April 15-16: 10 Hours of Airport H'll

I made it to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris with plenty of time to check my bag, make my way through security, get a light dinner, and find my gate. But of course, these are precisely the times when flights are delayed – when you are on time. My flight was delayed an hour, none of which was made up in the air, and so it landed in London Luton airport (not at all near Woking) around 11:15 PM instead of 10:15 PM. By this point, there were very few options for getting into London, so I took the bus leaving as soon as possible that allegedly took 1 hour to get to Victoria station. We should have left at 11:40, we actually left closer to 11:47 and then didn’t arrive at Victoria station until 12:53 AM. The last train to Woking leaves Waterloo Station (NOT Victoria) at 1:05 AM. I raced into the streets looking for a black cab, flagged one down, and we took off across London trying to get me to my train.

I raced through Waterloo in my flipflops dragging my suitcase behind me, and ran up to the Woking train, completely out of breath and frantic. Though it was still stationary on the tracks, the operator refused to open the doors as I pounded on them and a minute later pulled the train out of the station to my dismay. Utterly unsympathetic and unhelpful, even though I explained my flight had been delayed and it wasn’t my fault that I was late, the station attendants virtually threw me out on to the London streets in the middle of the night telling me that my only chance now was a taxi back to Woking. Luckily my cabbie from Victoria, Jay, was exceptionally kind and had given me his card with his number on it in case I encountered any trouble. He was my only hope since Woking taxi service wasn’t answering, so I called him and he kindly returned 25 minutes later to pick me up at Waterloo. He then took me to a private car hire company he knew of and trusted and arranged for a driver to take me home to Woking for ₤50, much less than a black cab would have cost (Woking is 33 miles outside London, and you have to pay drivers for the return trip, so 66 miles total). My cab rides with Jay had come to ₤20, so EasyJet’s “discount” flight had ended up putting me back an additional ₤70, or $140. My flight cost about $180. I am utterly disgusted. I could have taken the Eurostar for $300 and arrived on time at Waterloo for an easy transfer to Woking. Never again will I fly into Luton or Stansted airports, and I will hesitate quite a while before booking EasyJet again. Our delay was purely an EasyJet mistake and had nothing to do with weather or airport problems.

I got home at 2:30 AM, quickly transferred my Paris clothes for work clothes in my suitcase, and set my alarm for 5 AM to get ready for work the next morning in Helsinki, Finland.

My manager and I arranged for a taxi to take us to Heathrow Airport at 6 AM so that we would arrive just around 1 hour before our flight. Little did I know that there was an email waiting for me from the client warning that Finnair recommends check-in 2 hours in advance. Though we tried to get pulled from the slowly creeping check-in line by a BA representative (BA managed the flight operated by Finnair), we arrived at the desk about 1 minute after check-in closed, missing the flight. I thought I might get an ulcer after all the airport madness I'd been through in the last 10 hours, but I was too exhausted. Then some good luck came our way: since we'd missed the flight, I was afraid we were going to have to purchase a ₤500 or more replacement ticket on the next flight out, but luckily due to Plan's not-for-profit status, we had a special rate that was transferable so we flew stand-by on the next flight, which didn't leave for 3 hours. We made ourselves comfortable in the departures lounge; I slept while Houman shopped Duty Free, and we finally made it to Finland for a quick introductory meeting with the Web Team at the Finland National Office around 4:45 PM (Finland time).