Thanks for coming to the Upgrade Workshops in Dublin & Belfast - and special thanks to my dear friends at LUFTHANSA

 

Thanks to everybody who came to our Upgrade/Migrate/Consolidate to Oracle Database 12c on Oct 14/15 in Dublin and Belfast. You were great audiences, I had plenty of fun, excellent deep dive discussion during the breaks and afterwards during the customer visits day on Thursday.

And very special thanks to my colleagues from Oracle Ireland, especially Mina and Kelly-Marie, but also all the others who were involved in the events and visits and made it happen so smoothly. Everything worked perfectly well except for things not in our hands (such as the massive train delay on the way back from Belfast).

Just in case you'd like to get the slides I'd recommend to download the deck via this link here:
Upgrade, Migrate & Consolidate to Oracle Database 12c

And VERY SVERY PECIAL THANKS to my dear friends at Lufthansa. Mina dropped my off at the airport on Thursday, I wanted to check in and hand over my luggage to the assistant - "Oh sorry, your direct flight to Munich has been canceled". Wonderful news. Dublin must have bad Karma for my travel plans as I've got locked in during the ash cloud some 4.5 years ago. 

Now my friend at Lufthansa have rebooked my to a very early morning flight for Friday, but with a stopover in Frankfurt (which is not my favorite airport at all). Anyhow, a call with Oracle Travel showed my a flight option that night with KLM via Amsterdam to Munich. So I called Lufthansa again just finding out that Lufthansa refused to rebook me to that flight. Why? Because the first leg to Amsterdam is operated by Air Lingus - and "Lufthansa has no agreement with Air Lingus".  I told them that I don't care if they have an agreement or not, it's myself getting grounded it Dublin for no reason. But no chance. 

Simple calculation Lufthansa is doing:

• Flight costs for the KLM flight to Munich: 730 Euro
• Total costs for Mike staying another night in Dublin: 100 Euro for the hotel, a few bucks for the dinner and maybe the max fine of 250 Euro (which you can claim back only when you involve a lawyer or a service such as FlightRight). Summing up to a max of 400 Euro. Way cheaper to let him stay another night in Dublin at an airport hotel and make him get up at 4 in the morning to catch the flight to Frankfurt.

And, to make my experience even more valuable Lufthansa added 45 mins of delay to my leg from FRA to MUC, a flight distance of 35 minutes including take off and landing. I felt so good afterwards, so valued as a customer who flies roughly 5 or 6 times around the globe per year with this airline. 
Thanks you very much, Lufthansa!!!