Aaaaahh, Vienna!
Some years ago I had a girlfriend in Vienna. She came over her to the UK quite often, and I would go and stay with her at other times. Christmas was coming, and I was going to spend it with her.

Due to work, I could only fly on December 23rd, so I knew it was going to be busy. I'd allowed a couple of hours extra time to cope with the delays that are all part of the "fun" of travelling at peak times. But, it turned out that my usual paranoia about lateness was for once insufficient, as the roads approaching London were fuller than a tramp's pockets at a free buffet.

Still some miles from the airport, and we're crawling at less than walking speed. I've got time between each 1/4 mile post to calculate our exact average speed and estimated time of arrival, which was always worrying. To the coach-driver's credit, he really pulled out the stops to make progress, but there's only so much you can do when the entire population of Britain seems to want to occupy the same patch of tarmac.

Eventually we arrived, still in time for the flight, though only at a dead run. Luckily I was travelling light - I was planning to spend most of the time naked, after all - and I tore into the departures hall.

...to be met by a scene of utter chaos. The hall was rammed, presumably in sympathy with the roads outside. Clearly it hadn't occurred to the airlines that if they sell N tickets, they need to be able to process N people in a given time. Such advanced mathematics was obviously way beyond them.

Desultorily, I joined the very back of the enormous, snaking queue to my check-in desk, which appeared to be in a different time-zone somewhere on the horizon. I was just behind a very smart and up-market family; a tall, suited man, his elegant wife and two perfect children. Their expensive, stylish clothes and polite, if slightly superior mannerisms clearly marked them out as native Austrians returning home. I slouched into place behind them, looking like a shelf-collapse in a clothes recycling centre, resigned to be missing my flight and possibly two weeks of booze and shagging.

The departure time for the flight was approaching, and the queue had hardly moved. The father barked at a passing flunky, and demanded that he do something about it. German is a great language for being angry in. He said it was vital that they make that plane, though my German isn't good enough to catch why. Whatever, it seemed to work, as the airline person said he'd see if he could get them on.

"How many are in your party, Herr RichUntPowerfulPerson"?

"We are five." he replied, brusquely. With shock I realised that there were only four in his family, and he'd included me.

I had not spoken to them, or in any other way made contact. He'd simply seen an opportunity to help a stranger, and taken it. We made it onto the plane by running across the tarmac, and it was pushing back from the gate before we had even reached our seats.
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Fri 10 Feb 2012, 16:03, Reply)