Tuesday, 7/19

Well...I hope this is the only bump in the road.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about how Loraine and I are dipping our toes back into the waters of international travel, hoping to go to Germany at the end of September to see RB Leipzig play. We went into it with eyes wide open, knowing that things could so haywire at a moment's notice.

We just didn't think it would happen so soon.

Loraine read a news story about how British Airways canceled 10,000 flights through early October in order to deal with the fact that Heathrow Airport in London seems to be imploding. So when she went to check on our itinerary it was not too much of a surprise to see that our flights over to London were fine, but that our flight from London to Berlin didn't seem to exist any more. Our flight back from Berlin to London a week later was fine, but it appeared—at least according to our itinerary—that unless we swam the Baltic Sea we wouldn't get to Berlin, and then from there by train to Leipzig.

Grrr.

BA was still flying from London to Berlin that days—three times, in fact—but the flight on which we were booked was pulled, and neither BA nor American thought to let us know about it. Our itinerary showed we were flying to London and then flying back from Berlin. It made no mention that we were originally booked through to Berlin, and if Loraine hadn't checked the flight, we would have shown up at Sawyer to fly to London.

Not Berlin.

Why they didn't reschedule us on another flight that day is beyond me. And when I called AA t see what the fudge was going on, Nina, the very nice lady who helped me, couldn't figure it out, either. She rebooked us on another flight, and we will now get to Berlin on he day we were scheduled to.

Just eight hours later than before.

So instead of getting to Berlin at noon local time and having the afternoon to rest and and explore areas we have yet to explore we now get to spend eight hours at Heathrow and then into Berlin at 630. We have to go through their version of Customs, hop on a train into the city, check into our hotel, get a few hours sleep, wake up, go back to the train station, and get to Leipzig around noon the next day.

Thanks, British Airways.

I'm not complaining too much...really I'm not. I just find it (ironically) funny that the one flight they canceled from London to Berlin that day was ours. But what I AM disappointed in is the fact that they didn't tell us.; If Loraine hadn't seen the news article and she hadn't thought to check, we could have (theoretically) shown up the day we were scheduled to fly over only to find out we had no way to get to Berlin.

That would not have been good.

Hopefully, this will be the one hiccup in the entire trip. I say “hopefully” because I'm experienced enough and realistic enough to know it won't be. But, with any luck, it won't be any worse than this.

Keep your fingers crossed.

(jim@wmqt.com)