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Gatwick blog

Here is what I have written on my laptop since I got stuck here, it should explain everything:

When I am writing this it is 5 am, and I am sitting in Gatwick airport having been awake the whole night. I will now shortly summarise quite an eventful last 18 hours or so.
For those that do not know why on earth I am in London now I will begin from the beginning. I am on my way to APXPRO in the Philippines which is an AIESEC conference for those unfortunate enough not to know AIESEC and our wonderful conferences.
The plan was like this fly on Sunday afternoon to London, go and pick up my tickets in central London, spend a night at Gatwick (I quite enjoy spending nights at airports, you meet such an interesting people), fly to the United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi) on Monday morning, arrive in the evening, fly to Manila, the capital of the Philippines in the night, arrive there in the middle of the Tuesday, take a flight there to the island where the conference take place and arrive there Tuesday night. This is a long, long trip and things started going wrong even before I left from home.
First of all the flights to UAE and Philippines were not possible through e-tickets, so paper tickets needed to be sent to an UK address, I got permission to use the AIESEC UK, address and my tickets were sent there, but then the problem was, I was arriving on Sunday evening when nobody would be at the office, and I would be going so early in the morning that nobody would be there yet. So I sent the girl that had received my tickets an email 4 days before but she didn’t answer, so 2 hours before my departure from Iceland I had no idea how to reach my tickets, second problem was that because of an absolutely hectic week I forgot to pick up my new VISA card and therefore I didn’t have a VISA card, I had some money but just enough for everything to run as planned, as if that was not enough of uncertainties I had not been able to book the flight within the Philippines because of an internet problem at home.
Well, hour before I left from home I called the AIESEC office in the UK and a really nice guy answered, he said he knew about the tickets and that he would take them to Scott (president of AIESEC UK) which was facilitating some sort of a seminar at LSE (London School of Economics).
I breathed easier, got Scott’s cell phone number and started packing (you guys know me, no need to start packing until hour before departure). So at 14:00 on Sunday my journey began, and it didn’t get a flying start, as you might know I screwed up my legs in sports 2 weeks ago, the pain was reducing but the last two days it had been coming back strong and I could barely walk to the car, I was already starting to look forward to walking around airports with my luggage.
The flight to London was extremely uneventful and no need to waste words on that, but when I landed walked (or as close to walking as I could) through the airport, luggage claim and went straight to information desk where I asked what would be the easiest way to get to LSE, the lady at the information desk, which had a horribly British face (no offence British girls), had no idea where that was, great information service, so I tried to call Scott, I got no answer and after several calls with 5 minutes intervals I decided to go to central London and work my way from there. I took the Standsted Express to Liverpool street and in he station I reached Scott, I don’t know if I called him in the middle of some act or what but he was very irritated and it was quite clear that he didn’t want to talk to me. I got straight to the point and asked if he was at LSE or where he was so I could come and pick up my tickets. What tickets he asked, well my flight tickets to the UAE and the Philippines I answered hoping that this was a sample of the British black humour, but not reality. He said he didn’t have any tickets and no one had talked to him about it, he gave me the number of another guy who he thought I might had talked to about the tickets that day. With that our short conversation ended and I was standing in the middle of the station starting to wonder what the heck I had got my self into this time.

I just want to stress that I really do like Scott and I believe he is one of the best AIESECers in the world right now, and he is a very intelligent and nice person, I must have caught him at a bad moment, but if Scott ever gets into some trouble in Iceland I promise him that I will treat him a bit better and with a little more interest than what I got from him that evening.
Well, I called this other guy, Mark or Mike, and he answered me and that was not the right person, so I got another number of a guy called Henry which was at the office this day. Henry had his voicemail on so I didn’t reach him and anyway my phone had only one bar of battery left.
I was still quite calm, I am not the type that stresses my self over some minor issues and I am used to getting my way around in different situations, so after a minute of thought and analyzing the situation I knew I needed to get to an internet, find the number of my travel agency, call them, tell them I don’t have my tickets and see if they couldn’t fix it with the airport. So I exit the station and walk to this juice bar and ask the guy where the next internet café would be. He shakes his head and tells me that there are no internet cafes in this neighbourhood but that I can go on-line at the next McDonalds. So the search for the yellow M began and no surprise it was not far away, even though my legs which at this time were screaming with pain felt it quite long enough. At McDonalds my luck continued, the internet was not working and there was no open McDonalds in a walking distance an employer told me (one observation, all of the employers, including the supervisor were Indians, I felt like being back in India). Still, no panic, I had my self a dinner and continued my walk where I met this very cute Russian girl which was also lost, I managed to help her with some coins for a payphone and she helped me by pointing in a direction where she had accessed the internet at some bar called Viper. After this cultural co-operation of two lost people in London I continued walking after her direction, maybe because of her limited vocabulary in English or because of my blindness I got lost and after 30 minutes of walk I found my self in some sort of an industrial neighbourhood where there were no people walking around and the street was not exactly the brightest one you could find. Since I am regularly robbed I became quite nervous but to my relive I saw a little supermarket open up the street, in there two Indians were working (at that point of time I had seen more Indians than Brits in London) and one of them was kin enough to call his friend who ran an internet café across the street that had closed at 17:00, he agreed to open for me, and even though the thought of walking into a locked building with two strangers was not a very exciting one, I had no choice and I followed them into a room where I could access the internet, get the number of Expedia where no one answered. Another point of luck in my trip, I went out again and hailed a cab, I told him a short version of my story and that I wanted to get to Gatwick airport, after him looking at me as a madman and telling me that I was really in a deep mess (I love the support and reinsurance you get from them) he dove me to some train station where I could take an express to Gatwick. As I entered the station they called in the speakers that the Gatwick express was on platform 14, I ran over there and jumped in, thinking that it was about to leave. But, no, it wasn’t and so I sat there waiting for 20 minutes not daring to leave and buy a ticket if it would depart. Thank god, the ticket guy was quite understanding and I just paid him the price. As I got to Gatwick around 23:00 everything was closing so I got my self comfortable (I am lying in two leather chairs, quite comfy actually) and plugged my laptop in the wall and for the last six hours I have been watching Reservoir Dogs (a must see for those who haven’t seen it at least 30 times) Coldplay life and Dave Matthews band life, and playing an intense game of eye contacts with a girl named Sofie who is sitting in front of me (if learn how to put photos in here I will add a photo of her). So at 6:30 I will be going to the office of the airline trying to get into the plane without the paper ticket they said they needed. That is it for now, I will write another up-date from Abu Dhabi (if I get there, that is) and I will put this on the blog as soon as I can get this computer on the internet.

As I write these words it is 20:30 the 20^th of March, right now on local time I should be landing in the UAE, and in real time I should be in the air on the way to the Philippines. The big question then is, why ain’t I in the air, or well, maybe it is not such a big question after all the bad luck I have had around this trip. Soon after I finished writing the first part I went and refreshed my self and put my self in a good state which is always needed when you have to try to get people to bend some rules. Then I went up where all the check in action takes place and went to the Ethiad (my airline) ticket counter. They saw my tickets in the computer but said they couldn’t re-print them since I bought them through expedia.com (to hell with that crappy company, BEAWARE everybody, never ever buy anything through that company of evil!!!!). After being sent back and forth from incapable staff that never seemed to have the authority to do anything I got to speak to the executive manager on the phone while I had the station manager next to me. The station manager claimed that I had to buy new tickets and the liability was mine for not having the tickets. I claimed that under the new European laws on the right of airline passengers it was the liability of the issuer of the tickets that they reach the hands of the passenger, and that was the reason why everybody else used e-tickets.
Then when Expedia finally opened at 8:00 (my flight closed at 8:30) there started fierce negotiations where both sides insisted on that the other had the authority to issue new tickets for me (so Expedia said Ethiad had my money and should issue new tickets, and Expedia said Ethiad had to do it) finally a solution was reached at 8:45 and it looked that I could go, but no!! the damn plane had left the hatch and was on the runway, so sorry for me, no flight. Then another bizarre argument started, they said that since I “missed” the flight that was my responsibility and the tickets were lost and that I would not get a refund.
After threatening lawsuits on the airport (I got to speak to a PR person from the airport it self), Ethiad (for obstructing me on getting on board of a plane I had paid for and they had that knowledge and information in their systems) and Expedia for not fulfilling the agreement of the payment (which included the delivery of the tickets) they suddenly seemed to see that there was a way to change the tickets (I still have to pay a changing fee… well, you can´t win every battle), and then yet another luck came my way, there is no flight until 22nd or 23th… I will get to know tomorrow. So since of lack of money I cant even go into London again so I am living at the airport, it is actually an interesting study, living in an airport for 3 days… kind of mini experience of the movie Terminal. I went downstairs to my sofa and tried to get some sleep, 2 hours was all I got so the whole day I have been playing Risk and watching family guy. Except for two interesting people I just got to write about. As I was trying to sleep There was a guy behind me (our seats were back to back) and he started to sing, or singing is actually not the right word, started making sounds is a more accurate description. He started yelling “ohh, baby, I´ll be yours, I´ll be there for you girl, I love you so” this he repeated again and again, I thought he was singing to his girlfriend so I peaked through the seats as to see if this girl was worth waking me up for, and what did I see… A guy serenading his girlfriend, no, what I saw were two guys, except the girl would had been a professional body builder and ate steroids like Cheerio’s. I sat up to examin further because I thought he might be listening to a cd player, that would partly explain why he might be so horribly out of tune, but no, there he sat singing this to the air, while his friend turned on and of his phone with the irritating Ericson sound coming every 30 seconds… great… The other person I wanted to write about was a bit more, or actually a lot more pleasant, her name is Susan and she is around 65 years old, she and her husband were coming home from a cruise on the Nile, that is so incredibly cool, this is what I will be doing at 65, going to Egypt and just places I want to see. Susan comes from the island of Jersey, ringing any bells? No, not for me neither, she had to explain to me that Jersey is one of the Canal Islands, between France and England. Shame not to know that, I knew about the Canal Islands, even knew they were four, but that one was named Jersey… nope, not a clue. But she knew about Iceland and two years ago they red quite a lot about it when they were deciding between Jamaica and Iceland for their honeymoon, unfortunately they picked Jamaica, but she promised to consider Iceland again next year. That’s an update about this day, I will continue watching family guy and try to get some sleep this night, I have a meeting with Kevin (the Ethiad station manager) tomorrow at 11am and then I should get my flight times confirmed, I just hope I can go the 22. and not the 23rd, I just can’t stop thinking about all the things I am missing while I watch the time pass by slowly!!! I decided only to spend 15 pounds for those two days so it is one McDonalds each day (you don’t need more to eat when you sit on your ass the whole day) 4 pounds for internet so I can reply to the must urgent e-mails, and right now I bought a small beer, if I have ever deserved a beer in my life it is right now, so I end this update with a beer on one hand and under the theme song of Baywatch… I’ll be there, I’ll be there… I thought that was quite 90’s but apparently the people of London are still big fans.

Quick update now that it is 8 in the morning, I haven’t had the meeting with Ethiad people yet but something funny just happened, after a night of horribly little sleep I fell asleep around 3 and woke up at 6 due to traffic of people, not human trafficking but you know what I mean. Well I put on Coldplay and their familiar sound made me quite sleepy so as I was in some sort of a middle stage of sleep and wake somebody touched my shoulders, then again and with the words, excuse me sir. I opened my eyes half confused and saw two police officers, not the friendly street police officers but the bullet proof vested airport type, one of them had a dog that enjoyed sniffing my luggage. I noticed they didn’t have but a small handgun gun so I looked around and saw an officer with a semi-automatic rifle standing around 5 meters away looking intensely at me.
”Sir, the reason why we woke you up is that I noticed you have been here two nights, what are you doing at the airport?” J
I explained in a quick fashion and found out that the officer had just been from Abu Dhabi two weeks ago, so we talked about Abu Dhabi, Iceland and after a brave attempt in writing my address he gave me a receipt for their visit… so that I could prove to any other dog sniffing, semi-automatic maniacs that I am ok. After this they went along and started harassing some black people, and I say this without the slightest prejudges but the fact of the matter is that they stopped by 5 people me and four black people so I must wonder if the airport is giving me some serious tan. Around 5 minutes later a guy in a neon-yellow security vest (with the word security written on the back) sat like two seats away from me, he still sits there, I wonder if his job is to watch me, that would be awesome, well, if e wants to play the waiting game I’m up for it my flight should leave in 24 or 48 hours, if I can see it correctly he is doing Sodoku or Soduko or how ever you say it, the number brain twisters. I have started to grow weirdly familiar with the speaker system and their announcements, last night a guy named Ruis was supposed to be picked up by a representative from a company called Thermomax, they called for 3 times for the representative of Thermomax for Mr. Ruis. I wonder what happened to the poor chap.
These kind of announcements come around 5 times a day, then they call up a lot of people flying to Dubai, it’s always Mr. ??? or Ms.??? Travelling to Dubai, please come to the information desk.
The most common announcements however are the routine ones, played of the tape (I wonder if I could get a copy) my favourite is: “due to security reasons, do not leave your luggage unattended, unattended luggage will be removed and may be destroyed.”
It actually turned out to be quite nice pickup line, I needed to go to the toilet and didn’t want to pack all my stuff which I had spread over my sofa so I asked Sofie if she could attend to my luggage so that it will not be removed and may be destroyed, put a little drama into the word destroyed and it works fine. Well, enough of pickup line lesson which today is dedicated to a crazy Maltese girl, Becky.

So, now I continue writing this bizarre update… lady uck has not exactly been on my side this trip, o no, o no… As I wrote above I had a meeting with the Ethiad people at 11 o’clock, it started great, the transit that takes you between the north and south terminal (it’s a little train) broke down while I was in it (it is starting to be scary how unlucky I have been) and we sat stuck in there for around 10-15 minutes so when I finally got to the south terminal I was way to late (around 11:30) and the guy was gone for a break!! Since I didn’t have anything else to do I decided to wait, and so I waited until 12:05 or there about. He told me he had good and bad news, I asked for the good ones first, I really needed something to sooth my mind. “Well you will have a ticket” he said, I mean common, is that good news, he had already told me that the day before, it was a very stupid good news and I hoped that the bad news would be equally trivial.
”The bad news,” he continued, “ are that there is no flight tomorrow to Manila so your flight is not until the 23^rd” Come on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! that means I don’t arrive in the Philippines until the 24^th in the evening… then I have missed 2 and a half day and 2 evenings… just because the fucking AIESEC UK couldn’t get my fucking tickets to Scott and Scott was to damn important to look into it.

Right now AIESEC UK, Expedia and Ethiad are not on my friendly list… An observation I made today while waiting for this man is that almost all airlines (including Ethiad) do not have a ground staff on the airports, the people that introduce them self to you as employers of Ethiad really are employers of large service units like Service Air, or Sky break, these companies train their employees to follow a standard textbook procedures which has resulted in the staff not knowing shit about the airline they “work” for, them not having the authority to do anything if people are not like customer A on page 4 in their manual. It is ridiculous that these service units, which were created to give passengers better service, are actually making things much more complicated. At least there should be a person at the place which has the authority to do something, and if that is not possible, at least have someone that has a clue about what he or she is doing. It would be like for the supermarkets (a job that most people look at as a job that needs no skills) only taught their employees to punch in the products and receive payment by card or money. What happens when someone wants to return something, what happens if a product is flawed, what happens if they ask for assistance to find something, what if they complain? Of course in the bigger supermarkets the employees do not have the authority to do all this, but at least they are told whom they should speak to in each of the above examples. The employees of these service units on the other hand do not have a slightest idea what the fuck they are doing or what they should do when a problem arises. Now I am not only talking about my example, there was a scene I witnessed while observing the people today that struck me as harsh and increased my dislike for these “service” units.

A field employee (just made that name up, she doesn’t work at a desk but walks around the check in area and helps people) brings this Ukrainian girl to the service desk and hands her over to a clerk, she asks the employee that brought her what was the Ukrainian girls problem, the field employee just makes a weird face shrugs her shoulders and walks away. The Ukraine girl was crying and asking “please, please, I need to get aboard” and the service clerk asks her about which plane, if she has tickets etc. and in short here is the deal, yesterday this girl missed her flight, she is studying in the UK but is from Ukraine, her mother was taken to a hospital 2 days ago and the girl had booked flight right away unfortunately se missed it and had to buy new tickets yesterday for the flight today, she stayed at the airport hotel (she could had stayed in the sofa next to me J) and when she arrived today, a hour before the flight she had to wait in the check in line for quite while, when she got there she was told that she needed printed tickets and she should get those from the service agent of her airline, then she had to find which of the service devils was working for her airline, when she got there the employee sent her away with a receipt of some sort, the girl went to the check in desk and surprise, surprise, this receipt was not what she was supposed to get and the check in desk was closing, apparently that ws the point where this poor girl started crying, she asked if they couldn’t let her in, she had bought the damn ticket the day before, but no, they sent her back to the service desk, she was accompanied by this field employee of which I told in the beginning of this little tail. When the girl had finished telling her story the clerk had no idea what to do, she started asking the other 3 clerks behind the desk, no one had an idea what they could do. “If the check in desk has closed then you have missed your flight, but you can buy ticket for tomorrow” the clerk suggested, this made the girl cry even more and she explained that she had no more money and that she needed to get to her mother as soon as possible, after a moment of confusion the clerk started making some phone calls and asking what she could do, after she finally acquired the knowledge she should have had from the beginning she did the first smart thing, she called the boarding gate, when she called they had just closed it, they gave her the number in the pilot pit and as she called there he told her that he would not wait (nota bene she did not explain to him the urgency, just said she had a late passenger wanting to get aboard). So they sent her away, without even a word of sympathy or a suggestion of a solution. So may all these “service” companies crash and burn. That’s it for now.

posted by Tomas @ Tuesday, March 21, 2006