The Thursday Air France flight from Toulouse to Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris was uneventful.
At check in for the AF flight 0054 to Washington Dulles we were told we would be taken to the plane by bus instead of boarding by the normal walk on method. As the 12:50 boarding time came close they announced a 30 minute delay due to a technical problem with the plane and kept repeating this for about 4 hours.
Finally they announced the problem was fixed and the buses would now take us to the plane. In situations like this it might be a good idea to encourage the older passengers with a small dose of amphetamines to help them make it up the stairs in a timely manner with their hand luggage.
We all boarded, struggled for overhead storage space and settled in when I noticed the cabin crew, all clearly close to retirement age were gathered at the cabin door chatting. Then a group of younger well made up female ground staff in high heels boarded and carrying their hand luggage and coats for them escorted the few first class passengers to BMWs parked at the stairs and drove them off into the dark and their next minimally pain free life experience.
I listened in on the cabin crew discussion and understood that while the plane’s technical problem was evidently resolved the plane crew having waited so long had exceeded some rule about staffing the flight. The flight was cancelled the buses were recalled and we were dropped off back at the airport and told to clear immigration. I broke out my collapsible walking stick and insisted on a wheelchair. This was a mistake.
Following the normal AF protocol for these situations concerning abuse of paying customers the pilot made no announcement concerning our fate and there was no AF representative waiting to announce what we should do next.
By 20:00 at the rebooking desk along with a couple of hundred others I had been given a voucher for the Campanile Hotel, please do not stay in this hotel. I was wheeled to the holding area to join the phalanx of other wheelchair bound decrepitude to await the wheelchair equipped shuttle bus. At 22:00 I returned to the rebooking desk on foot with walking stick and had an animated exchange which resulted in the appearance of the shuttle bus. When I inquired about the long wait the driver assured me it was because “there are just too many of you and only one of me.” We arrived at the hotel at 23:15 the restaurant having closed at 23:00.
This morning Friday after breakfast at 05:30 I gave up on the wheelchair approach and took the regular shuttle bus, it picks up at many of the “economy” hotels along the way and will hopefully soon board AF 0054 again and with any luck my suitcases will be on it.
What have I re-learned,
1. Never try to travel extra light by checking in all your hand luggage or you might end up in a modest hotel with no change of clothing and other travel essentials.
2. The disparity between what these hotels advertise with photos of inanely grinning people looking off into the distance bears no relationship to the reality of what you are experiencing. What you are experiencing has been reduced to the bare essential of being representative of what it claims to be. The coffee bears a resemblance to the taste of coffee, but just. The food is mysterious. The towel is a towel but washed up to a near well deserved retirement. The staff presumably being poorly paid are tired and disinterested.
And so it goes.
John