Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Ron & Air Travel

I don’t think I ever blogged anything about Ron’s unfortunate air travels but now I can’t help but to compile it into one posting since it’s gotten to be quite a fair bit to tell.

Two trips back to Malaysia, Ron was going to catch the plane back to Melbourne. He read 0950 as 9:50pm so by the time he realized it was a morning flight, the plane was about to taxi off the runway. It took him a few days after to catch the next plane since it was peak season.

Then the last trip back, he happened to check with JetStar on some details about his flight back to KL which he bought months in advance, only to be told JetStar no longer flew to KL! So he had to quickly make new arrangements, luckily with the help of the airline.

He flew from Bangkok back to Melbourne for that trip. And his luggage was so overweight, the airline had to charge him for it. As he scraped his remaining Baht, Euros and Ringgits, he found he didn’t have enough to pay! Plus his charge card was maxed out after his holidays so he had to sheepishly offer his mixture of currencies and ask for a discount. The girl over the counter just gaped and in the end, accepted his offer.

After a slight flight delay and upon reaching Melbourne, his friend who had waited to pick him up had already incurred $20 for his car park ticket, no thanks to the delay. He was hoping Ron had some change on him because he was also flat broke. So, two penniless guys, wandering around the airport for hours trying to find ways of paying the car park ticket. In the end, they had to call another friend to come loan them the money.

This trip, now this trip, Ron was delayed for 5 hours sitting in the plane the whole time as the flight crew could not let them on the ground after checking them in while they fixed the plane. So, his flight time doubled. The only good thing was, AirAsia crew decided not to charge him for his meal after he argued for it.

And most recently, he was supposed to go Cambodia with a friend, who, on the day before their flight, postponed it to a further 2 days, only to scrap the whole trip in the end.

Usually, if any of these incidences happens to someone, it would be quite traumatizing. However, since Ron’s been having so many occurrences, it’s become rather funny.

He flies back to Melbourne next Monday. If anything happens, I’ll blog it again.

1 comment:

Ron said...

The plane was delayed by 1 hour but at least my luggage arrived in pristine condition! Well I suppose the whole saga about the trip to Cambodia has now been revealed so we shan't say too much about it...
There have been a couple of other incidents in Europe - I once booked a Ryanair flight from Paris Beauvais airport that was to take me to Cologne. I didn't know where Beauvais was and assumed it would take 1 hr or so to get there. Wrong!! It was so far out of Paris that it could hardly be called Paris anymore and you had to take a regional train that went for over an hour (express!) to reach Beauvais and when I finally reached that tiny country town it was like 7pm. I was trying to locate the airport and stopped a guard about to go home. He said to me that that was the last train for the day and there was no more public transport to the airport! Luckily there was a cab there but a family was getting into it so the guard went up and talked to the taxi driver who said that his taxi was also the final one for the day! I was so agitated and the guard kindly spoke to the taxi driver asking him to take me along which he did much to the annoyance of the family who then had to squeeze in the back seat(4 members!). Needless to say, I made it and caught my flight!
I wasn't so lucky with the next incident which was from Charles de Gaulle in Paris to Milan. There was a train strike on the day I was due to leave so there was a limited number of trains getting to CDG. So naturally I was late even though I had given myself 3 hrs beforehand. Anyway when I reached CDG I couldn't find Terminal 3 so I asked the bus driver if I needed to take a bus and he sort of said yes and motioned me to get on it. The bus then drove one circle around terminal one then two and finally came back to the same spot where we started! I was confused and asked him where on earth was terminal 3?? He then pointed for me to go round the back from the bus terminal! I was so angry as the whole ride took 20 mins. I missed my flight by a hair and had to buy another one which was supposed to be flying in 4 hours' time. But guess what? The people at Milan airport decided to have a strike and all the planes were cancelled till further notice! I stayed in the airport for 12 hours that day and that was when I bought Angels and Demons to read and finished it! I arrived in Milan at midnight and unfortunately as I had only booked a days' trip there I had to leave later that same day back for Paris! Hmph! It was the quickest shopping spree I've ever had! I still got a pair of beautiful brown leather shoes and the jeans you saw me wear whilst I was back home though!