A First Time for Everything

Amanda and I have done a lot of travelling over the years. Most of that has been driving and flying for distance travelling but we are starting to get more comfortable with train travel since the Swiss are world renowned for their on time performance and relative cost savings. So for our Christmas trip we decided that instead of driving to the airport and paying for long term parking we would get up early and take the train into Zurich before catching our 11:15 flight to London. To do this we had to account for 2 hrs to get through the ticket counter, security and customs so the latest arrival to Zurich airport of 9:15. For the train we ended up taking a 2 hr 12 min journey that contained a single transfer which arrived at the airport at 8:36. This means we needed to be at the train station in Buchs by 6:15 and subsequently a 5:45 departure from our apartment. So by the time we are scheduled to take off for London we have already been travelling for 5 hrs and 30 minutes.

A forced smile at 6:30am

So with all that in mind we end up getting to the airport around 8:40 (only 4 minutes after our projected arrival) and as we walk up to the ticket counter (we had several pieces of checked luggage and a stroller that we needed to get tickets for) discover that the line of passengers at the ticket counter already extends all the way through the nearly 10 layers of serpentine que and the ticket counter is unmanned. We quickly learned that EasyJet, the airline we were flying, doesn’t open their ticket counters until 2 hrs prior to a flight so despite all the efforts we made to arrive at the airport with plenty of time to get through the normal backlogs at security and customs we end up spending an hour and forty minutes queued in line to check luggage. This leaves us only 55 minutes to get to the gate before the departure time and 40 minutes to get their before boarding closes.

Thus, the sprint of crazy Americans with their 2 young children, stroller, carry-on luggage begins. Thankfully, Zurich is a relatively small airport, so we got to security quickly and after a brief dispute about whether or not the car seat that we strap into the airline seat would fit through the scanner (it doesn’t and apparently spatial awareness isn't a required skill for employment in security) which included a demonstration that it doesn’t come apart to fit through the scanner they manually inspect us and two of our bags for good measure and then send us on our way.

We now have 30 minutes to get through customs and take a short 5 min tram ride to the international gates. Here we have no issues getting through customs and get to the tram with 15 minutes until boarding closes. So a 5 minute tram ride has us at the terminal at 10:50 so we continue hustling to the gate and arrive at 10:54 expecting to be able to squeeze aboard with the last group of people boarding since it doesn’t close for another 6 minutes. However, there is no one to be seen at the gate except for one other family that arrived a couple minutes before we did who were looking around bewildered as to how they had missed the flight. At this point I proceeded to go over to the window in front of the plane and waive at the pilots in hope that they could send someone back to the desk to admit us since we technically still had time to board. And low and behold, a few minutes later an airline representative did show up and started to attempt to call the gate agents back, but after 10 minutes told us that it would be another 15 minutes for the agents to get back. Unfortunately he also informed us that they couldn’t re-open the plane to board the remaining passengers, of which there were now 4 families standing together, because they had already performed the safety briefing and it’s against regulations to board passengers after that has occurred. And yet the plane continued to sit there for a full 40 minutes after the scheduled departure time with empty seats. The collective of four families that all went through this same ordeal continued to debate the absurdity of the situation with the now multiple airline representatives who showed up but to no avail. In fact, there was nary an attempt to assist any of us in making sure we got to our destinations at all, much less an offer of compensation for operating a wholly inadequate check-in procedure alongside having gate agents leave their job site prior to boarding being completed.

Eventually, we made our way back into the core of the airport to regroup and wait for our luggage to be returned to us and find a new flight to London. To say there were a few people missing their luggage at baggage claim was an understatement. The entire baggage hall was filled with unclaimed bags that we had to sort through to find ours.

Ultimately we ended up booking a 7:30 PM flight that was scheduled to arrive into Gatwick at 9:15 PM. This time we were first in line at the ticket counter and again there was no representative available until 2 hrs prior to departure. The line of customers waiting when the counter finally opened was again well beyond the end of the serpentine queue.

Our trip through security was the same as the morning venture in which we once again had to explain that the car seat doesn’t fit through the scanners and watched again as they attempted to force it through before asking if we could take it apart. We also had a few more questions to answer at customs since we had already been booked through earlier in the day but ultimately we made it to the gate well before boarding and got on the plane without further incident. Only to be delayed on the tarmac for another hour due to weather conditions in London. So our 9:15 arrival eventually turned into a 10:30 arrival in which the landing was also one of the roughest, most rocky, up and down arrivals I have ever experienced.

 

Thankfully Amanda didn't take a photo of me at this point. I felt about the same.

We had expected to arrive at our B&B early afternoon and get in some light sightseeing on the first day but after the late landing, waiting on checked luggage, catching a train from Gatwick to London Bridge and a taxi from London Bridge to the B&B in Fulham we didn’t arrive until just before midnight and were utterly exhausted and completely strung out emotionally.

Neither Amanda nor I have ever missed a flight and based on our arrival time to Zurich there was absolutely no reason we should have missed our morning flight! Especially considering we were in line at the ticket counter before the counter was attended and we arrived at the gate before gate closing should have occurred. And while the flight back to Switzerland on EasyJet was uneventful we will never again book travel with them and hope that our first time to miss a flight will also be our last!