As I wait for my flight to London where I connect to New York, I must confess to being ready to go home. Surprised? Let me explain. When I awoke this morning I had no desire to return. Never do. But once I’m in the airport, it’s a fait complete, I’m not staying. I’ve mentally moved on from vacation to reality and I just want to get to my destination. In a similar way, as soon as I’m on the Airtrain on my way to vacation, I’m no longer in a New York State of mind. When I get to London I want to see if I can upgrade my seat to Premium Economy. Since I have to work tomorrow, I feel that will be a smart move to have better seats and better food for the long flight back. It would be an investment in myself. Tomorrow is going to be rough regardless, but maybe it will shorten the pain. There was no way I was wasting a vacation day staying home just to recover from jet lag!
Best laid plans… My flight to London from Bergen was quite nice. I got put in an exit row so I had plenty of leg room, and the flight arrived ahead of schedule. Upon landing in London is when my troubles started. After disembarking we were herded to Heathrow Airport’s redundant security. First we had to wait on this atrocious line, which lead to another atrocious line. Then my boarding pass that I received in Bergen turned out to be invalid. The flight was way overbooked and I was told I could not proceed through security. Not sure why connecting flights from Western nations have to go through Security again. We all share the same standards. But I had to go through it after flying from JFK so I knew it was coming. I guess it’s a remnant of an earlier era when the British felt superior to everyone. Only they can do proper security. In any case I was sent to another line for customer service. The gentleman explained to me that I no longer had a seat, and there was nothing he could do. I asked for an upgrade, even to pay for one, but he said that I would have to visit the Customer Service desk past Security to see if I can get on this flight. Bullocks! (I am in England y’know). Remember, Security would not let me through because I had an invalid boarding pass, so I had to politely argue with the attendant until finally the man I spoke with intervened. So I got on a line to an escalator which led to, you guessed it, another line… I mean queue. I do like that word better anyway. Once I got through it all, I queued up at the customer service desk where I spoke to a stern man who had little sympathy for my dilemma. He basically told me to be prepared to stay in London overnight. Normally I would not care, but I had to be at work the next day and I was just super annoyed by this whole turn of events. I again asked to purchase an upgrade if that would help, and was told that he would have to take my boarding pass and to return in 2 hours to see if I’m on a flight. So for 2 hours I wandered aimlessly around Heathrow not knowing what would happen to me. I tried to get a massage to soothe my nerves but it was booked. So I had a Strongbow, Emailed my British Stockholm travel buddy in case I was stranded in London, and nervously waited. I returned to find out that I got on the plane, but upgrades weren’t possible. I had started getting used to the idea of hanging in London. In any case, on the plane I couldn’t sit. Just had a strange feeling. Sure enough a flight attendant came to me and said someone else had my seat and that I should stand by. Somehow that was settled out of my presence. Maybe a mistake. I’ve had a long held fear of flying. Was terrified many times. I have gotten a lot better with that. Now I hate flying because of the hassle. It’s just not fun, unless you have money. So while the British Airways in flight experience is fine, even classy, the hassle I had today, with nary an apology for what I went through, will make me think twice about flying with them again. But they are still better than American carriers!