We finally pushed back and then taxied around for a while (ie: not to a close runway… of course) and once airborne it was actually a fine flight. As we were on finals was about when my connection should have been departing.
I spent the flight reading the Covermore travel insurance pds to review the relevant delay sections and inform myself of possible options. What I didn’t remember well enough was that the missed connection limit for the international policy was only $3000.
Arrived into MAD and as we taxi in I see my connecting flight is still not ‘live’ on FR24 so that’s a bonus as it still means the aircraft is at the gate.
What really didn’t help was that we pulled up at T4 and at a bus gate so that meant I couldn’t even start running, just had to stand and wait for everyone else to get off. I had advised the cabin staff of the connection problem but they either didn’t care or couldn’t do anything to expedite my transfer.
When the bus got to the access door of the terminal I was off and running for the automated people mover to transfer over to T4S. Of course on the day such that I was having I get to the platform to see the train pulling away. Next one was only three minutes later. Once into T4S (the T4 satellite terminal used for non-Schengen departures) it was more running upstairs but then I hit border control to depart Spain and it was packed. I talked my way through a helpful staff member in about two minutes and was then quickly stamped out. More running, through the stupid curvy duty-free store design that predominates modern airports then looking for the gate. When I got there it was of course empty of people, but the jet itself had just pushed back and was sitting perpendicular to the terminal about to taxi off to CAI. Missed it by that much as Max Smart would say.
And with that I knew my life had just become a lot more problematic!
First stop was here:
…where a lady tried to explain for me to go somewhere else (near W8???) to collect the mis-connected flight voucher for a hotel, that she could see was already in the system for me. Why she couldn’t actually help me then and there will remain a mystery.
I went to find the other service desk she had described but it made no sense so I went into the T4S IB J lounge and one of the angels on the front desk again covered the hotel voucher, except she actually printed it out and printed out my boarding pass for the same flight I had just missed, but for the following day. I explained to her that I needed to be in CAI earlier and looked up options on Google flights but she told me she couldn’t do anything and that I’d need to go to their proper service desk in T4 for other flight options. It was now about 1730 and my ET flight from CAI was at 0320 the following morning. There were still a couple of options to get there in time if IB would play ball.
Next was getting back over to T4 so I jogged back to immigration and was confronted with this sight:
That’s a line of people coming OUT of the hall area where the immi cattle runs were. I tried to go up through the (unstaffed) tight connections lane; I tried explaining my misconnect and urgent need to get to the service desk to the staff, but those on duty didn’t care. I held a boarding pass for a flight tomorrow and so they saw no urgency.
75 minutes.
That’s how long it took just to dawdle forward every 10 seconds or so in the massive lines of people and finally enter back into Spain. I spent the time watching my options dwindle and then started working on a new plan of what to do once I got to CAI. I even started working out whether it would be simpler to just book something completely new one way back home from MAD.
By the time I got to T4 I was resigned to the fact that I would be a no show for the ET flight at CAI and that I’d be spending the night in the NH hotel Bajaras that IB had provided for me. So first call I decided to go and try and get my luggage back. The first IB guy I spoke to coordinated to have my luggage found in the bowels of the terminal somewhere and delivered back to me. He reckon it would take 30 minutes and it’d be delivered to a specific belt helpfully adjacent to the oversize belt where my golf clubs would be returned. He also noted that there were service staff in the same office area as him so all I needed to do was walk around the other side of their area.
His reservations colleague took a bit of convincing to look for options other than the flight IB had already given me the following day. My plan now was that I was going to call ET and see what refund I could get from them and cancel the return leg (CAI-ADD-BKK) of that ticket. Then I’d use the missed connection travel insurance ‘money’ (more a future hope of reimbursement) and book my own one way CAI-BKK to be able to catch up with my planned flights. I was aided by the fact that the ET ticket had a 16 hour stopover in ADD (where they’d give me an STPC hotel again and where I’d planned to spend the day going to see the Ethiopian national museum in Addis), so I did have options to get to BKK in time, if I could get to CAI early enough.
I presented the IB staffer with the options that would meet the timings I needed and although she didn’t rebook me onto exactly one of those she did get me on a very similar routing of IB MAD-FCO and then AZ FCO-CAI, still in J per my ticket, with the first leg the next morning. So far so good.
Then went and waited for my bags, with my suitcase appearing on the belt as expected but no golf clubs. Return to IB luggage desk and speak to a different staff member who again makes calls to someone down in luggage world and tells me to go back and wait. Fed up with waiting I return for a third time to the desk and get yet another staffer who again calls someone and tells me they are on the way. Wouldn’t you know it - nothing. On my fourth visit to the desk it was now after 2200 and I was very direct in explaining what had happened and that they needed to get them now. I may have swore. The fourth staff member was very apologetic, seemed to indicate that members two and three were idiots and hadn’t actually passed on the correct message and assured me it would come up within five minutes on a different oversize belt and that she’d called the hotel shuttle to make sure it would be at the terminal pick up point to get me at 2245. That all happened as she said.
Get to hotel. It’s basic but fine. I’m allowed international calls so ring ET and ask what can be done about that ticket. After some calculations apparently the one way fare on the day I bought the ticket would have exceeded the return cost and so I’d get nothing back. I could also defer the flights for up to a year and pay fare difference when I go to rebook. I can’t see that I’ll be using a CAI-ADD-BKK ticket any time soon but left it at that.
The hotel would serve dinner up to midnight
so I could get some food too before going to sleep.
Wasn’t going to worry about breakfast at the hotel the next morning as I could get that in the IB lounge.
) OPO-LIS
