| At 9:30 buses our took our planeload of diverted passengers back to the Osaka airport to resume their original journeys, but United was not quite ready to receive us. We finally flew to Tokyo and I was rescheduled onwards through Chicago instead of Washington, DC. |
| By the morning light, I was able to see the city of Osaka. This is a view toward the harbor, and I was amazed at the uniformity of color in this section of town. All the buildings were the same shade of gray, and on a cloudy day, there was little color to be seen. |
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| I was lucky to go downstairs to check out of the Hyatt a bit early. It was a quick process for me but by the time I had finished, this line stretched across the lobby and then turned back toward the elevators for double this distance. Some people may have been anxious about catching the buses to return to the Osaka airport. |
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| The line at the hotel was nothing compared to the line at the United check-in at Osaka airport. When our planeload of people arrived all at once, there were only three counter staff to serve them, and each passenger was averaging 15-25 minutes, probably because they were disagreeing or asking for changes to their re-booked itineraries. It took me two hours and ten minutes to get to the counter, and it became obvious very soon that there was no way our flight could leave at 12:30 PM to take us back to Tokyo to resume our original travel plans. |
| I had never seen a designation of "Extra Flight" on an airline gate display but I guess United, for their accounting purposes, had to give a flight number to this totally unscheduled flight from Osaka to Tokyo. Right after I took this picture, the displayed information showed the flight as Delayed until 1:30 PM because at 12:30 there were still passengers waiting to reach the United counter on the land side of immigration and passport control. |
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