Hello Steemians,
today is Monday and I'm happy because I had a very good weekend (I'll tell you all about in another post) but this post is about last Friday.
Friday, February 23rd. Not a calm day!
My work took me to Tunisia. Me and a colleague were there since Tuesday. Everything was fine. We did everything we were supposed to do and still had time to meet Tunis a little bit.
The return wasn't so pleasant.
We had a flight from Tunis to Paris and then another to Lisbon. We checked in online and had the boarding pass in paper and electronic formats. We had no luggage to slow us down and there was no need to go to check in booth... or so we thought. Soon after we were told online check in meant nothing and we had to register anyway. Not expecting this, we didn't arrive to the airport as soon as we should. Fortunately, there were almost nobody there and everything was solved quickly. So we were on time. The plane was already there waiting for us, time passed by and the passengers were told to go to another gate and wait. Long story short we were waiting for another plane of the same company to arrive because some of the passengers would go in our flight. So our flight was a connection flight for some passengers of the delayed plane. As both flights were from the same company they decided to wait... otherwise they would have complaints and would have to compensate the passengers they left behind. Well... the 90 minutes delay was just enough for me to miss my other flight from Paris to Lisbon.
And then the expected chain of "it's not our fault" happened.
The first company assumed they had a delay but because our second flight was not operated by them there was nothing they could do.
"Let me see if I get it right... you decided to delay this flight so that you had no problems with the other passengers, so it was your fault I lost my flight and you are telling me that I'm on my own?" I asked.
"Yes." the lady answered. "Try to buy a ticket and after send us an e-mail and ask for a reimbursement. Buy it to the same company where you lost the flight, otherwise it will be more difficult for us to compensate you." (WTF?)
So we went to talk with this company. About the lost flight, obviously there was nothing they could do. We were passengers that were not there in time, no matter the reason. About others flights... they had one available ... on Sunday!
Ok... now the reimbursement could be harder to get. Anyway, we had to get to Portugal soon. (I had appointments for the next day so I had to get to Lisbon in time to get the subway and then a bus to another city.) Time to go to the informations booth. They told us there was a flight to Lisbon within two hours... but not on the same terminal. We rushed to the right terminal and when we arrived we thought we had time enough... only 4 people waiting in line to buy the tickets. The first 3 took about 20 minutes each! We were in trouble again.
In case we miss the flight... the next one would be in 3 hours time but... in another airport.
I was beginning to feel like...
It was finally our turn!
"I can get you two tickets but you have to be fast to check in and pass the security!"
"418€ each."
Debit Card! Run! Register, get boarding pass! Run! Security, liquids, laptops out, laptops in, belts off, belts on, coins in the pocket. Done. Run! Show boarding pass and Id. My colleague shows boarding pass and Id. Mine is all good, his sets an alarm. Apparently he was already in the plane... I check my boarding pass, it was as duplicate of his. I never got a boarding pass with my name. I passed first even if my ID didn't match the boarding pass (Giant WTF?!) and that's why he was getting troubles. Someone said, it was ok, bla bla bla, and he passes. Everything was fine. We were finally on our way home!
Nice flight, nice food and after 30 minutes in the subway and 2 hours in a bus I arrived to my destination. A hot shower and a hot soup were waiting for me! My body began to relax and I decided to watch a Seinfeld episode to finish the day in a good mood.
Next day was promising... ; )
Don't lose the next post.
There is chocolate involved.
RMach
photo sources: IMDB