Oh, snap; or The Worst Trip Ever

Holy crap. I think I am still in a state of utter shock. FYI this is going to be a long post as I really need to get it out of my system.

So yesterday I got to the airport just fine, checked in at business class, went through security, took the mini-train, went through security again, and waited at the gate. They called all business and elite pax for boarding. Stood in line. Went through. Boarding was supposed to start at 15h, but it started at 15:20. No big deal. Walked down the ramp thing, got on the plane. About 7 other pax were in front of me. Just barely walked on when a flight attendant came rushing down the business class aisle waving her hands and screeching, "Pas encore! Not yet! Not yet! GET OFF!!!!" The businessmen in front of me, most of them middle aged with thick glasses, suits, and carry-on suitcases stared at her blankly, sort of shocked, then turned around along with the rest of and got off the plane. We stood there waiting on the ramp. Some gate attendants came and made us go back into the terminal, where we stood around, confused. Finally, an announcement in English: "We have not yet completed the technical security check on the plane. Please patient for awhile, it should be 15 minutes then okay." 15 minutes later, they made those of us who had been swiped through to board, get swiped again, so we would be disembarked. I overheard one gate agent on the phone saying in French, "Yeah, so apparently the air conditioning is broken. But we can't cancel the flight because a majority of the passengers on this flight were on last night's cancelled flight and they are going to totally freak out. (pause). Okay. Talk to you in 10 minutes."

We stood around for another 40 minutes before they finally decided we could get on the plane. So we had to go through the ticket swiping thing AGAIN. At this point, it was close to 16h15 and we were supposed to have left at 15h55. I headed over to my seat, which was in the 2nd row of the econ cabin. I had requested an aisle seat the previous evening, and found myself in 18D...and realized that the plane had a really odd configuration. The first row of econ was 2-3-2, and the second row was 2-4-2. I didn't mind at first because I realized I totally had extra leg room, as the seat in front of me wasn't really in front of me, but more to my side. There was a nice middle-aged British woman in the other aisle seat in my row, also an FB elite. She looked at the individual TV screens, then got up and looked at the screens of the aisle behind us. "Hey," she said, "we only have 2 screens in our row, but everyone else has individual screens!" I looked, and indeed, it pretty much meant that if the 2 seats in between ours were filled, we would all be sharing the individual TV screens. The British lady seemed quite annoyed about the whole thing, and we both hoped that no one would be seated in between us - which, luckily, no one was (I think they blocked the seats open because almost all the other seats on the plane were filled).

We sat on the plane for another hour, though no one really knew why, so by the time we took off, it was 18h Paris time. The head econ class attendant went around confirming special meals....and totally did NOT come over to confirm mine. I managed to flag down another attendant and was all, "Dude, where's my special meal?" She said she'd check, came back, and said she was terribly sorry, but my meal was not on the plane and there was nothing she could do about it because we were going to be leaving the gate soon. "WHAT?!?!" I screamed. "I CALLED AND CONFIRMED IT 3 TIMES LAST NIGHT!!!!!" People started to turn around to stare. "Um, well, like I said, I really am sorry, and there's nothing I can do about it. I will have my superior, the econ cabin chief, come over and speak to you." Then she fled.

Once we took off, the cabin chief came over to me. "I'm terribly sorry..." she started. "Yes, I know," I said through clenched teeth, trying to remain calm. "My meal isn't on the plane. BUT I called to confirm it last night - I called Air France here in France, Air France US, and Delta. AND THEY ALL CONFIRMED IT." "Ah, well, you see, you have been misinformed," said the cabin chief. "When a flight is cancelled at the last minute, no special meals are available for the rebooked flight, as we need 24 hours to prepare your meal. So I'm terribly sorry about that." "Well, what am I going to eat!" I wailed. "Well, have you looked at the menu for tonight?" she asked. "Yes, and everything has SAUCES in it. Are they gluten-free????" I asked pointedly. "Oh, well, I wouldn't know." "EXACTLY" I shouted. "You don't know how it's prepared. What if there is a cross-contamination issue? Do you want a sick passenger on the plane?" "Um, well," said the cabin chief, thinking. "We have a lot of fresh fruit. How about if I offer you a fruit plate?" I don't know what happened, but I started to crack. I stared her straight in the eye, and I'm pretty sure my eyes were full of extreme loathing because she looked a little nervous. "Listen," I said quietly and calmly, as the other passengers were turning around to stare. "I'm a relatively calm person. I understand that this is personally not YOUR fault, so I'm not mad at YOU. I understand that things go wrong on flights, but this is really the last straw. I'm REALLY mad now. First, you cancel last night's flight once boarding started. Then you pull the same shit on this flight and we've taken off 2 hours late. Now you're telling me that my special meal is not on this flight, even though I confirmed it 3 separate times. I've been a very loyal customer of Air France since 1998. I make it a point to fly Air France or one of your Sky Team alliance partners. The last time I flew Air France was in 2005, when my flight was delayed 6 hours, it wasn't updated on your website, and I got a phone call the day AFTER the flight telling me that check-in was at 2 AM, AND my special meal was NOT on that flight either. It's NOT my problem nor my fault that last night's flight was cancelled. This is Air France's problem, and the least you people can do is inform their customers about problems when it comes to special dietary needs. I fly a minimum of 3 round trip Europe-US flights a year, and I am taking my business and loyalty elsewhere, to a company that knows how to treat its customers. This is the last time I fly Air France or a Sky Team partner," I finished up. The cabin chief looked terribly sorry. "You are absolutely correct," she said with sympathy. "I understand that this is not how you should be treated, but it's beyond my control. So I will make you a special fresh fruit plate, and if at any time you are hungry, please let me know, and I will be happy to supply you with more fruit. And I will file a special complaint to Air France on your behalf; it will be signed off by myself, the head pursor, and the captain." I was mildly mollified so I said a stiff thank you and tried to watch a movie. Except that in order to see the screen, I had to lean all the way over into the seat next to me. And my remote control and screen were not working very well, so I would miss the first 10 minutes of any movie I wanted to watch. I would have complained again, but I was too tired to deal with it all.

As they served all the other passengers their meals and special meals, the cabin chief came over with a business class tray - that is, I had real silverware and a real plate and glasses, but it was a plate with 2 apples, 2 clementines, and a handful of lychees. So I ate 1/2 of an apple, 2 clementines, and the lychees. A few hours later, the cabin chief came by and showed me the complaint she had filed for me. She pretty much wrote about how my flight was cancelled, that today's flight was delayed, that I was Flying Blue silver elite, that my special meal was not onboard although I had confirmed it, that I was only able to eat a few fruits, and that I was extremely angry with the company and was planning on taking my business elsewhere. I was relieved to find out that she had at least listened to my complaining. I said it was fine, and she went to the cockpit to get it signed off on, then came back to me and explained, "Okay, so I will send this to AF management on your behalf, so it will be dealt with right away. At the very least, you should receive a letter of apology on behalf of Air France." "And....?" I prompted her. "Oh, well, then it is up to AF management and customer service to decide if they will compensate you in any way or not. So...you might not get anything else other than a letter of apology," she said, with extreme sympathy. "Hmm. That would be very typical of Air France, no?" I asked. "I'd be willing to bet I don't even get a letter of apology."

I'm not one to sleep on flights, even when I'm tired, and I was at this point extremely exhausted, but didn't get a minute of sleep in. When we finally arrived at JFK at 20h00 (the flight was supposed to arrive at 18h20) we ended up sitting on the tarmac again for 30 minutes, waiting for a gate to free up. At this point, the Spanish guy sitting across the aisle turned to me and asked in English, "Excuse me, do you have any pockets?" I thought he wanted tissues, as I had brought a million travel tissue packs with me on account of my cold and had spent most of the flight sneezing and blowing my nose. "Oh, tissues?" I asked, reaching for a pack. "Here you go," I said, handing him the pack. "No, no!" said the Spanish guy. "A pocket!" I looked around, confused. "A pocket?" "Yes," he said frantically, then mimed opening the seat back pocket and a square bag. "Oh!" I said, realizing what he meant - one of those bags you throw up in. Then, "Oh!" as I realized that he was needing one of those bags to throw up in. I searched my seat back but there wasn't one in mine, then searched the seat back next to me, and found one, then handed it to him. "Thanks," he said, and gave it to his friend at the window seat, who had apparently just thrown up in one of those bags - though very subtly I might add, as I hadn't heard him puking, nor was there a mess at all. Plus, he had even closed up his bag very neatly. His friend, the one in the aisle seat next to me started pressing the attendant call button like a madman, producing a rapid series of "Bing bing bing" noises. There just so happened to be a male flight attendant standing in the aisle in front of us, right in between coach and business class, but his back was to us and he was in an extremely deep conversation with his colleage on the other aisle, laughing and talking over the heads of the business passsengers sitting between them. "S'il vous plaît!" I started calling, at the same time that the Spanish guy kept frantically pushing the call button. After several minutes of rapid binging and s'il vous plaîts, the steward turned around, looking extremely irritated that someone kept pushing the call button frantically. He turned around, scanning the heads of the passengers towards the back of the cabin, with major eye rolls going on, and finally noticed the Spanish guy and I frantically waving our arms at him. "Yes?," he asked, with a note of irritation in his voice. "Ah, sir," said the Spanish guy, "please throw this out," he asked, handing him the vomit bag, "and my friend is sick, can you bring us some tissues please?" "Uh, okay," said the steward, taking the bag, looking less than pleased. He ambled away, and I offered a pack of my zillion tissues to the Spanish guy, who took the pack of tissues gratefully. At the same time, the steward arrived clutching a handful of tissues, and gave them to the sick guy. The sick guy asked for a glass of water, which he got 10 minutes later. Then the steward went back to chatting with his co-worker.

FINALLY we got off the plane, I went through immigration, arrived at the baggage carousel, only to be confronted with a large Air France board with a long list of passenger's names, and at the bottom, "Please proceed directly to the Air France baggage agent at the carrousel." Unfortunately, my name was on the list.

I found the baggage agent, a woman who was neither French nor American, judging from her exotic accent, but who had perfected the French attitude. She coldly handed me two slips of paper printouts with my name and other information on it, and told me to go to AF/Delta baggage claims outside of arrivals. "Does this mean you lost my luggage?!" I demanded. "Yes," she said shortly, with an air of an "It's not MY problem nor MY fault" attitude. "Go to Baggage Claims on the right, outside of the arrivals area." So I stormed out into the arrivals area, found my mom, and screamed, "THEY LOST MY LUGGAGE" in the middle of the crowded area. Then I stomped over to the baggage claims area, threw open the door and screeched, "THEY LOST MY LUGGAGE ON A DIRECT FLIGHT".

A nice stout man was sitting at one of the 2 desks and said, "Come on over!" He looked at my slips, typed on his computer, and informed me that the luggage would be arriving on the next flight to JFK. "Ah," I said, "so it should be here soon? Because the next flight is the one that leaves Paris at 18h50 and arrived at JFK at 9 pm, and it is 9 pm now." "Uh, sorry," said the agent, "no it'll arrive tomorrow morning at JFK at 9 am. But, given the snowstorms, it'll probably be delayed. But it should be delivered to you tomorrow. Hopefully in the morning but most likely in the afternoon." I then had to provide descriptions of my luggage and hand him my baggage tags. He looked at the tags. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "I know why they lost your luggage," he said, and tapped the numbers on the tags. "The gate agent in Paris didn't change your luggage tags. She left on the tags from the cancelled flight. That's why your luggage wasn't on this flight." "Dude," I said, "but I checked in at 2 pm and our flight left like, way late, so in any case it should have been either on this flight or the one right after." The guy shrugged. "You know, Air France is really weird these days. I don't know if they're messing up on purpose to prepare for another strike or what, but there have been a lot of strange things happening these past few months. Like a lot of flights being delayed, they're changing airplanes at the last minute, cancelling flights at the last minute, and not doing what they are supposed to be doing." He shook his head. "I don't know what's going on with Air France." He did some typing in his computer and asked me to write down my address in France, my temporary address in the U.S., and my local phone number. I started to write, but my hands were shaking so much on account of the fatigue and not having eaten for 10 hours that I couldn't write anything down and my mom had to do it for me. The guy started chuckling to himself. "Yeah, you know, over in Europe, they say anything to get you on the plane. Like when people come in late and they go, 'Is my luggage on the plane?' and in Europe they're all like, 'Yep, no problem, just get on the plane'. But when I'm working the gates, and people come up to me and they go, 'Is my luggage on the plane?' I'll look and then I'm all, 'Nope, your luggage ain't on the plane' because I don't like to lie to people. And then the people go, 'Is it going to get on the plane soon?' and I'm like, 'Nope, it's not going to be on the plane. You're going to have file a baggage claim when you arrive at your destination.'" "OH MY GOD" I screeched. "THIS IS THE WORST FLIGHT I HAVE EVER HAD IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. AND I'VE FLOWN A LOT OF FLIGHTS IN MY LIFE." "Ssssh!" said my mom, trying to calm me down. "THEY CANCEL MY SPECIAL MEAL AND THEN THEY CAN'T EVEN GET MY LUGGAGE ON A FREAKING DIRECT FLIGHT???!!!" "Vegetarian meal?" asked the baggage agent. "No, gluten-free" I muttered. "Oh. When they cancel a flight, they can't get the special meal onto the rebooked one. All special meals are always cancelled." "Dude, then they shouldn't have confirmed it when I called!" I shouted. "Yeah, you know, thosse phone people, especially in Europe, they tell you yes to everything, just to get you on the plane." "Oh!" I moaned. "This is even worse than that time Alitalia lost one of my bags. But they got it back to me 2 days later." "Ha!" laughed the agent. "Alitalia! Man, they are not good with the luggage. But British Airways is the worst. They had to hire an entire 747 just to transfer all the lost and delayed luggage at Heathrow to JFK!" "Really?" asked my mom. "Yeah," he said. "British Airways definitely has the worst record when it comes to baggage." He then started explaining that I could spend up to 100 euros on necessary items, that I would have to fill out forms and provide receipts and I would have to file them back in France. He also repeated that I could expect delivery of my luggage sometime the next day, then procedeed to get into a friendly debate/discussion with my mom about the next day's weather. At this point, there was a line of disgruntled Air France passengers (I'm suspecting they were all business/elite passengers checked in by the same gate agent at CDG) who were all grumpy and angry about the whole fiasco. "STOP TALKING ABOUT THE WEATHER" I screeched. "Let's just go". I thanked the baggage guy because he really was nice and funny and sarcastic and I really did appreciate his help.

In the car I ate some food (luckily, Mom had been wise enough to heat up and pack some food for me to eat in the car, which in this case was an excellent idea). It was 9:30 pm and I realized I didn't have any contact lenses or my glasses as they were in my checked luggage. "Oh" I started moaning. The local Duane Reade was already closed by the time we got close to my mom's house in Westchester. "Oh..." I started moaning again. "I have NOTHING!" I said dramatically. "This is the WORST FLIGHT EVER." My mom calmed down and reminded me that I had clothes at her house, and that there should be a few pairs of back up contact lenses that I could wear. "Look on the bright side," said my mom. "Given all the flights you have flown, it's only now that you got a really bad experience."

I sent H an SMS when I got to Mom's, though it was 10:30 pm in NY, so 4:30 am in Paris. He called me as soon as he got my SMS as he had been having trouble sleeping. I shouted the entire fiasco into the phone and he agreed that it was quite a bad experience. "We'll write a letter to Air France," he promised me, "so note down everything bad that happened and we'll put it all in a fancy complaint letter that I'll help you write." Then he said he was going to go back to sleep and he'd call me the next day. I pretty much just sat on the couch and stared into space for an hour because I was so pissed off and shaken up from the whole experience and was trying to calm down.

I am SO totally going to post this story (though a shortened version) on the FlyerTalk Air France/KLM Frequent Flier boards. And I am SO totally going to switch airlines. Now I just have to figure out a way to use up all those frequent flier miles.