#15 - Italian Job

All the roads lead to Rome

That was one of the rare moments I had no hurry at all. I was heading to Rome once again. It was going to be an exciting meeting to me, because I was supposed to meet important executives and I was the only representative from my business unit. This time I decided to make a relaxed start. My flight was supposed to leave late afternoon from Tampere airport, so I decided leave the office and enjoy a relaxing lunch at home.

After the lunch I started to pack my suitcase. That’s when I realized first time that my travel itinerary was printed on both sides of a paper. The targeted departure time was actually the departure time from Helsinki. However, my first flight was from Tampere to Helsinki and I was in a hurry.

I thought for a second and made a conclusion. It is impossible to catch the flight departing from Tampere, but it is also impossible to drive to Helsinki and catch the second flight from there. I decided to go for Tampere. 

I buttoned my shirt and trousers while my wife was packing rest of the clothes to my suitcase. In couple of minutes I was driving towards the airport. Time was really short (much shorter than my earlier record for the same route). What could I do to help the situation? I called to 0100100 and asked them to direct the call to Tampere airport. After the second call forwarding I was speaking with a Finnair ticketing officer. I explained the situation and kindly asked them to keep the plane waiting for me. When the officer asked where I was, I needed to a lie in order to keep the story ongoing. I was driving very fast (but definitely not over speeding). Closer to the airport I made another call to 0100100 and again after the second call forwarding I was speaking with the same ticketing officer. At the end of the call the officer told me that I had exactly two minutes before the gate would be closed. Luckily I was just approaching the airport. I parked my car next to the main door, left the car staying there and locked the doors. The ticketing officer was waiting for me outside the main entrance and gave me the flight ticket while I was running to the gate. I made it and the flight actually departed one minute ahead of time schedule. My nerves were broken and I was sweating like a pig. That was probably the most stressful situation in my life. After calming down I decided that I will never do such a thing again.

Miniature reminding me about the flight that I barely caught.

In Helsinki I called to my wife and asked her to drive to the airport and move my car to a legal parking area. I felt lucky, as I did not get a parking ticket.

Lessons learnt:

Nothing is impossible - Impossible is nothing.