I woke up to find my flight from Glasgow to London had been cancelled. While very much a first world problem I tried to work out what I could do about this, and the answers were coming thick and fast, not a lot. I had been rebooked of the next flight from Glasgow to London Heathrow, which was 85 minutes later. I still had lots of time to make my connection as I was due to have just over 3hours at Heathrow. I had been rebooked into economy class though, and I had been planning on having my breakfast on the plane. I thought my best option was to head over to the terminal and see what the agents at the desks could sort out for me.
I jumped out of bed and started hurriedly repacking my bags, and it was at this point all hell really broke loose. The hotel fire alarm went off.
I was half-packed and half-dressed.
I quickly looked out the door to check there was no smoke in the corridor, it was all clear so I quickly dressed, and put on my coat, picked up my wallet, room key and passport, and headed for the exit stairs.
Standing outside waiting for the fire brigade to arrive I got on the phone to BA to find out if there was a business class seat on any of the other flights, there was, but it would mean I was not leaving Glasgow till 16:00 and would not be back in Geneva till about 23:00, much as I wanted to travel in the class I had booked I really did not want to be home at midnight. I thank the agent of the phone and waited till I could get back into my room finish packing and get to the terminal.
Eventually, the emergency was over, but the only way to get back to my room on the 7th floor was the stairs so I walked up, and my room key was managed to de-activate itself. So I had to walk back down 7 floors. One the key was operational again I was able to take the lift, finished packing, and checked out.
I headed to the terminal and the BA desks were empty so I quickly went to check-in, no there were no business class seats available, so I was stuck in economy. Deep breath…
Then the check-in agent said they could not take my bags because it was more than 2 hours before my flight. As this point, my sense of humour had a partial failure. And I politely but firmly pointed out that my bags would have normally been accepted as I was due to fly in about 90 minutes and so there should not be an issue of space in the baggage room, as it was only going to be the bags they should have been dealing with anyway.
The agent called the baggage hall and my bags were accepted. So with the normal baggage taken one way, I walked to the end of the terminal and dispatched the bike via oversized baggage.
Security at GLA is never a serious issue and today was no exception. I was quickly through and headed to the BA lounge.
The breakfast offering was actually very disappointing in the lounge, I had some coffee and tomato juice, but the one thing that was missing was a bacon roll!!! Having waited for a while in the lounge I headed down to the gate, a little bit early, to see if the agent there could work some magic on my seat assignment. I did not hold out much hope, but entered the group 1 lane and went up to the tensa barrier and politely asked about the situation. The agent quickly replied that I should have been rebooked my original class of travel. To which I agreed and explained that apparently there were no business class seats till 16:00. The agent tapped some keys and said they were sorry but there were no seats. Oh well never mind. Worse things happen at sea. So I sat and waited for about 5 minutes and the next thing the agent asked for my boarding card again and moved me to seat 5F from 9E. Thank you very much.
Boarding started and I thanked the agents again at the gate as I passed through gate 21.
Arriving at gate A2 I followed the purple signs to flight connections. There were quite a few of us in the queue, to have our boarding passes checked for the onward flight, but once through I quickly picked up what I needed at the duty-free shops before going to the Galleries First lounge to wait for my flight to board. (On a uber aviation geek level I have just noticed I had sequential tail numbers on sequential flights. GLA – LHR G-EUXI LHR- GVA G-EUXJ)
Soon enough I went down the gate and we had a short wait before boarding started.
There was the usual walk through the underground passages at GVA to get to the baggage hall and collect my bag on one carousel and then my bike on the ski and bike belt at the far end of the hall before leaving to meet my partner. I was home.
Our Holidays 