Almost a miracle....

Apologies if this post is slightly blasphemous as not offence is intended but....

We were due to leave Madeira on the 18.00 hrs flight from Funchal to Gatwick, and had been advised that our taxi would arrive between 1515 & 1530 hrs, to get us to the airport by 1600 hrs.

However, by 1545 no taxi had arrived, and I asked the hotel reception to contact Jesus (OK Cecilia Jesus - out tour rep!) They advised me that Jesus said that she would call back shortly and when she did she advised that the taxi was now on its way to pick us up.

The driver eventually arrived shortly before 1600 hrs, and was very apologetic and claimed that it was not his fault, and then produced a letter given to him by Jesus advising him to pick us up at 1745 hrs!

The journey to the airport took 25 minutes, the flight was due at 1800 hrs - as the say in the US, "...do the math".

An error, or a potential miracle that was never allowed to be?

OK, it was a simple mistake....but not such a good [OK average] story.

Rest of journey was reasonably uneventful - although there were a large number of reasonably well behaved children on the flight in the care (dubious use of the word) of a smaller number of somewhat unruly parents - and then whilst we arrived at Gatwick on time, there was a very long delay (70 minutes) before our luggage arrived.

Was this another mistake? Or given the events that were to unfold the following day, was more going on behind the scenes than we were being told? This could have been the case as were not in fact told anything other than there "...had been a bit of a mistake, and the baggage handlers hadn't been told about the planes's arrival". Teletext? Arrival Board? Normal schedule of plane arrivals? These would have been three good sources of relevant information....or was there some other reason?