I felt smug about my airfare, until I realised it was the wrong airline

3 months ago 12

I’m feeling pretty smug about the flight I’ve booked on Singapore Airlines that takes me from Melbourne to Madrid, and then from London back to Melbourne. Until, that is, I read the email confirmation after paying for it.

Why on Earth am I flying home via Delhi?

Duffer that I am, I’ve accidentally clicked on the wrong flight on Trip.com. The time is almost identical, the price likewise, the flying time ditto. The only major difference is the route, and the airline. I am flying with an Indian carrier. Oh well, at least the food should be good.

I don’t really think about it again until the morning of my flight home. I arrive at Heathrow just after 7am, to find my 9.45am flight delayed by four hours. They send an email while I am in the cab, which of course I don’t see until I arrive.

As excuses go, they have a pretty good one: the airspace over the subcontinent is closed because India and Pakistan are firing missiles at each other.

I am about to wheel away to find a much-needed coffee when it dawns on me: assuming this plane really does take off in four hours (which, given the conflict, feels like a stretch), I will miss my connecting flight.

“Right,” says the check-in fellow. “You’d better follow this man to the service desk.”

Sleep- and coffee-deprived, my neurons are firing about as well as a clapped-out Morris Minor, but out the corner of my eye I spy some bloke sprinting through the terminal. He is five metres, 10 metres, 20 metres ahead of me, doesn’t once make eye contact, and says not a word.

I have no idea if he is the person I am meant to be following, but in the absence of a better option, that’s what I do. And then he stops, and lo and behold it is the Air India service desk.

Expecting the worst, I explain the situation to the woman behind the counter. Wordlessly, she taps away at her computer. Within five minutes, she hands over a slip of paper confirming she has rebooked me on a different flight, at no charge, and I will make it home pretty much as and when planned.

It is the Singapore Airlines flight I originally meant to book. Amazing.

I head to the gate. Well, I would have, except the gate isn’t showing. An hour before take-off it still isn’t showing. Thirty minutes. Fifteen minutes. Then, at the scheduled take-off time, there it is.

Two hours late, we finally take off. I am feeling pretty good until I realise I will now miss my connection in Singapore.

“They should be able to sort it when we land,” a flight attendant tells me. “About 80 per cent of the people on this plane are in the same boat.”

Vehicular confusion aside, I am relieved.

“Can I make it?” I ask an attendant as we exit the plane.

“You can try.”

I sprint along the travelators, and reach the gate just as it is about to close.

“Thanks for hurrying,” the ticket checker says.

“Thanks for waiting,” I gasp.

Fifteen minutes later we are in the air. Incredible. I make it. Again. But wait, does my suitcase?

At the carousel, I am paged: sure enough, my bag hasn’t made it onto the plane. But it will be delivered to my home tomorrow, they promise. And indeed it is.

Is there a moral to this story?

Only that it’s nice to know that amid all the tales of suffering at the hands of the airlines, sometimes the people actually working for them can and do make magic happen.

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