Life is a journey, not a destination.
For my research visit at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town I was firmly fixed upon the destination and considered the journey as a mere, albeit tedious, formality.
When I booked my flight from Brussels to Cape Town I was given three options: a layover in Amsterdam, London, or Doha. I quickly settled on the London option as this allowed me to sleep through the night in the plane and had the shortest layovers. Alas, events unfolded differently…
The trip started off smoothly enough though. As soon as I exited the train station underneath the airport I had to go through the pre-checkin instituted in the wake of the terrorist attacks of last March. When previously I had to fly, in June to the ASMS annual conference in San Antonio, I explicitly booked a flight departing from Amsterdam instead of from Brussels to avoid the massive delays passengers at Brussels Airport had to experience back then. The past few months the airport has had a very successful summer though, and all hiccups seem to have been smoothed out as delays were minimal.
Next on to the baggage check-in. As frequent travellers will know, you typically have to answer a few standard questions at this point. Being friendly, I wanted to help out by proactively answering these questions:
Airport security: Did you pack your bags yourself?
Wout: Yes, and I did not leave them out of my sight and I did not accept anything from any other people.
Airport security: …
Airport security: Did you leave your bags unattended at any point?
Wout: No, I kept them with me at all times and I did not accept any packages from any other people.
Airport security: Has anyone asked you to take anything onto the aircraft for them?
Wout: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Airport security: Has anyone?
Wout: No.
After this exchange I proceeded to the gate where my flight to London would take off a few hours later and got out my Kindle. As long as the delays are not too long I do not mind waiting in an airport: it is a perfect opportunity to do some reading.
Unfortunately, as the boarding time drew near a first slight delay of the flight was announced. No big deal though, I was reading a good book and I would still have enough time to make my connecting flight in London. However, a little while later the delay got extended to two hours, and this jeopardized me making the connecting flight. Following this announcement a queue of concerned people that would miss connecting flights going all over the world formed up in front of the flight desk. Unfortunately the attendants manning the desk were unable to give us any specific information, but they ensured us that British Airways, our airline, would do their best to let us make our connection.
However, a little while later again a further delay was announced, pushing the total delay to over three hours. This surely meant that I would not make the flight from London to Cape Town anymore! I asked the desk attendants whether there was a possibility to return home and get another flight the following day, as some other people already had done after the prior delay was announced. Unfortunately this was not possible anymore because my bag had already been processed and they were not able to recover it anymore. This left me with no alternative to take the delayed plane to London, and see how things progressed from there.
Unfortunately the pleasure was not mutual.
When the plane was finally ready for take off, there was an additional half hour delay because some passenger was not on board and presumably left, but his baggage was still on the plane. So for security reasons they had to hold the plane until that baggage was retrieved and removed. When we finally arrived in London after all these delays, it was already 23h30 (UK time; 0h30 Belgian time) and the Heathrow airport was all but deserted. There remained a few employees of British Airways staffing the desks to arrange an accommodation for the night for us stranded travellers. Understandably they were also eager to leave for home after a long day’s work, and they were quietly disappearing one by one until there was only one person left to help me as I was the last person in the queue. I got a voucher to stay the night in the Holiday Inn Express T5 hotel, of which the airline employee confessed that I got a bit of a sore deal as I was the only person staying at this hotel because they had to scramble to find sufficient spots and the other hotels were of slightly higher quality, and a voucher for the extra airport shuttle they had arranged to bring the travellers to their various hotels.
I was a bit miffed due to all the delays I had had to endure during the day, but the airline seemed to have handled everything relatively adequately and had at least presented me with a place to get some well-deserved sleep after a long day and a tooth brush (of rather abysmal quality as it turned out) to get the stale taste out of my mouth. I quickly exited the airport to wait for the airport shuttle, as it would be leaving shortly. But as time passed and the huddle of tired people standing on the sidewalk in front of the airport saw their spirits draining to zero, no airport shuttle showed up. After waiting for more than one hour we finally resigned ourselves to the fact that contrary to what we had been promised there would be no airport shuttle coming anymore. At about 0h45 (UK) we dragged ourselves over to the taxi stand, and started to split up in small groups of people that were put up in the same hotel.
I had no companions in my taxi as I was the only one going to the Holiday Inn Express T5. I told the taxi controller where I needed to go, and he relayed my destination to the driver he assigned to me. After a short 15 minute drive the taxi dropped me off in front of the hotel, and I more or less sleepwalked myself inside. Upon presenting my hotel voucher the concierge looked at me quizzically and asked me whether or not I had another voucher. I told him I did not, whereupon he informed me that I was at the wrong hotel: I was at the Holiday Inn T5, while the voucher was for the Holiday Inn Express T5. I quickly sprinted outside to see if my taxi was still there, but by then he was long gone. The concierge kindly called a new taxi for me, which took almost 30 minutes to arrive due to some traffic situation, and I listlessly let him drive me to the correct hotel. Finally, at 3h00 (Belgium) and £35 poorer because British Airways could not properly arrange an airport shuttle, I was in my hotel room. The bed sure was a sight for my sore eyes, but before I could go to sleep I still had to mail the people that were expecting me to show up in Cape Town the next day that I had been delayed. Having done that, I was finally able to go to sleep…