Fab Foodie
hanging-on in quiet desperation ...
- Location
- Kirton, Devon.
... a tale of everyday travelling folk.
So our travel company plotted me a tight but supposedly do-able itenerary home this morning, leaving from Kaliningrad at 0915 on Air Baltic to Riga and then a very quick change to Berlin again with Air Baltic followed by a more relaxed change onto BA club class to arrive in Heathrow at 1230. I had already had misgivings when I booked.
Now, bear in mind that to get the flight in UK time I was up at 3am and left the hotel at 3.45.
The day started badly at check-in when I'd forgotten Air Baltics meagre 8kg weight allowance and travel had not booked me a bag, so I had to pay, no prob, I drew my credit card ... but they only take cash ... oh, and a check-in fee too. Fortunately I just scraped together enough Roubles. Then I took valuables from my case, pen, laptop, mp3 player etc and sent my bag on it's way.
Flightwise was OK, a few mins late into Riga, we were fast-off the plane, through security where an Air Baltic girl asked if we were going to Berlin and said we should hurry to the gate less than 100m away ... which promptly closed as we arrived. We could see the bus the other side of the glass.
No dice.
So Air Baltic sold us tickets for flights we really couldn't make, what's more they knew we were on an inbound flight and what time it landed. One woman was in tears at the transfer desk. The next flight to Berlin was 1715 at it was only just after 0900 local time in the morning. I called the Travel Co and basically there were few options to get us home other then the 1520 to Gatwick with Air Baltic. Fair enough, no choices, but our cars were at Heathrow. Called a Taxi co and booked a £95 taxi ride.
So there we were, hours to kill, tired and hungry and me with no bag. It was at the airport but I wasn't allowed to get it. Well after a lot of negotiation I could have my bag, but I would have to check-it in again as it was 14kgs and too heavy AND pay another £40 to check it through. At this point my piss was starting to boil. Actually it was worst than that, due to a dodgy shrimp salad I had the shoots. So I remonstrated that thanks to AB they had sold a route they couldn't honour and we'd not only be delayed 6 hours but would arrive at the wrong airport at rush hour with a £95 taxi ride to get to the right airport.
I WANTED MY BAG
I WANTED TO DO SOME USEFUL WORK WITH MY DELAY
I WAS NOT GOING TO CHECK IT IN AGAIN
I WAS GOING TO WIN
I NEEDED A TOILET
So we re-entered negotiation and got the usual bullshit about too heavy, safety, security blah, blah. There were no special cases however I had been inconvenienced. I could see the poor girl was really struggling with me one side and her supervisor on the other end of the phone so to save her any pain (it's not her fault) I complimented her on a job well done and got the supervisor to come down to go man on man.
Soooo, we went through the same guff about weight, safety, security and I hit back that it;'s a 737, all the other airlines accept this bag without any weight questions, that it was about money and fuel yadda yadda. But no, it was too heavy. BUT, says I. Why don't you start to think about what is possible to satisfy a very simple request instead of NO or NOT POSSIBLE? I said, there is a locker in Business class which is always empty, would that be OK? Or, I have a very light computer bag, what if I split the 14kgs between the 2 bags could I put one 8kg bag overhead and the small bag under the seat. But you cannot have 2 bags was the reply. Soooo we went through the whole inconvenience thing again, the cost etc again and then I said to him -
Did you check if the flight is full?
Yes it was quite full.
Well is that quite or totally full? Are there spaces?
Yes there are some spaces ...
Well in that case will it matter IF I have one small extra bag that will weigh 6kg on a plane with several spaces considering all the probems you have caused me and my colleague today???????
And the battle was won. I wasn't asking the moon, I wanted my bag so I could do some work and ensure it got home with me. The flight home was uneventful with plenty free space on the plane.
At Gatwick we grabbed double espresso machiatos and found the taxi man. 2 chuffing hours to get from Gatwick to Heathrow T5 Business parking. I bade my colleage farewell and went to look for my little C1 (not as easy to find as the C8), but it was nowhere to be seen. Then the penny dropped, I'd flown out on Wednesday on SAS from Terminal 3! I called my mate who was still in the car park and he duly delivered me to my T3 car park - doh!
Eventually I arrive home at 2000hrs 16 hours of travelling later and Mrs FF drops into conversation that I can't have another glass of wine as I'll have to collect my daughter from Waitrose at 2115 as she'd drunk too much with her dinner ..... AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH
Still, it's the gamour life eh?
So our travel company plotted me a tight but supposedly do-able itenerary home this morning, leaving from Kaliningrad at 0915 on Air Baltic to Riga and then a very quick change to Berlin again with Air Baltic followed by a more relaxed change onto BA club class to arrive in Heathrow at 1230. I had already had misgivings when I booked.
Now, bear in mind that to get the flight in UK time I was up at 3am and left the hotel at 3.45.
The day started badly at check-in when I'd forgotten Air Baltics meagre 8kg weight allowance and travel had not booked me a bag, so I had to pay, no prob, I drew my credit card ... but they only take cash ... oh, and a check-in fee too. Fortunately I just scraped together enough Roubles. Then I took valuables from my case, pen, laptop, mp3 player etc and sent my bag on it's way.
Flightwise was OK, a few mins late into Riga, we were fast-off the plane, through security where an Air Baltic girl asked if we were going to Berlin and said we should hurry to the gate less than 100m away ... which promptly closed as we arrived. We could see the bus the other side of the glass.
No dice.So Air Baltic sold us tickets for flights we really couldn't make, what's more they knew we were on an inbound flight and what time it landed. One woman was in tears at the transfer desk. The next flight to Berlin was 1715 at it was only just after 0900 local time in the morning. I called the Travel Co and basically there were few options to get us home other then the 1520 to Gatwick with Air Baltic. Fair enough, no choices, but our cars were at Heathrow. Called a Taxi co and booked a £95 taxi ride.
So there we were, hours to kill, tired and hungry and me with no bag. It was at the airport but I wasn't allowed to get it. Well after a lot of negotiation I could have my bag, but I would have to check-it in again as it was 14kgs and too heavy AND pay another £40 to check it through
. At this point my piss was starting to boil. Actually it was worst than that, due to a dodgy shrimp salad I had the shoots. So I remonstrated that thanks to AB they had sold a route they couldn't honour and we'd not only be delayed 6 hours but would arrive at the wrong airport at rush hour with a £95 taxi ride to get to the right airport.I WANTED MY BAG
I WANTED TO DO SOME USEFUL WORK WITH MY DELAY
I WAS NOT GOING TO CHECK IT IN AGAIN
I WAS GOING TO WIN
I NEEDED A TOILET
So we re-entered negotiation and got the usual bullshit about too heavy, safety, security blah, blah. There were no special cases however I had been inconvenienced. I could see the poor girl was really struggling with me one side and her supervisor on the other end of the phone so to save her any pain (it's not her fault) I complimented her on a job well done and got the supervisor to come down to go man on man.
Soooo, we went through the same guff about weight, safety, security and I hit back that it;'s a 737, all the other airlines accept this bag without any weight questions, that it was about money and fuel yadda yadda. But no, it was too heavy. BUT, says I. Why don't you start to think about what is possible to satisfy a very simple request instead of NO or NOT POSSIBLE? I said, there is a locker in Business class which is always empty, would that be OK? Or, I have a very light computer bag, what if I split the 14kgs between the 2 bags could I put one 8kg bag overhead and the small bag under the seat. But you cannot have 2 bags was the reply. Soooo we went through the whole inconvenience thing again, the cost etc again and then I said to him -
Did you check if the flight is full?
Yes it was quite full.
Well is that quite or totally full? Are there spaces?
Yes there are some spaces ...
Well in that case will it matter IF I have one small extra bag that will weigh 6kg on a plane with several spaces considering all the probems you have caused me and my colleague today???????
And the battle was won. I wasn't asking the moon, I wanted my bag so I could do some work and ensure it got home with me. The flight home was uneventful with plenty free space on the plane.
At Gatwick we grabbed double espresso machiatos and found the taxi man. 2 chuffing hours to get from Gatwick to Heathrow T5 Business parking. I bade my colleage farewell and went to look for my little C1 (not as easy to find as the C8), but it was nowhere to be seen. Then the penny dropped, I'd flown out on Wednesday on SAS from Terminal 3! I called my mate who was still in the car park and he duly delivered me to my T3 car park - doh!
Eventually I arrive home at 2000hrs 16 hours of travelling later and Mrs FF drops into conversation that I can't have another glass of wine as I'll have to collect my daughter from Waitrose at 2115 as she'd drunk too much with her dinner ..... AAAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHH
Still, it's the gamour life eh?
