The longest journey from A to B ever (part 1)

When a friend advises you of a flight change before the airline does, you kind of know things are going to be problematic. 

 

This is what happened with me and my award flight which made up the bulk of my trip from Nairobi – to Helsinki – yes you read that correctly – Kenya to Finland – what on earth?!  I hear you yelp – I know….but perhaps more on the why as opposed the how in another blog entry.

 

About 4 weeks before I was due to depart Nairobi (NBO) on Qatar Airways, I contacted their call centre to verify the supposed flight changes.  JKIA, the airport at Nairobi had communicated (rather poorly, it must be admitted) that they were to commence runway upgrades from 1^st April and as a result no flights would be taking off or landing between 0000 and 00600.  Yes, I was calmly advised, your flight has been retimed.  I stress the “calmly” because I wasn’t at all calm.

So many airports I needed TWO luggage tags.

 

My original transit time in Doha went from 1 hour 40 minutes to a whopping 13 hours and then some.  I was, as you can imagine, a tad annoyed.  I couldn’t cancel my trip and rebook with someone else,  as I’d organised connecting flights with SAS to Copenhagen then Helsinki – are you still with me?!

 

After about 20 minutes she confirmed, that despite me having an award ticket (one I’d thankfully been able to get using my Qatar Airways miles online for a song) would still allow me a hotel in Doha overnight due to the connection being longer than 8 hours.  I sighed with relief and hung up.

 

On the afternoon of 2^nd April I made my way to JKIA and boarded my flight.

 

Sitting in 1A can give you a false sense of security

Arriving in Doha, I did as was instructed and approached the stop over desk.  And the first response was a suspicion I had from the outset, but didn’t want to acknowledge.  “You’re not eligible for a stopover hotel, since your ticket was purchased with miles.”  “What?” I whimpered…..”I knew this would happen, I knew it!?”  I asked for the supervisor and said I’d been advised by the call centre weeks ago, that I was indeed eligible.

 

I escalated and then escalated some more.  I was getting know where; my emerald oneworld (platinum to you and me) seemed to be of little use.  Having travelled and been a committed advocate of Qatar Airways my loyalty was being sorely tested.

 

I was told about the quiet area in the lounge – yeah right!  The last time I was there not only was a man snoring so loudly the walls shook, but they were actually repairing a broken automatic door with drills – not exactly quiet – I can tell you.

 

Then the flustered supervisor offered me the customer services email – a red rag to an already enraged bull: “It’s not an email address that will deliver my wrath into a black hole of non-reply I need – it’s a bed for the night..!”

Rose champagne on board the brand new A350XB

 

I got nowhere and resorted to paying for a room in the airport hotel at my own expense – a nice room it was indeed – but that’s hardly the point.  I woke the next morning, boarded my delayed flight to Frankfurt – but was delighted to find myself aboard a brand new A350X – complete with a flat-bed seat, a screen larger than my TV at home – well almost – and service from a well-trained crew – all things I’d come to expect from “World’s 5 star airline”.  Pity the 5-star treatment is apparently confined to the air and absent on the ground.

 

My plane was just docking...an omen perhaps?

Disembarking in Frankfurt was easy, but then came the slog of navigating one of the worst maze-like airports I think there is on the planet.  I managed to find my gate, get my boarding pass, check my luggage was on board and then spring on to the bus to take me to my SAS flight to Copenhagen – oh, yes my journey was far from over.  I did have an emergency exit seat- which was nice and not one but two spare seats next to me – I was going to be thankful for the space for the wait that was in front of me.