Currently in Cork for what has become an annual pre-Christmas visit to catch up with Forest Ireland spokesman John Mallon.
My flight was scheduled to depart from Stansted at 07:45 this morning. Having boarded the aircraft however we were told there was a “technical issue” and an engineer had been summoned to investigate.
“Bad news, I’m afraid,” the pilot told us 15 minutes later. We were going nowhere on that plane.
Fortunately there was a spare aircraft available elsewhere on the apron and so, 30 minutes after we should have been airborne, we got off and were driven by bus to the replacement plane.
To cut a long story short, we took off around 09:00 and landed in Cork shortly after ten.
The good news is we avoided the high winds (40mph) that were forecast for later in the morning.
That was a relief because one of the worst experiences I’ve had when flying was taking off from Dublin airport into the teeth of a 40mph wind.
If I remember we sat on the runway for almost an hour waiting for the wind speed to drop to a safe (albeit uncomfortable) level and the experience of sitting aboard what felt like a bucking bronco (for the first ten minutes of the flight) left me a little spooked.
It was enough to persuade me to cancel a subsequent flight out of Dublin when similar winds were whipping around the airport. On that occasion I wimped out, checked back into my comfortable city centre hotel and booked a flight for the following day when the forecast was better.
Friends who live in Ireland tell me that high winds and bumpy landings are not uncommon over here but that doesn’t make it better if you’re not used to them.
To be fair, once we got off the ground today’s flight was fine but I shall be keeping a beady eye on the forecast before I fly out from Dublin on Saturday.