a]This is not the first time that an SBB train I take is late. Actually, I’d say that I am surprised when an SBB train I take is not late. Anyway, I had no issues in going through the security controls and reaching the gate. However, the departure of the flight ended up being delayed by almost 1 hour (56m, to be exact). The reason communicated to us once we got on board was hilarious: “It’s raining, so the cargo-loading operations had to be stopped.” Yes, SWISS, it makes perfect sense that, in 2025, a flight is delayed by 1h if it rains in Zurich.[b]I mean, we’re in 2025—when it is fairly easy to look at weather forecasts—and SWISS does have ways/processes that ensure that loading luggage onto a flight can be done without it getting wet? Come on!
Getting back to ZRH. The return trip was surreal. The flight was scheduled to depart at 3:05pm. I arrived in CPH with plenty of time to spare—I think I was there at 12:30pm or so. After going through security, I looked at the screen with the list of the flights and… my flight was delayed: 35m, that’s what was reported. I began to wait. Then, starting from 12:54pm, every 10m I received a new SMS stating that the scheduled departure was always 10m after the previous communication. It was a true agony (proof). The last one was at 2:24pm, stating that the plane would depart at 4:20pm (which it did). The reason for the delay? “The German fly-space is currently overcrowded, and hence they do not allow us to fly over Germany until this issue has been resolved.” Not bad, Swiss, not bad. Oh, and I received an email by SWISS at 4:37pm communicating the gate from which my flight was scheduled to depart from. Yes, at 4:37pm (proof), i.e., 17m after the flight took off. How timely, Swiss!
Hence, all in all, for this trip, I accumulated 140m of “delay” across two flights whose cumulative flying-time was of 150m. Not bad, I would say. Little did I know, however, that an even worse fate would waiting for me just a few days later.
Bruxelles
Not even one week after my trip to ICWSM’25, I had to go to Belgium as a juror of a PhD defense. This time, my destination airport was that of Brussels (BRU), and the ZRH–BRU flight-time is of 70m.
Getting to BRU. On July 2nd, my flight to BRU was supposed to depart at 5:55pm. I was supposed to arrive at ZRH at 3:44pm by train. Of course, my train (this one was from OBB, not SBB) was 30m late and I arrived in ZRH at 4:40pm or so. But of course this didn’t have any consequence. Why? Because of course my flight had been delayed, too. This time, however, everything appeared to be OK: we got on board without any issues whatsoever. At 5:40 or so, I was sitting on my seat. Then, a member of the crew said in the loudspeaker: “We will depart 1h late because the Brussels airport is not allowing us to land if we were to take off now.” Just my luck :)
Returning to ZRH. This trip was just the perfect way to conclude this ordeal. My flight to ZRH was supposed to depart at 3pm, and I arrived at BRU sometime at 1pm. I went past security, and right before I could sit somewhere, I receive an SMS: “Your flight is delayed and will depart at 3:20pm.” Alright, not too bad—I mean, after all these delays, what is just 20m? Then, 30m later, another message: “Your flight is delayed and will depart at 4:35pm.” I was starting to feel a deja vu from the previous week. But then, at 2:18pm, I receive another SMS “Your flight is delayed and will depart at 3:55pm” (proof) …what? So the flight has recovered some delay? Wonderful!—or so I thought. I reached the gate and began waiting there. At 3:57pm, the screen reporting the details of the flight stated that the scheduled departure time was 3:50pm[c]Note that 3:50pm was a yet-different time from the one stated in the lsat SMS I received (which reported 3:55pm). Yes, this was shown at 3:57pm (proof): very timely, Swiss. Anyway, at 4pm there was no plane attached to the gate. Eventually, the plane arrived at 4:15pm, we began boarding at 4:40pm, and the plane took off at 5:10pm. Why was the plane delayed? “A technical defect in our previous flight forced us to change aircraft, which delayed everything.” :) Oh, and upon the landing in ZRH, reaching the terminal took a lot of time because we had to take the bus. Despite my best effort to run from the terminal to the train station (which I did in literally 200 seconds), I was unable to catch my train to go back to Feldkirch (I missed it by 1 minute…[d]Of course, trains are never late when you need them to be late!).
Overall, for this trip, the accumulated delay was of more than 180m… and the cumulative fly time was of 140m.