baudot

36 hours: 2 cancelled flights, constant misinformation, both big bags lost for now, all day spent in line, or on hold, or waiting on flights about to be cancelled. 1 hour sleep the whole time, and precious few meals.

Flight has to circle 40 minutes before landing.
Arrived
Second security check on changing Heathrow terminals. Bye bye, water.
Flight delayed
Gate announcement deadline passes without gate announcement.
Departure passes without gate announcement.
Official word: The plane has landed but there's no free gate to park it at. Once it's parked, it will fly. Just keep watching the big screen.
The flight is cancelled.
Told to go to gate A21.
Gate A21 workers just say to go down an escalator with no explanation.
Man at bottom of escalator just says to continue down hall without explanation.
Stop at the back of a line. The front of the line goes around the corner. No one knows what the line is for. Passing BA workers ignore questions.
Make it around corner: Line goes to First and Business Class section of line to rebook.
Line is cut off. No more reschedules. Told to go upstairs to rebook, after reclaiming bags.
Baggage is a clotted madhouse. More than half the floor is taken up with sitting bags.
Spend hour(s) chasing rumors of where bags will be returned, checking piles of already returned bags. Semi-official rumor: Probably carousel 6, but look all over just to be sure.
Get secondary bag back. Hours later, main pack is still missing.
Find BA agent willing to run bag search. Main bag "not sighted" in tagging system.
Abandon main bag. Go upstairs.
Flight re-scheduling is closed.
Line to get a hotel voucher takes hours. No transit or food vouchers are given.
Finally escape Heathrow by tube. 45 minutes to the hotel.
"5 minute walk" from tube station turns out to be twice that long through the same "near antarctic" temperatures that have shut down Heathrow 5.
Hotel is actually quite nice.
Try calling rescheduling line. Immediately transferred to American line. Transfer fails. Hung up on.
Try calling alternate rescheduling line. Off hours.
Try using website for rescheduling. It can't find my ticket.
Repeat the three above.
Repeat again.
Give up. Post whiny blog. Set alarm for an hour later. Go to sleep.
Wake up.
Back on phone:
Main BA reschedule line is overloaded and cuts off.
Web site still doesn't work.
Find American-specific number for BA. After half an hour on hold, reach an agent. Told that American Airlines, not British Air, has to change my flight.
Call American. Promptly answered. American agent says that this is nonsense, that BA can and must change the flight.
Call BA American line back. 30 more minute on hold. This agent has no problem changing my flight. Still have to get to airport ASAP to get boarding pass and seat assignment before someone else beats me to it.
45 minutes back on the rail.
Heathrow 5 is swarming with tangles of unknowable lines.
Get boarding pass after some difficulty - something is weird about my reservation, but the helper gives up on figuring it out and overrides it.
One and a half hour wait for baggage re-check. At least I skipped the re-book line by doing that by phone. Recheck line is said to be 9 hours long. Queues snake all over the giant room, crossing each other. Takes 3 tries to find the real bag-drop queue, after being misinformed by BA agent.
Barely get through bag drop with time for security remaining.
Get to gates, check the big board: Flight has no gate listed. "Inquire Airline."
BA rep says flight has been cancelled. "We just can't de-ice all the gates fast enough." I must go all the way back out, reclaim my bags, and get into the 9 hour reschedule line.
Fuck that.
Speak to another agent. Told to go to B gates, where Customer Service desk isn't as slammed.
B-gates customer service workers refuse, say only Flight Connections desk can help. Told to rush to Flight Connections ASAP to avoid other people getting the few seats remaining to Berlin.
Haven't eaten all day. Grab instant meal, then back to the queues.
3+ hour wait for Flight Connections desk.
Finally talk to agent. Specify I'd reacher take a train at this point, and if I must fly, put me on a non-BA flight.
Reschedule agent complies, but warns that my hotel expenses may not be reimbursed and my bags may be lost, and threatens that she's adding my notification to my customer file so that my warning will be matter of record. Aparently it's ok to lose my bag so long as I'm warned.
Agent has problems issuing new ticket. Something weird about my old one. Eventually fills out ticket form in longhand to avoid computer complaints.
New ticket: BMI to Amsterdam, KLM next morning to Berlin.
Head to Heathrow 1. Things calmer here - no room filling intermingled queues.
Told BA hasn't sent the bag(s) over and I must check in with BAs agents on landing to resolve. Warned BA agents will try to send me back to BMI, but this will be useless as they still have the bag(s).
Flight delayed: Part of the plane needs to be replaced. Part available; waiting on engineer.
Engineer arrives, declares repair job to be unworkable. BMI announces presence of a spare plane. Please wait longer while flight crew changes planes.
BMI's replacement plane boards an hour late, but it boards.
Headlines as plane boarding line forms: Regions around the UK are running out of "grit" needed to make roads drivable. One more reason to get out tonight rather than let BA use this as the new excuse tomorrow