I printed a bunch of postcards on Thursday before going to the airport. I addressed them at the apartment, thinking I could write messages on them when I was waiting at the airport.Little did I know that there would be incredible delays at Pearson related to checked baggage. Normally I don't go to the counters, I use the Air Canada express kiosks to print out my boarding card. I've memorised my Aeroplan number and pre-select my seat, so my self-check-in takes about two minutes. Then I take my luggage to the conveyor belt, and I'm finished. Well, for some reason they routed EVERYONE through to the check-in counters, regardless of whether passengers had a boarding card or not.
There was all sorts of chaos at the airport due to pulling London-bound passengers from the queue, so the lines just grew out of control because people didn't know where to go. In front of me, two rare-breed dogs from Austria were sharing a giant cage in transition from Vienna to Halifax, and the owner was probably wondering whether they would make the connecting flight.
Meanwhile, all my precious Maple Leaf Lounge time was slipping by, and I couldn't very well write these postcards in the queue, so what to do with them? There were also no mailboxes by the boarding gates, I was told they were all outside. So, I found an airport employee -- a Filipina -- and asked her to post them for me. She looked at the back and asked tsk tsk-ed at seeing them blank...
We'll see what the success rate is for how many show up at their destinations!
