I’ve a sneaking suspicion my life is like an episode of Fawlty Towers lately, what can go wrong does go wrong and while it can appear to be funny when looking back at it, it definitely is not while the crazies is happening!
Now that I work in the UK I have to plan to go back to Ireland for events such as birthdays and Christmas and special occasions. I figured it would be easy enough, book a flight in advance and not end up getting too badly ripped off due to the silly season that is Christmas where prices get inflated. I decided to go by plane rather than boat as I thought a 12 hour journey between getting to the ferry and getting the actual crossing would be too long so in theory paying a little more for the flight for a shorter journey from home in UK to home in IE made a lot of sense… again IN THEORY!
To kick the story off there is one thing you need to know, to understand and to pay attention to: I HATE SNOW! It’s a massive inconvenience your clothes get wet, it’s cold and it causes no end of grief and delays car crashes and last year I ended up falling between ice and snow twice on my noggin so I really do not like the stuff! Now that we’re clear on that I can continue.
Saturday kicked off the day with me trying to get to Heathrow airport from Bath where I had been working for the week, knowing the weather was bad with snow and my flight leaving at 7pm I decided to get the bus earlier on in the day so I booked a bus for 12, when I woke up and saw all of the snow in Bath I have to say I was a bit sickened I knew full well things were not going to go well. I tried to ring a taxi to collect me, none would come up the hills, so not a good start. Packed up bags and walked the 1.5 miles to the train station with my bags. Great way to work off a fry up!
The bus was meant to take 2.5 hours, it took 4, when we were 2 hours into the journey we started to hear Heathrow had been closed, by 3 hours into the journey we were seeing signs on the road saying the airport had closed. The bus driver explained to us he was taking us to the central station as that was as far as he could bring us. Walking in the door to central station and it was jam packed with nobody knowing what to do as national express was closing down some of its routes and people were standing around not know where to go or who to ask. I just went straight to terminal one as in theory my flight was still going. I literally just walked into terminal one saw the chaos and my phone beeped. Flight canceled to Shannon. Well feck! Rang a mate in Shannon straight away and gave her my details to rebook, figured doing that asap was better than trying to figure anything else out. Booked bags into storage and waiting on a call letting me know I had an alternative flight for the next day.
Again, the sheer chaos wasn’t really evident at that time, lots of people on laptops and phones trying to rebook, the queue for hotel accommodation had about 30 people in it. That queue never died down! I really thought it would be a bit packed, but nothing prepared me to see how busy the place was. Hundreds of people in queues at multiple desks with the queues getting mixed up so when people tried to move others were getting angry thinking they were jumping the queues. Others were asleep on trollies with their luggage in queues as the counters were not open and they weren’t budging in case they did open or if they were lucky to find someone who may be able to answer their questions.
Seeing this and knowing I had a flight rebooked I just went to the bar, I had my laptops and phone + charger so I was ok what else did I need. The restaurants were full to the brim, with signs on most saying 1hour wait for food, or food sold out in some places. It was interesting to see how willing some people were to share a tables and others were just being grinches! rude obnoxious people who just didn’t want to share their space. Did they not realise we were all in the same boat together! I let some folks join me and it was nice to have some company to be honest it was also the only way to get information was if people pooled their resources together. As helpful as BAA were, there was a distinct lack of information being given out to people over the last 3 days, they’d say one thing, our airlines would say another. Frustrating for all those involved.
I’ve never bought the internet at an airport but did this once and I’m really glad I did , I was able to rebook and look up information as there was nothing being conveyed in the airport, there was more information on news channels or on twitter than there was inside Heathrow, more annoying was when they did try and communicate with people they put the quietest person over the loud speaker and nobody could understand what they were told leading to people getting very angry and rather vocal about it which then upset others and in some case frightened kids. I can only imagine how hard it was for people with kids, only so long a kid can be patient in a that kind of atmosphere. The elderly or disabled equally found it hard to find information out, the queue for disabled people was so long it merged into check in flight lines leading to more confusion. Many elderly people didn’t know how to rebook their flights as they didn’t book them in the first place, there were a few just crying and there was little anyone could really do to help them.
Annoying at 11pm they shut the pubs which meant hundreds of people then left there and went down to the ground floor to try and get space to sleep, or a step on a stair to sleep, people were sleeping in the toilets sitting beside the power sockets in the bathrooms to charge their phones so they could communicate to others what the status of their travels were. I went to the ground floor as I found a space and could charge laptop, I lasted till 2am at which point I was frozen and could barely move, I knew my back was close to giving out on me as well which I really couldn’t deal with. Also the down side of traveling on your own is if you need to go anywhere even to get a drink you’ve to pack your stuff up and bring it with you. It just makes it more difficult! Going back up to departures level I saw lots of people had gotten foil blankets, none had been given out on other floors! All I could do to warm up for an hour was literally do laps of T1 I eventually did try and sleep, but on cold tiles my back was giving out to me so went back to walking around. Made my way to Aer Lingus desk and I found some fellow Irish folks to talk to. This worked out well I could leave my stuff with someone but we could also share my laptop to find out information and book hotels!
We set up camp around my laptop which was rather fortunate as a good few people were in need of trying to figure out a plan B. There was a lovely elderly couple who didn’t know how to rebook as their son had done it for them in the first place and it was now 5am and they wanted to get on another flight so I was able to help, few others were able to rebook or book a hotel so it worked out at least till a member of BAA staff told me to remove my laptop from behind the desk as that was the only place I could find that I could charge it or she would call the police! How unhelpful , unnecessary and just bitchy of her! There was no need to move me I wasn’t in the way and I was providing help that nobody else was, bar the fact I was exhausted and not in the mood to fight I’d have royally told her where to go! BAA were rather adamant that people leave! But where were they to go! Many had no place to go, hotels were too expensive, paying for a place wasn’t an option for some people, lack of time was another factor! But still BAA and now the police were asking people to leave! As I left the airport I saw a human barrier of police and BAA folks not allowing people into T1, many had young kids, most were told by their airlines to go to the airport! Again the conflicting information was frustrating and not helping anyone!
After that I packed up and went to the hotel I’d been fortunate to get that didn’t cost an arm, leg, kidney and spleen! Most of the hotels prices had gone up but I really just wanted to sleep. I needed to sleep and I needed to rest my back. Falling into bed and sleeping till 6 was heaven! Getting up at 10 and trying to find food was entertaining, the hotel was full and many others were there camping out in the lobby ordering food so they couldn’t be moved, I got breakfast lunch and dinner at 12 that night! and slept again till 9! Who knew I could sleep so much!
So now it was Monday and I had a flight for Tuesday, checked out of hotel as that was the only one I could get for one night. I ended up chatting to a group of American students which passed the day away. 6pm came and I get another email and sms that my flight has been canceled and I can’t get on any flight before Friday! Not really an option so plan C kicks into place! FERRY! So taxi back to airport, tube from there to Euston and from there I can get a train to Wolverhampton wait 4 hours and get a connecting train to Holyhead!
This is the plan but for the last 90 mins I’ve sat on the train hoping it will move, but there is now no train driver! As I said what can go wrong goes wrong and perhaps in a week or so I will laugh about all of this, but right now all I want is my bed! Wake up to some superquinn saussages, and a mug of Barrys Tea and have a hot shower!
Happy Christmas where ever you are and how ever you get there!