The Long (and delayed) Road Home

Sadly, I must complain about Emirates Airlines. My flight home started last Wednesday, August 6 aboard Emirates 856. As we were rolling down the runway at Kuwait International Airport, our plane - a Boeing 777-200 LR - came to a screeching halt. Two fire trucks rolled up and deployed their fire hoses. No word on what happened (Emirates only said it was a 'technical problem') but all of us passengers were eventually ushered off the plane and into the Pearl Lounge where we sat from about 11 am until about 4 pm. Finally, Emirates flew another jet to Kuwait to pick us up and fly us to Dubai where we arrived about 8 hours late!! Fortunately, my connection wasn't until the following morning so I only missed having a pleasant afternnon in Dubai to shop. Unfortunately, most of my fellow passengers missed their connections to Europe/Asia and had to make other arrangements.

I arrived at my hotel - The Intercontinental Hotel - Festival City. I only had time to unpack and go to bed. I got up the followng morning, Aug. 7, at 5:30 am, headed over to the Dubai Airport (the lower photo of the above two photos attempts to show just how crowded the Dubai airport is at such an early hour) and I boarded Emirates 211 at 8:30 am. Thankfully my flight home took off ON TIME at about 9:30 am Dubai time and landed in Houston a few minutes early at 4:00 pm Houston time. The next time I go over to Kuwait I am thinking of flyng KLM!