How You Were Diverted

I've spent the last four hours working as a pseudo-air traffic controller. It started with an email from the parent of a student informing me that a flight was delayed. With my Google-fu, I quickly discovered the exact time he should be landing, and what flight he would probably be rescheduled on. But then a few minutes later, after reassuring the parent, I hit refresh on the webpage. "DIVERTED," what does this mean? Better yet, where to? There can not be too many airports in Japan to divert an Airbus 343. So there I was with the Kansai Airport, Narita, and Incheon airport webpages in front of me as I tried to figure out where my student could be heading. From all the pages, I saw that the plane had yet to make it to the final destination, although Air Canada's site told me it landed on time, with no delays, in both English and French, eh. Upon further deduction, I figured he had at least made it to Osaka, but perhaps caught a connecting flight. According to the guy I spoke with at Air Canada, my student was probably in Osaka waiting on a flight out. So I sent out a few emails to the student and parent to make sure they knew where things were, and that I was trying to keep up to date.

As I started to finish this post up, I got word from my student that he was in fact in Osaka and will arrive tomorrow. So, a quick message sent to the parent to let him know I was taking care of his kid, and a final check of flight arrival times into Incheon. And then I can call it a successful evening.

Currently listening to: Johnny Cash -