Long delay when a BA 787 turned around

I was coming back from Montreal, when the incoming plane turned around, reportedly due to one the GPSes failing, and that not being allowed for an overseas flight. This caused a six hour delay on our departure from Montreal. On the positive side we had lounge access to the Air France lounge (that BA uses) and amazingly they extended their closing time from 10pm to half past midnight to accommodate the waiting passengers. Well done!

Also, since the plane configuration changed, I was treated with an upgrade to economy extra. Thank you!

The Air France lounge had a nice sofa and a Concorde model... and I hit my head to it while plugging my charges in underneath :-) There was also a shower, came to much use after a day of skiing and caving and hiking.

Meal on the Montreal - Heathrow leg:

Meal on the Heathrow - Helsinki leg (Finnair). Looks a bit ugly but was quite good!

Here's the BA plane finally arriving to Montreal:

Montreal airport home page is here and the wikipedia article here.

This article has also been published in Planetflier.com here. For more flying stories, check out the Planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot! Photos, videos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

Montreal. Busses all the way.

Arrived in Montreal for IETF. Last leg on a 747, the bus, just in time before there’s a public transport strike. And the previous leg was a rare chance to ride a mobile lounge from the plane to the airport, before that a 787 and a 350 and a 740 😀 Was good to start discussions already during the trip, many friends on same flights and buses ❤️

Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport offers a peculiar throwback to aviation history: the mobile lounge. These boxy, slow-moving vehicles transport passengers directly from the terminal to aircraft parked on the tarmac, eliminating the need for traditional jet bridges or shuttle buses. Cumbersome and dated. But also a rare glimpse into the 1960s technology innovation.

Today, mobile lounges survive at only two airports worldwide: Montreal and Washington Dulles. What was once envisioned as the future of airport design has been almost entirely replaced by more efficient systems. They are still oddly charming. They may be slow, but they're certainly memorable. And for once, I feared more for something else to break than my cranky old 740...

I have not written previously about this airport, but been there many times. And I've talked about visits to Montreal for other activities, including biking to Mont Royal and exploring the Caverne de Saint-Léonard, as well as enjoying the sauna at the Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth.

To get here though I had to travel through Heathrow, for instance. Fortunately we had the pleasure of hanging out short seven hour layover in the British Airways business lounge. With all the screens, the horses, and ... no phone booths for conference calls???

But what I really liked was the long underground walking path from Terminal 5 to the satellite terminals B and C:

And before Heathrow, there was a Finnair flight on Airbus A350-XWB. For once I was able to upgrade, so business class breakfast was quite nice. But I ate it quickly and slept almost all of the rest of the three hour flight.

And before that flight there was the Helsinki-Vantaa airport ... here Tero taught us a new thing: from the Finnair Non-Schengen Business Lounge there's a backdoor to exit directly to the pathway towards the gates, without going back through the lounge checkin. Nice!

Here were my tickets for the flights:

This article has also been published in Planetflier.com here. For more flying stories, check out the Planetflier.com website! And of course the Planetcaver, and Planetskier blogs for other stories in Blogspot! Photos, videos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved.

October ski weekend at Levi

It has been a while since I skied properly. I skied in July at an indoor ski resort in Madrid and Oslo, and in June also in Oslo. But after that in August and September only on some snow piles outside ice skating halls... so it was time to ski again! Last year for October I went for a day trip to Levi (alt. link), but while fun that was a gruelingly tiresome travel and way too short time in Levi. So this year I went for the whole weekend.

Last year the slopes were also hard, so hard that I was worried I would fall and slide to the bottom and hurt myself. It was OK, but it was good to find out that this year's slopes were not as icy. But the slopes were divided between the racers -- there were teams from Japan, Slovenia, Lithuania, Norway, and UK at least. Last year the racers had most of the longer slope, and us others had a slice of that slope plus the slope with jumps and rails. This year the racers had the entire long slope. There was enough space to ski on the slope with jumps, but it would have been nicer to be able to run all the way from the top. It is not a big altitude difference, and the public slope was long enough but still.

Slopes:

Skiing:

The snow at Levi is stored on the slope (and partially trucked from another storage location). Here is what Google maps shows as the summer satellite picture, showing where the snow is stored under insulation blankets:

There was also a nice spa at my hotel, the Levi Design Hotel (also called the Levi Spa Hotel). They have warm outdoor pool and two jacuzzis, a 25-meter pool inside, and a ton of hot pools, play pools, etc. There's also several saunas, I liked the log sauna the best even though it was a bit too mild. Several people commented on that actually, previously it has been a hotter sauna that many preferred. 

The hotel also has all the necessary machines in the lobby, one to get ski tickets and another one to print your boarding passes for the flight out :-)

And at Levi, the reindeer may greet you when you walk to your hotel:

For food, there's plenty of options but I really liked the Salteriet in the center (and also just 100 meters from the slopes). I can recommend their salmon-on-wood-plank:

In Levi there's a nice set of stairs from the bottom of the slopes to the upper hotels (the Levi Panorama hotel and the Levi Summit event place). Particularly in the evening this is a super nice walk as you will be able to see the slopes in evening lights next to you.

I flew Finnair's ATR-72 up to Kittilä, and back with an Airbus A319. When going towards Kittilä I had an early morning flight and the sun rose nicely when we were up in the air:

Interestingly, when coming back I was at home somewhere after midnight, and had to be back at the airport again around 6am, due to a work trip. And as explained in another article (alt. link), the time was short also due to Finnair cancelling my original flight and putting me on an earlier plane.

And the Kittilä airport is always a nice one to visit, so small and efficient:

Levi is close to the airport, and there's a regular bus (15€) that runs after flights to the hotels:

For more skiing stories, check out the Planetskier website! This article has also been published there in this link. For more sauna and swimming stories, check out planetswimmer.com and saunablogger.cool websites! And of course the Planetcaver for other stories in Blogspot! The photos and text (c) 2025 by Jari Arkko. All rights reserved. I never take photos of swimmers or saunagoers.