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Old Jul 5, 2011, 7:13 am
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PUCCI GALORE
Fontaine d'honneur du Flyertalk
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Morbihan, France
Programs: Reine des Muccis de Pucci; Foreign Elitist (according to others)
Posts: 19,086
ORLYVile!! MY turn to rant!

I am not working today. I have poured myself a good stiff Bombay & Slim and have a lovely whinge about my return from Orly yesterday afternoon..

It is the start of July and it would seem that France is off en vacances. As I could not print the BPs (just as well as matters turned out) we went to check in - admittedly at the CE desk. Handling is by Iberia and that should have warned me - although the young lady on the desk could not have been more pleasant.

The lounge is a good way off but they had big bottles of Pommery in the chiller as you come through the door and it was quite delicious.

We went down to departures early before the departure was announced (they announced IBs flights so I am making an assumption here but maybe they do not?). The queue to get through passports and into security beggared belief. The problem was that the whole of Hall 3 funnels down to four desks for passport control. One was manned for EU, one was manned for the rest, one was crew and corps diplomaitiques only and the last one was closed. We inched along for ever. Where were the IB ground staff - well there was one woman strutting up and down with a radio, gingerish hair, and a face that would turn cream to yogurt. She did nothing - she did not look for any BA passengers. Orly Ouest has several flights leaving for the French Carribean and other T.O.M.s

There was actually a line for EU which bypassed a lot of the queue. We took a risk and left our place in the queue and got far further forward. This was fortunate as we would have missed the flight, of that I am certain. We finall got through to be confronted with a last call. I told the ground lady (Madame among them) that there may well be people stranded in the queue. Madame's attitude was that this was quite normal. She said exactly that. My Best Friend jsut said come on - let's warn the crew. This we did. People did arrive much later than this.

I know that when you mix Parisian attitude with Iberias idea of customer service and you have a volatile cocktail. I did not think that BA's customer handling out of Paris could be worse. Silly Me! Be warned!

The flight? I could tell you about the crew member who really made me embarassed to work for the same company - I could tell you that they were rationing ice as they had so little of it - but I'd far sooner say that the Purser was a Sweetie and that one of the boys at the back was simply a gem and also that I drank Blue Top and you donot need ice in that! The Purser had seen the fiasco himself when they went thorough and they knew that there was a problem Whether this is normal as Madame said or whether it was just particularly bad yesterday I cannot tell. I normally come back later - but this was not a day trip (the sales are on BTW)

and they call me an apologist!
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