12th - Departure

My departure day was the 12th of June which was a Sunday and everything was going as planned.

Until the Wednesday before.

Getting to Svalbard I’d be flying with SAS via Oslo. On the Wednesday it came out that the Norwegian pilots and security at Oslo airport were negotiating for more pay (or rather; the unions were on behalf of the employees). If they couldn’t reach an agreement they would go on strike meaning no domestic flights in Norway and no departures from Oslo. Go panic! Deadline for the pilots’ negotiations was midnight to Thursday. The deadline was passed – but agreement was reached 5 hours later. Agreement was also reached for security but not until half way through Thursday. So everything was fortunately settled before my departure. Unfortunately for the Swedes, pilots as SAS Sweden did go on strike. Sucks to be them.

Flying to Oslo was no issue; despite having checked in my luggage all the way, because it was a domestic layover I still had to collect my bag and check it in again. Weird. Flight to Longyearbyen was equally uneventful but I tried avoiding nodding off on the way there so I would be able to sleep in the night. Completely forgetting that it looked as if it was mid-day while in reality it was past midnight. Midnight sun is confusing before getting used to it. An hour after landing, around 0130, I arrived at my hotel room for the night and realized that I had no power. I decided to ignore any trouble shooting and instead go straight to bed.

What it looks like half an hour past midnight in Longyearbyen.