Stuck in GLA - any advice? (Sitting in the airport wondering what to do)
 

Hi all,

Had a BA Holidays booking - DUB-LHR-HND / SYD-LHR-DUB with a separate Avios booking HND-SYD.

Due to DUB-LHR being cancelled, I was re-routed DUB-GLA-LHR to connect to the HND flight.

The DUB-GLA was two hours late and my connection onwards to London was missed.

The Menzies staff at Glasgow are unable to help, the person when I called BA Holidays said to ask at check-in to switch me over, they can't (flights are all full) and now I am stuck in GLA. I have e-mailed the Duty Office again as I did last night to make the other change, and also sent them a text to a number check-in at GLA gave me. No responses yet. Should I wait?

My bag is presumably in London, as it was checked through to there, nobody seems to be able to get me anywhere, the separate award flight onwards to SYD seems to make them all shake their heads.

Is there anything I can do here? Any advice? Who should be doing any re-routing? Are they responsible to get me back to Dublin if I cancel? I have never had this amount of disruption before, nor have I ever had any issues like this where nobody can seem to do anything to actually assist. I've already missed the last flight to LHR that would connect to HND, so now I am stuck with nobody telling me anything.

Any advice would be gratefully appreciated here!

Can Menzies move you to the EDI-LHR service? In your shoes, the priority for me would be to get to London since GLA-HND isn't going to happen. There is a seat available on the 19:55. There's also a City service and a couple of flights from NCL. If Menzies can't switch you to the EDI service, and it wouldn't surprise me, then just buy your tiicket or buy a train ticket to London. Though technically a risk, I don't think it's that risky (and you've got lots of money no doubt......) and I'm reasonably comfortable giving that advice. BAH will hopefully be in touch by the time you get to London. Hotels in London are very tricky tonight, so work out your best option on the way down, it may be easier via Travelodge / Premier Inn.

Thank you for that, I will ask them and see what they can do re EDI and if not I'll see what I can book myself.

(Haha! I have space on a credit card, but lots of money, no :))

My concern is HND-SYD - you won't be allowed to board a flight to Japan without that being rebooked to something you can connect with. BAH aren't going to be interested in that. May be something travel insurance can assist with

It's a big longshot for sure but you could ask BA to put you on the flight to Singapore instead. Then buy a cash ticket SIN-SYD. Ideally BA so you can just transit but you'd need them to check through your bag there isn't enough time in Singapore to do it yourself.

Hopefully you booked HND-SYD long enough ago to do BWC to get those Avios back

Yes, it was before BWC ended, so all good there.

The update on this is that I rang BA Holidays back and spoke to them again. This time I encountered a really helpful person (as opposed to the lady I spoke to while in the check-in queue at GLA who essentially said no can do, it's another department, ask check-in at GLA) who looked at options, held me a seat on the 10:50am from Glasgow the next day ("There are only two seats left, so I'll hold that now") and sent off a high priority message to the Duty Office to contact me as I was stuck in transit on a misconnect. At this stage I was sitting on the floor at GLA arrivals, with my laptop open and my phone plugged into the wall, much to the amusement of all the people passing by. It was 4:30pm and I was over it.

Anyway, Duty Office replied to my e-mail from 2pm, which had said to them essentially "the connection was missed, check-in staff can't move me, can you help?", with a pleasantly breezy "I am hoping you have arrived and been rushed through at Glasgow airport as we do not show the 15:30 flight anymore at this time. I can see that you may have a backup flight from Glasgow at 10:50 tomorrow. Feel free to let us know how you would like your itinerary adjusted and we will do our best to assist." I did have to smile at that, since I was certainly not rushed through :)

I replied outlining everything nicely and succinctly, trying to get to Sydney, connecting over HND, sitting at GLA, nobody here and so on and received a call back immediately. Same friendly guy from the e-mail sorted me out. I was told to overnight in GLA and take the 10:50 to LHR the next day (which was fine - it ended up being two hours delayed and many on it missed connections) and my options were BA15 to Sydney the same night in World Traveller (only two seats available on the whole plane) or I could get myself from LHR to LGW, overnight, and fly LGW-DOH-SYD on Qatar Airways in Business Class. No guesses as to which option I took. He also advised to claim back both nights hotels and food and also said I'd be eligible for EC261/UK261.

I asked at LHR about my bag when I got there, and they said it was last tracked at DUB and to report it missing in SYD as that's my final destination. Did that and here I am in Sydney safe and sound.

Good result in the end but the trip was 72 hours from Dublin to Sydney in total, which has made a short visit to see family even shorter. Plus I have no luggage and have had to go buy clothes today, which travel insurance should cover, but still. However, I'm certainly not the only one who was in this situation over the weekend, so it is what it is.

Wow, that trip definitely qualifies as “memorable” I would say.
Alternative routing yes but glad all was sorted in the end and enjoy your time with the family.
I guess you chose Traveller on BA over Qatar business ? 😂

Hahaha!

Of course - I couldn't possibly have waited the extra 11 hours to take Qatar business class... who would do something like that? :p