The ordeal on European Skies

Those of you who read about my Geneva Trip hassles [1 , 2] will be aware about my disenchantment with European Skies. To add to that, when we had travelled to Scotland, one of my colleagues had lost his baggage [for a journey as short as London - Edinburgh] which made our Scotland trip much inconvenient and more so mentally stressed out.

But finally, as an icing on the cake, after my 'sarkari experience' with BA/BAA yesterday at Heathrow - British Airways has managed to misplace my baggage on the way to Mumbai. The ordeal started similar to my Geneva trip, when the flight [supposed to fly out at 2130] was kept standing on the Airport for hours on the behest of long queue on the airstrip.

We were finally informed at 2300 hours that some incorrect baggage has by mistake been loaded on the flight and so we had to turn back to the loading dock and re-enter the queue for the airstrip. At about midnight they informed us that the baggage problem was sorted out, but a new problem had cropped up. The aircraft got parked in such a position that it had to move backwards in order to enter the airstrip queue. And since a plane does not have a reverse gear [that was new info for me], hence a truck was needed to pull the aircraft. But while the truck was available, the cable to connect the plane and the truck was broken and a new cable was being arranged.

After all this drama, finally the cable got arranged, the truck pulled us backwards, we got reallocated on the fly out queue, and finally took off at 1.30 AM [6 AM IST]. So, after this harrowing and sleepless flight, I was obviously all tired and eager to reach back, when BA dropped the next bomb - missing baggage! The fact that Mumbai's international airport is much much crappier than its domestic airport, with construction noise buzzing all over and trolleys of the 1970s make which creak and refuse to turn, made matters worse.

While I still kept my cool - it was very disappointing that no one even said a sorry to me for the baggage issue - as if it was a normal procedure to loose baggage - like immigration clearance. Fortunately, the customs officer was impressed by my Marathi speaking skills and signed without much ado. But with the baggage still missing, I hope I will get it before I leave for Bhopal tomorrow.

Please say Amen!