Last week, I visited the Embedded World (2025). Only the exhibition, not the conference part. It was great to be back again, meeting old friends and making new acquaintances in the embedded business. It turns out I was rather lucky in getting there at all – there was that now infamous strike.
Das Strike
Sorry for the silly German. But it is necessary. Embedded World took place on Tuesday to Thursday, which means that Monday was the obvious day to travel in if you were not an exhibitor. Unfortunately, that day turned out to be the day that Ver.di union called a one-day strike as part of their ongoing negotiations with the employers. I was among the people traveling – my plan was to fly from Arlanda to Copenhagen and then on to Frankfurt where I would rendezvous with a colleague and then drive down to Nürnberg.
Friday the week before, I got this warning email from the show:
I have had issues getting to the EW before, back in 2018, so there was a chance for some painful déjà vu. From the moment I got the email from the show, I was waiting for the inevitable shoe to drop and SAS to cancel my flight.
Waiting to get Cancelled
Instead of cancellation, I got an email from SAS offering me a free rebooking of the flight (since there was a risk that it might be affected by industrial action). As it turned out, rebooking was not really going to work. All seats to Frankfurt on Sunday were gone very quickly, and I could not change to some other destination. There was nothing to do except wait and see and hope.
I nervously checked the news during Saturday for any change to the strike plans. There were none. Despite that, the SAS app showed my flight as scheduled and “on time”. How strange.
Come Sunday, I was notified that I could check in to my flight. So I did. The flight was still showing as scheduled and on time. I had nothing to lose. Once I checked in, it was really SAS’ problem and not mine… I imagined that in the worst case I would get to Copenhagen and have to stay overnight there before getting down to Frankfurt in the morning the day after. Suboptimal, but I should be able to get to Nürnberg by lunch or something.
On Monday, it was very clear that the strike was happening. Massive disruptions were reported on the news, thousands of cancelled flights all over Europe. Airlines cancelling flights into Germany left right and center. But my flight was still scheduled and on time.
So, I went out to Arlanda airport to catch my flight.
Despite some skeptical remarks from the people manning the check-in desks, there was no problem getting my luggage dropped off and checked in all the way to Frankfurt. Which honestly felt like a “yeah, right” at the moment.
To Copenhagen
The flight to Copenhagen went well, arriving on time. Turning on my phone I dreaded what I would see. And I saw nothing. There was no cancellation, and both the app and the departure boards showed the Frankfurt flight as on time. Extremely unexpected, but very welcome.
When the time came, I walked to the gate for the Frankfurt flight and the flight still showed as on time! I talked to some other people waiting who were just as amazed as I was that the flight seemed to be on.
Someone had done some sleuthing and figured out that many of the cancellations across Europe came from planes parked in Germany over night and getting stuck for that reason. While our plane was coming in from somewhere else, which meant we had a chance to at least get down to FRA and land.
We boarded and took off on time. It still felt unreal, like would we turn back in flight? But no, after a short flight, we landed at Frankfurt airport!
To Frankfurt
The airport was very quiet. Never seen anything like this really:
The final question was if they would also be kind enough to unload the luggage. And they did. In fact, it was the fastest luggage delivery I have ever experienced. The bags were on the carousel before I got there!
Leaving the airport, I saw this departures board. Quite unbelievable:
If you look closely, there is a 16.05 SAS flight to Copenhagen that is cancelled. That would have been the return flight of the plane that got me to Frankfurt – but it was not possible to operate a flight out of Frankfurt due to the strikes. Essentially, SAS took the cost of flying an empty plane out of Frankfurt in order to provide the flight we have booked. Thank you SAS!
Thus – this ended well. I got to Frankfurt on time, with everything working like clockwork! I met up with a colleague and off we went driving down towards Nürnberg! On the way there we did hit a bump when a couple of traffic accidents closed the A3 Autobahn for about an hour when we were there. You can’t win them all.
Less Lucky?
Many people had a harder time than me getting to the show. There were some people who I know who never made it all since their flights got cancelled and flying in later would have rendered the visit quite pointless. Some other people got rerouted to airports like Zürich and then put on a bus (typical Lufthansa solution to problems in southern Germany).
The net effect was that the first day, Tuesday, was a bit quieter than expected. And that Wednesday made up for it it so it was very crowded instead.
The Show?
That will be covered in its own blog post. The trip there was sufficiently exciting to deserve its own post.
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