#14247 by V-Ben
02 Aug 2006, 21:12
Returning from a weekend at the Benicassim Festival through Barcelona I'd picked BA over any other airline... cheaper than Easyjet and Ryanair when booked and Iberia has always been on my 'no-fly' list, plus the final remnants of my Silver Exec Card (gained travelling for my former employer) gave me the usual benefits.

I'd also been able to pick the cheapest flight of the weekend back, at the time of booking I was pretty skint, so ended up on the 10.30pm final departure to Gatwick. I must have been skint, to leave Barcelona on a Friday evening is something entirely out of my nature.

After a day spent trying to find shade, but only really succeeding in downing numerous Gin & Tonics, I staggered off to El Prat with a mate and got the 'New Express' train line 10 to the airport. Felt no different to the older trains, but it worked.

The arrival at El Prat changed our mood somewhat.
Lines of baggage trolleys supporting thousands of pretty pissed off looking passengers. Even before we saw the CNN Camera crews it was obvious there was a strike and inside the terminal passing the chaos of Iberia I was pleased to see only a few people at the BA Check-in Desk. Only one person at the Club Europe/ Elite FFP Desk, but strangely a whole host of BA Staff.

No-one was going anywhere. Iberia ground staff, annoyed at the loss of a big baggage contract had blockaded the runway and were apparently threatening to blow up an aircraft!

The staff had had a full day of it, but they could still have been a bit more communicative. Eventually I moved forward past the chap waiting at the desk to ask what was going on.

The girl I spoke to seemed pretty amazed at my chilled reaction and quickly offered a hotel near the airport for the night. We were also offered water from behind the desk to keep cool.

A quick negotiation with the Supervisor got me a taxi back to town and a promise to refund the cost of the cheap Gothic Quarter hotel that my mates were still staying in.

I'd have liked the BA staff to be a bit more friendly or forward in letting everyone know what was going on... but I can understand the aweful day they must have had with 6 cancelled flights.

The next morning a quick call to the BA Flight Disruptions office in London and we were advised to go back to stand-by at the airport. Though I knew there still weren't any BA planes at the airport and it was going to be absolute chaos. Instead I requested to be re-booked for Sunday. This was done, with the promise of lunch and dinner being re-imbursed, and I was patting myself on the back for remembering travel insurance.

By 6pm Sunday (the interim two nights in Barcelona having been typically full on... what it is with that city that won't let me stop partying?) I was finally ready to go home, and the airport showed depth of the chaos with people STILL sleeping rough and Iberia still not having cleared the backlog.

A fairly typical return flight.
They've removed crew from the LGW 737s (unless we were crew down).
They've removed half the food. And I was refused a second Gin & Tonic. But still all things considered a mile above AF/IB/LH and most other European flag carriers in my opinion.

Its certainly nice not to be in a hurry to leave a place when something like this happens! Letter to BA Customer Relations sent today for refund of incidental expenses... I've also asked them to give me one more year at Silver, we'll see!
#130746 by slinky09
04 Aug 2006, 08:34
I had read that BA have removed one crew member from LGW-Europe flights, but refusing a second G&T, that's downright measly.

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