The long ride home

Our return from Geneva was the stuff that movies are made from. We arrived at the airport early. The rain had closed in for the night and Geneva on Sunday evening had as much life as Canberra after dark. The lounge seemed a far better place to relax before our flight. How wrong we were!

Delay No.1
We'd barely entered the lounge when we were told that our flight was at least 30 minutes late. The delay soon stretched to two hours. As we finally boarded our plane the pilot explained that heavy thunderstorms around Heathrow had been causing havoc all afternoon. He said that many flights had been cancelled. It seems we'd been lucky to see a plane at all.

Delay No.2
Our flight home skirted continuing storms before finally reaching England. Predictably we were put into a holding pattern, circling London for more than 20 minutes before finally touching down. A long taxi finally brought us to the gate at Terminal Four. So far so good. It would be touch and go but we thought we'd just make the last Heathrow Express train home.

Delay No.3
About this point we began to learn just how badly Heathrow copes with anything out of the ordinary. First, our airbridge broke down. It took almost 20 minutes before we were able to disembark. At least our bags would beat us off the plane.

Delay No.4
Of course our gate was a long way from immigration and only two officers were on duty when we reached the hall. It was then that several planeloads of people entered as we did.

Delay No.5
We reached the baggage hall to find our luggage had yet to arrive. Not a single carousel in the hall appeared to be moving. People were waiting everywhere. Airline officials couldn't tell us where our bags were. No announcements were made the entire time we were in the hall.

Delay No.6
More than an hour after we'd dismarked our plane, almost two hours after we'd touched down, we exited the baggage hall. It was too late to catch a train so we made our way to the taxi rank. As we stepped outside the terminal a queue of several hundred people greeted us. A single cab appeared in the next ten minutes. It was obvious the queue wasn't going anywhere fast. It was also clear no taxi company consider this as an opportunity to make easy money.

In desperation I called the local mini-cab that operates a few blocks from home. Did they have a cab in area? No. However, if we ordered a cab, they'd have it at Heathrow within 40 minutes. The suggestion seemed odd but the operator made it sound as if such requests were common practice. We ordered a minicab.

The fastest part of our journey
35 minutes later our cab arrived. The queue at the rank had only grown a few metres shorter. Finally, more than four and half hours later, we stumbled in the door at home. It was just after 2:20am. All I could think was "Thank goodness my trip to India is cancelled." I had no desire to get up four hours later and make my way back to Heathrow.

The entire experience has left me stunned. The lack of contingency planning and customer services was beyond belief. Nobody at Heathrow seemed to know what was happening. Those that did understand saw no reason to explain each delays. Our pilot was the only person who took time to explain any of the choas.

I really felt for the international passengers around us. They'd had the most appalling third-world introduction to London. I can't imagine how the British Airport Authority (BAA) will cope with the Olympics.