After my failed TP run to AMS a week earlier, where I only earned 10TP instead of the 20 I was hoping for, I decided to book a one way to AMS from LCY and return using Avios in order to get back on track for Silver.
Unfortunately I picked the 23rd of October which was during the period when fog was playing havoc with the morning flights.
I was meant to be on the 08:35 flight leaving LCY and coming back on the 19:55 coming back from AMS
I had heard there were problems the day before so I checked to make sure the flight was still scheduled to depart before leaving home and also checked several times on the way down there, but low and behold when I stepped into LCY I could see that my flight was delayed.
Oh well, I thought and just hung around Pret a Manger for a while until 10am which is when the boards were saying my flight was delayed until 10am.
10am came and went and still no sign of the flight changing to green and saying "boarding", on the arrivals board the incoming flights kept going red one by one, either cancelled or diverted.
"Oh dear", I thought, "I've really picked the wrong day to do this!"
Eventually, my flight went to "cancelled" so I queued up for around an hour for the ticketing desk where there were some really distressed people waiting in the queue including some who had been scheduled to fly from LGW but were rebooked and sent to LCY instead!
BA staff were patrolling the queue, handing out bottled water and apologising for the delays/cancellations.
As I neared the front of the queue, a BA lady was asking if there were any Gold or Silver card holders in the queue. I pulled out my trusty CX gold card and handed it over saying "does this count?, it's kinda like silver". She then pulled me out of the queue and put me in the "elite" queue of 3 people
When I got to the desk, they were very apologetic and explained that they couldn't even book me on the next flight as it was not guaranteed the incoming aircraft would be allowed to land and offered to rebook me from LGW, however I would have to make my own way there which would mean a £70-80 can journey! I didn't fancy that so just asked to be rebooked on the next flight and I would take my chances as they had been sending people to LCY from LGW so it could have been a wasted journey anyway.
Sure enough the incoming flight from GLA which was supposed to go to AMS next got diverted to STN whilst "on approach"
Back I went to the "elite" queue feeling a bit bad for the poor souls in the main queue including some poor grandma who was an absolute mess of tears as this was the 2nd day in a row she had spent at LCY
When I got back to the booking desk, I really got the feeling they would rather I just gave up and decide not to fly repeating several times that I could either have a full refund or rebook on any flight I liked within the next 14 days, but I had taken a day off work especially for this and wasn't going to give up so easily. they also really seemed to want me to go to the departure lounge but I explained as a smoker I would much rather hang around at the front.
I asked to be rebooked again to the 15:30 flight, realising this wouldn't give me much time at all in AMS so I asked if they would kindly also rebook my inbound which was on a different PNR to the last flight back to LHR at 21:20 . They didn't have to but they kindly did that for me, so a thumbs up for that!
Back at the information boards, things weren't looking good, a sea of red in fact
The lady at the gate kindly told me which was the incoming flight for that aircraft (I think it was from AMS) and I watched the arrivals board patiently praying it would not go red!
It was a tense time, but amazingly the flight landed and I was on the 15:30 which left on time! "Get in there", I exclaimed as it was the first flight to actually land there all day!!!!!
Nice flight on the little EMB190, lovely little jets they are! ^^ Tiny toilets though! Remind me of the ones at my daughters nursery
So I got chatting to the guy next to me who agreed to share a cab with me to the center (no trains this time, the day was already stressful enough), hada really quick, erm coffee
then decided to head straight back to the airport and see if I could blag it on to an earlier flight back to LCY rather than the one I was rebooked onto arriving at LHR as by this time I was quite knackered.
Got into another cab and was at the check in desks for around 19:00 where I smiled cheekily where the lady looked at my name and said something like "oh, you are the guy who came here last week with your brother and brought your daughters passport by mistake". Yes, that's me, I said
I then asked if there was any chance I could be re-re-booked back onto my original flight back to LCY at 19:55
First she said this was impossible but then I explained what had happened earlier in the day and she told me to go to another desk somewhere else, ticketing desk maybe? and to ask there.
I went there and asked, again told it was impossible and I could only fly back on the flight I was booked on, so I pleaded for a while and explained they if they checked I may well already be booked on that flight. She checked and said, "Oh, so you are", scribbled something on my boarding pass for the LHR flight and sent me back to the checkin desks where they issued me a new boarding pass for the 19:55 ^^
I've heard nightmares about how bad IROPS can be but I think I had quite a good experience all in all, plus I got to know some of the check in staff at LCY and AMS rather well