Our flight back to the UK was scheduled to leave at 9:25am, so it was a 6am start for us — not exactly my idea of fun. We made it out to the airport easily, since traffic was light, and got checked in on our flight. We stopped by the lounge for a cup of coffee. We’d barely sat down when our flight was called for boarding.

“Wow, that was easy,” I remarked, thinking how smoothly everything had gone. Never count your chickens before they hatch.

We boarded the plane shortly before 9am and took our seats. Just before 9:25, the pilot announced that we were ready to go and that we would push back shortly. I was listening to air traffic control (I’m really sad) and suddenly music came on — always a bad sign, as it means the pilot is discussing something with the tower that he’d rather the passengers not hear.

In our case, it was a defective environmental control system — something to do with the pressurization of the plane. After about an hour onboard, the mechanic determined he couldn’t fix the fault. Luckily, they had another plane at the next gate. Over we went, finally taking off about 11:30am.

United managed to get an exemption to the late-night arrival ban in force at Heathrow. We arrived just before midnight, and managed to get home shortly after 2am. So much for avoiding jetlag with a good night’s sleep!