The road is endless...

It's official. Brussels Air sucks. I'm very disappointed in them, and if they were one of my students, they would get a big fat zero. I have to admit that the only thing with Brussels in front of it that I dislike more at the moment is sprouts. I have just arrived home after a horrendous 20 hours being trapped in transit. And it was all Brussels Air's fault. It all started when I left the German Moodlemoot (#mootDE11n) which I keynoted this week. T'was a great conference with plenty of good stuff to come away with (and this will be the subject of another post, later in the week). My keynote speech was entitled 'The Road is Open.' In hindsight I think I should have called it 'The Road is Endless.' Here's why ...

I arrive on time (actually in plenty of time) for my first homeward flight from Hamburg to Brussels. If we leave on time, I have almost one hour to get across the rabbit warren that is Brussels Airport to catch the Brussels Air connection onwards to Bristol, where my faithful car awaits me. We duly board the plane, and we wait. And we wait. And then we wait some more. No clear information is forthcoming about our delay. People are starting to get twitched. We are all getting numb bums. I feel like striking up a chorus of 'why are we waiting', but I'm not sure the Germans and Belgians around me will join in. After more than 40 minutes tied to the apron, and with no word of explanation as to why we are delayed, we eventually taxi, and take off toward Brussels. Apart from being elbowed in the head twice by the larger than average cabin crew, the flight is event free. But we are very late. By the time we arrive, I have less than 10 minutes to get across Brussels airport from Terminal B to Terminal A. Not a snowball's chance in Hell. I can't even get through the crowds and up the escalators in 10 minutes. I have been told that the best thing for me to do is to find the Brussels Airline Transfer desk. But where is it? It's like trying to find a straw in a needle stack. No one has met me to whisk me off to my connection, although they know I'm on the flight, and it's been severely delayed. After running around like a lunatic for another 10 minutes, I admit defeat, and ask some helpful airport personnel where the Brussels Airline ticketing desk it located. I'm pointed towards the ghoul-like security X-Ray people, who look straight through me. It's through there, they tell me.

I gaze at the scene in horror - there is a queue longer than the mausoleum line for photos with Uncle Mao. I throw my hands up in despair - my connection is now well and truly lost. Stuff this for a game of soldiers I think, and breathing silent oaths and trying to navigate around slow moving travellers, soaked in sweat and wheezing like a busted accordian, I finally manage to circumvent the huge security queues, by going back out of the terminal and then working my way in through the front of the terminal again. Are you following me? If you are, you're doing very well, but you're also soaked in sweat, muttering oaths, and desperate for a drink (of any kind). I spot the Brussels Airline ticketing desk, and once I get my breath back I tell them my sorry story. 'Hmm', says the woman behind the counter in a Hercule Poirrot accent, 'You have missed your flight'. Very helpful indeed. Like her Belgian countryman, she obviously has some detective training. Now for the bad news. There are no more flights today to Bristol. Or tomorrow for that matter. Can we get you a flight to anywhere else in England? Er, no, I need to get to Bristol, because that's where my car is parked. Well, all we do is get you on a flight to Paris in the morning, and then onwards to Bristol later in the day. Fine. I'll take that. I've already given up hope of getting back home today, but I don't wish to stay here in this crazy place any longer than I have to.

The desk clerk gives me a voucher to stay for the night in the Sheraton hotel, and an evening meal voucher. OK, things are looking up a little. Jolly decent of them. She also gives me a breakfast voucher but tells me that as the hotel doesn't open for breakfast until 0600 and my flight also goes at 0600, it may not be of any use. She hands it to me anyway. Gee thanks. I wend my weary way across to the hotel, have a shower, go down to get my evening meal and then crash out on the bed. Don't ask me how I slept. I don't know. I am unconscious until my alarm shocks me awake at 0500.

I'm back in the terminal, having made my way yet again through passport control and the dreaded X-Ray security queue and I'm sat waiting at the gate again, on time. I board the Paris flight, which is completely full, mainly with passengers of the Gallic persuasion. There's not a siege free dans le entire plane. Merde. It's deja vu. Once again there is a long delay, and then we taxi out ready to take off. Then ... the pilot speaks over the intercom in French. It sounds serious. His French speaking audience groans out loud. What could have happened to make them groan? My mind races - has Edith Piaf been raised from the dead? Perhaps they forgot to load the moules et frites for the in-flight menu? Maybe Nicolas Sarkozy has banned the mini-skirt? Then the pilot says it all again in English, and it's my turn to groan out loud. I should have known. There is a problem with the instrumentation and we need to return to the stand. 30 minutes later, after a lot of faffing about and yellow jacket engineering types gesticulating in and out of the cockpit, another announcement is given. We are all to disembark because this plane is not going anywhere. Brussels Air regrets ...le blah blah blah... but safety first, etc. OK, good call.

We are told to report to the Brussels Air ticketing desk to rearrange our flights. We all pile off the plane and make our way up the stairs (the escalator also has technical faults) and are back in the Brussels Airport terminal again. I'm about 10th in the queue for the Brussels Air ticketing desk, and with 150 people descending it is chaos of almost biblical proportions. There are exactly two desk clerks. To deal with 150 people. And each query takes around 10 minutes to solve. After 90 minutes, standing about with my legs gradually giving up the ghost and feeling totally dehydrated, it's my turn and I am told that there are no direct flights to Bristol, but would I like to fly to another English airport instead perhaps? Here we go again...

Eventually I am promised a flight to Birmingham airport, and a ground transfer to Bristol aiport where my car awaits... I could go on and on, with this saga, but I won't. Suffice it to say, I got to Birmingham, and the taxi was waiting for me. The driver got me from Birmingham to Bristol airport in just over 2 hours, where my car awaited me. I'm back home now, after just over 20 hours of travel. I could almost have walked the distance in that time. But I tell thee this for nowt. If you think international travel is glamorous, you are out of your tiny mind.

Image source: Fotopedia

The road is endless... by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.