June 2019

”…home from the sea”

A. E. Housman (rather than the Robert Louis Stevenson original)

Well – we are back!

We had a wonderful trip (concerning which much more will be written) and took many photographs (of which many such will be posted). All went like clockwork until we came to the final two days, when our return travel plans went slightly awry.

I have – since a particularly uncomfortable long-haul flight some twenty years ago – always tried to avoid flying with what was once tagged ‘Britain’s Favourite Airline’. We chose them for our return journey from the UK to Greece, however, because the price and timings were reasonable and because we could follow our regular practice of paying for the extra-legroom exit-row seats.

A couple of days before the outbound departure I received an email advising me of a seat change, though I was not able to detect any difference. Puzzled I called BA Customer Service. They were likewise confused, but hazarded that the aircraft type or configuration might have changed. Whilst on the phone I got them to confirm that our return flights would feature the very same seats as we had chosen for the outward flight.

This first leg went reasonably smoothly. On the return (having received no further emails from BA) we checked in without paying too much attention and it was only when we got to the gate that I realised that we had been bumped from the seats for which we had paid to the back of the aircraft. There followed a heated but fruitless exchange at the desk during which we were informed that the aircraft must have been changed and that nothing could be done.

Investigation during the flight revealed that the aircraft was if fact identical to that on which we had flown the outbound leg, that the seats from which we had been removed still existed (with the very same seat numbers) and that someone else was sitting in them. Though we had payed extra for these seats we had been moved to the very back of the plane, lost our chosen aisle seat and were in a row with no window. In short, for the additional fee, we were now in the worst seats on the plane.

A visit to the Customer Service desk after landing garnered sympathy and the information that we could get a refund – but only by writing to BA to claim it. In this age of modern technology it must have been quite possible for the airline to automatically generate a refund at the point at which the seats for which we had paid were reassigned.

We naturally won’t be flying with BA again!

The next day we had as good a flight back to Vancouver with Air Canada as is possible on any journey of nine and a half hours. The Boeing 787 was spacious and we had masses of extra room in our exit-row seats. On landing in Vancouver we did what we have always done (and which is still necessary for all other airlines) – we waited at the baggage carousel to pick up our checked luggage prior to re-checking it for the internal flight.

We waited some more… Nothing appeared.

I visited both of the Information Desks in the baggage hall. Neither was manned!

Finally The Girl found a knowledgeable operative. We discovered that – for Air Canada only – baggage is now passed directly through to the connecting flight. The procedure was apparently changed two years ago but – since we have not done this trek since moving to Canada – we were unaware of the fact and had not been told. With time to make our connection now short we sprinted down what felt like several miles of corridor and stairway.

Unfortunately, even though one has come directly from another flight (for which one has already been security-checked) YVR insists on re-checking… and the operation is a complete gong-show! Very nearly half of all bags – including two of ours – were hauled out for special attention, carried out with excruciating slowness one at a time. We had purchased a bottle of spirits on the Vancouver flight which had been sealed in a special bag to ease onward transit. Regardless of this precaution the officer carefully unsealed the package, checked the pristine contents and then carefully and slowly resealed the bag (why?!).

The end result was that we arrived at the gate in time to see our plane accelerating away in the direction of the taxi-way. We were forced to join the standby list for the following flight.

Enquiring as to what had happened to our checked luggage we were told be no less than three officials that – as we were not on the plane that had just left – our cases would not have been on it either. Given the couple of days we had just endured we were not in the least surprised to find, on arrival in Victoria, that our luggage was already there waiting for us. No-one involved in either of these sorry affairs exactly covered themselves with glory.

What conclusion are we to draw from these mishaps?

It was clearly time to come home!