Today Google told me my flight was delayed before my airline.

I am travelling on a three stage international flight today, it has a few hours stopover in each transit location, but that's little enough time that on upset can throw the whole flight out of whack.

I woke up this morning to see Google Now telling me that my first flight from Melbourne to Sydney had been delayed (I love big data and personally don't rely mind what services now about me, as long as I am aware) by two hours, which would mean I would miss my second and longest flight leg. I checked my emails, nothing from Virgin, no SMSs either. I checked the flight statuses on their website, which confirmed that my flight had been delayed (I'm intrigued to know how you know a flight is going to be delayed in advance, but that's another discussion), so rang their customer service line to see what was going on.

After a bit of fathing about, which I always seem to get with Virgin customer service, it often takes three explanations to make them understand what you're talking about, I was informed that I had been moved to a flight an hour earlier. Still no emails or SMS regarding this, so what if I hadn't had rung?

I was still a little unsure about the change, but I figured there's certainly no harm in getting to the airport early, so left aiming for the earlier flight anyway.

Finally at a little over 2.5 hours before my new (unconfirmed) flight I finally received a phone call telling me to call Virgin about a flight change, so after ringing their customer services line and more fathing about, it was confirmed again that I had had my flight changed.

I am lucky to live close to the airport and I am also lucky that I have technology telling me my every move before I even know it myself, but what if I had been living a fair way out and wasn't so connected? Is three hours notice really enough time to get to the airport and checkin to an international flight on time? I guess this is a sign of when automated internal systems can fail.