British Airways in the firing line after couple’s 18-hour marathon journey
By Gillian Wylie
(From The Orcadian dated November 22, 2001)

A Holm couple are to complain to British Airways after a series of delays turned a family trip to Cornwall into an expensive farce.

Mrs Lilian Sinclair of Vindlyse, Holm, with her husband, Billy, flew to Plymouth earlier this month to visit their son in Cornwall, but a series of mishaps and delays meant that the couple endured an 18-hour marathon journey courtesy of Loganair, Bryman Airways and British Airways.

Although Mrs Sinclair is able to laugh about it now, such was the inconvenience they experienced on the 18 hour ordeal, she and her husband intend to complain to British Airways who franchised out the flights.

“It all began with a windscreen wiper,” she explained.

On October 31, she said, she was booked for the 8.25am flight for Aberdeen, connecting with the 10.35am flight to Gatwick, from which they should have been able to pick up a flight to Plymouth, collect a hire car which they had booked and drive 40 miles to relatives in Fowey. That was the theory.

But, as she explained, a broken windscreen wiper on the Aberdeen plane was only the beginning of hours of confusion, frustration and expense.

She began: “The last flight to Aberdeen (the night before) landed with a faulty windscreen wiper and a replacement was flown up next morning, so the 8.25am flight to Aberdeen was delayed until 9am. The broken wiper wouldn’t budge so we were delayed until 9.30. As we had connecting flights, we began to feel uneasy.

“The desk clerk was very helpful and assured us that if in the very unlikely event of us missing our 10.35am flight to Gatwick we could be re-routed through Bristol on the 10.55. A call was made to Aberdeen and all we had to do was go to the booking office and they would be expecting us.”

She and her husband did leave Kirkwall at 10am, but it was too late to arrange a transfer to the Bristol flight.

“We headed for the office but they had never heard of us, and more time was wasted explaining our predicament. How would you feel if you were told: ‘What a pity you hadn’t arrived earlier or we could have re-routed you through Bristol.’

“It was now 11am and the next flight to Gatwick was 3.30pm, but we were heading for Plymouth and would miss our connection there as well. The last flight to Plymouth left at 8pm. We had no choice but to accept these arrangements along with a £5 voucher for lunch.”

Over lunch, their missing luggage was traced by airport staff, then came a bizarre message: “Good news”, said a desk clerk, “Your daughter has landed at Heathrow and is making her way to Gatwick to meet you.”

“Strange we thought,” Lilian commented – their daughter Jane had just spoken to them from Kirkwall. “That mystery was never solved.”

As the hours dragged by, Lilian phoned the Hertz car hire at Plymouth to let them know they had been delayed – only to discover they would be charged an extra £40 for being late. “Someone has to turn out to meet you,.” explained the girl at Plymouth.

Once they arrive in Gatwick, they had a three-hour wait before catching the Plymouth connection.

They were looking forward to arriving in Cornwall. “Plymouth was only 30 minutes away – nearly there at last!”

But, this wasn’t the end of the story. “A wit of a desk clerk on gate 56 for Liverpool announced ‘There will be a delay – as we have a plane, we have a pilot, but we have no crew.’

“When the laughter died down, the clerk on gate 57 for Plymouth announced, ‘We have a plane, we have a pilot, we have a crew, but we have no bus.’ Seemingly the plane was too far away for us to walk and a bus was needed.

“Thirty minutes later we were informed that the plane had been brought closer if we didn’t mind the short walk. We were delighted and set off across the runway full of energy, we had had about seven hours of rest we didn’t want.”

But still their ordeal wasn’t over, as they sat on the plane, engines running, they waited and waited and waited. Cutbacks by British Airways meant that there was a shortage of tugs to tow planes to the main runway and the Plymouth flight was now third in the queue.

Half an hour passed, and at last they took off, but, alas they didn’t land at Plymouth! “To add to our misfortunes, this flight landed at Newquay where we could have disembarked if it had not been for the car!”

Eventually after flying over Fowey, they made it to Plymouth, ready to pick up the hired car. “We finally arrived at our destination 18 hours after leaving our home.”

Lilian commented: “It is interesting to note that a couple of friends flew to Texas at the same time at less cost and probably a darned sight quicker.”

But for those who think her story is over, they couldn’t be more wrong.

After a “week of peace and quiet in the beautiful town of Fowey”, the return journey had to be faced.

“We checked in and read the list of items you cannot carry in your hand luggage. Foolishly, I declared that I had knitting needles in my case. My case was opened, and all needles confiscated even though they had been passed at Kirkwall, Aberdeen and Gatwick.”

Then another bombshell – their flight to Gatwick was postponed by one hour. “We had exactly one hour at Gatwick before flying on to Aberdeen. I headed to the desk in a panic. ‘Sorry,’ I was told, ‘we have to deal with another cancelled flight first.’ ”

To cut a long story short, the Sinclairs made their homeward connection with only five minutes to spare.

At Aberdeen, when they checked in for Kirkwall the computers were down. “We were faced with lengthy queues of people going nowhere. The hour we had to spare at Aberdeen was spent in a queue – no time for the cuppa I was so desperate for – and so off we set again through a blizzard to the plane.

“One further delay, waiting for the plane to be de-iced and we took off on a very bumpy flight to Kirkwall.”

But still this sorry tale is not quite over. “What about our luggage? It turned up 24 hours later.”

So would she fly again? Lilian said she would certainly think twice. “Would Railtrack be any faster, I wonder, for our next trip to Fowey in the spring?”