Well, here goes...! My worst flying experience took place in December 1996 and perhaps the most upsetting part about it all was being lied to by KLM ground-staff at Heathrow.
My two sisters and I were due to spend Christmas with my parents who were living in India. Since our Dad worked for a Dutch company, we were required to fly with KLM via Amsterdam before catching our long-haul flight to Mumbai. Whilst waiting to board, we were suddenly told that the Heathrow flight would be delayed by 2 hours. This caused a lot of concern, since we had booked that flight expressly to leave us with 2 hours in which to change planes in Amsterdam. Given this delay, our transfer time had been wiped out, which would mean that we would miss our connecting flight.
"It's OK", said the Heathrow ground-staff, "the reason we're delayed is because Schiphol is snow-bound. If our little plane can't land, then the big plane to Bombay can't take off." Suitably reassured, we headed off for breakfast before settling in for our short flight to Holland.
45 minutes later, we broke through the cloud cover in Amsterdam... to see not a single flake of snow on the ground. Not one. To this day, I have no idea why KLM's Heathrow staff lied to us. Anyhow, that's when the real fun began.
Flights to India at Christmas are like hens' teeth - they all get bought up in June, so by 21st December, they are all but non-existent. Of course, we had missed our connecting flight to Mumbai - however, since it was KLM's fault, they had to sort out alternative flights. After an hour's wait at the transfer desk, they had managed to find us a route to Mumbai. We would need to fly from Schiphol to Rome, then change planes and fly to Cairo, and then change planes again to get to Mumbai. It was going to be a pain, but we had no choice. I noted with concern on the itinerary, however, that there was only 50 minutes to change planes in Rome... a pretty tight connection.
So, we headed over to the boarding gate for the Rome flight and waited there, when suddenly up popped "Delayed - 1 hour" on the departure board. I was beginning to lose my cool by this stage, but managing to keep a lid on it, I headed over to the desk to speak to the Dutch ground-staff and point out the fact that we could no longer make the connection in Rome. In that usually charming Dutch way, the chap behind the desk gave a laconic reply:
"Yeah, dere sheems to be a liddle bit of a problem, eh?".
That was the straw that broke the camels back. I slammed my fist on the table and hissed: "It's a f***ing disaster! Sort it out NOW!" This had the desired effect - one of the motorised trolleys came to pick us up from the gate to whisk us back to the transfer desk so that they could find us alternative flights. After another one and three-quarters hours there, they exclaimed triumphantly: "Finally, we have found you flights!" These turned out to be an unusual way to get to India from Europe.
The itinerary was Amsterdam, to Osaka in Japan, and then to Mumbai.
:thump:
That flight didn't leave until the next day, so we had to stay in Amsterdam that evening. We were, naturally, clad for the balmy climes of India - light shirts, linen trousers, flip-flops. I can confirm that wearing flip-flops when it's -1°C in Holland is not ideal.
As to the itinerary to Japan, we were supposed to have 4 hours in which to change planes in Osaka. Instead, that flight was also delayed - this time by 3 hours and 20 minutes. So, although the 11-hour flight itself was fairly uneventful, I didn't sleep a wink, since I did not know whether 40 minutes would be enough time for us to make the connecting flight - which would mean that we would have to spend Christmas in Osaka without our parents.
As for making that flight, we had asked when in Schiphol whether or not Osaka was a big airport. "Oh no," we had been informed, "It's quite small really." It turns out that big & small were the wrong adjectives. We should have asked instead about the shape of the airport. In fact, the building at Osaka airport is quite narrow... but also incredibly long.
So, as we were taxiing to our gate after having touched down, my elder sister peered through the window and stated: "There's our plane, at Gate 4". Sure enough, there was an All Nippon Airways plane - the airline with whom we were due to fly.
We eventually pulled in at gate 91.
:cry:
Luckily, at least the ground-staff in Japan were clued up - they knew about us, and the fact that we had to make the ANA flight at gate 4. We were allowed to get off the plane first, so that we could quite literally run through the entire length of the airport - with the Japanese particularly amused at the fact that I was now sporting 3 days of facial hair while also having my 12 year old sister's teddy bear tucked under my arm.
I'm pleased to say that we made the flight - another 8 hour flight - and we did get to Mumbai where we slept for a few hours before catching an internal flight at 5 a.m. to Gujarat (amusingly enough - not - the NEPC flight I mentioned in my previous post!), where my parents were living at the time. However, although we made it - albeit with no idea what time zone our bodies were in by that stage - perhaps unsurprisingly our bags did not arrive... our bags filled with all our Christmas presents, clothes and my revision in them (I had exams in January).
We did eventually see those, 11 days later. Funnily enough, I've not flown much with KLM since then.
