May 4: AWA (British Airways is RUBBISH!)

AWA is a little phrase I learned from Bryce and unfortunately experienced first-hand trying to get back from West Africa on Friday, May 4. It stands for ‘Africa Wins Again’; in my case, Africa ALMOST won, as I did make it back to the UK finally.

To start off, I would like to say that British Airways, which has been the preferred airline for all my work travel from the UK, quite extensive work travel, has been TOTAL RUBBISH! Our flights on British Airways have been delayed more often than they’ve been on time. The latest ordeal involving BA all started with our scheduled flight home Friday morning: meant to depart at 3 AM and arrive in London at 10 AM.

We dutifully arrived at the airport 2:15 in advance – so 12:45 AM, also known as 'the middle of the night'. We waited in line at the ‘check-in desk’ (really just a desk with a taped sign that read ‘British Airways’) until 2:15 AM when BA announced the flight had been cancelled. That’s right. Completely cancelled as ‘the place was broken’. There were no offers for transferring customers onto other flights. The only option BA was offering were hotel vouchers with an empty promise to fly out the next day, even though there was no guarantee that the plane would be fixed by then. If the plane wasn’t fixed that day, then the next scheduled flight out was Sunday morning at 3 AM.

May 7 is a bank holiday in the UK, so I, along with probably every other passenger on that flight, had weekend plans booked. Thank goodness I didn’t try to take another flight a few hours after ours was scheduled to arrive! Instead, I had booked a bus tour to Cornwall with some girlfriends that was due to depart central London at 6:30 PM on Friday. I should have had plenty of time to return to my flat, shower, nap, check email, and transfer my toiletries from my work suitcase into my weekend bag, which was already packed.

Not willing to accept the completely unacceptable offer that British Airways was making to us, I put my head together with the group, remembering that we’d seen another flight option when booking that connected through Casablanca. Originally we chose 3 AM as it was direct and got us home so much sooner. Ultimately we got the worst of both worlds because we ended up purchasing outright new tickets on Royal Air Maroc to depart at 6:30 AM for Casablanca, layover for 2.5 hours, then board another flight to London, landing at 4:50 PM at Heathrow.

BA refused to simply transfer us onto that other flight, which is completely ridiculous.

We had about 2 hours to kill before we could check into our new flight, so we sat out in the airport ‘café’, which was a non-air conditioned area with tables and chairs, complete with cockroaches and other bugs scuttling about, serving about 10% of what was advertised on the menu. There was nothing vegetarian, so those peanuts given to me as a gift by the Plan Senegal office (see May 1-3 blog entry) really came in handy to managing late night hunger, especially for Simon.

We were finally able to check in at 4:30 and pass through a passport check and security. We all slept fitfully on the old metal benches at the gate until we boarded just after 6 AM. I have never slept so deeply on a plane before. Our layover in Casablanca was a strange blur, as we were so exhausted and bleary-eyed. I remember the airport seeming extremely modern compared to what we’d just been in, but that’s not saying much. After our 2.5 hour layover, we were finally boarding our flight back to the UK. We lucked out and the flight was nearly empty so I could stretch out across 3 chairs to sleep. This must have seemed very strange to other passengers as by now it was mid-afternoon. The flight attendant had to poke me repeatedly saying loudly “CHICKEN OR FISH???” before I registered the situation enough to reply weakly: ‘chicken’.

As we approached London, I started mentally preparing myself for the rat race I was in for in order to make my tour bus. I only had 1:40 to get off the plane, go through customs, collect my bag, get on the Heathrow Express train, buy a new Oyster card in the tube as mine was back in Woking, take the tube to the stop in Zone 2, then find the WalkAbout and the tour bus.

But I made it. At 6:30 PM on the dot I showed up, most definitely worse for the wear and without a shower for the past 36 hours, and checked in with the tour guides, who looked at me in astonishment that I’d made it. They had been briefed on my situation by their tour office, who I called from Casablanca, and by my friends who made it there before I did. And then I was off to Cornwall with my work suitcase instead of my weekend one, sitting on a bus for the 4.5 hour drive until we arrived at 1:30 AM at our hostel in Newquay. Never has anyone slept so deeply at a hostel before.