Luggage transit boo-boo... (part 1)
Something to add to the start of the darlings' winter trip 2005:
If ever u are booking a flight, be aware of this.
If u can help it, avoid taking Air Canada, or transit in Toronto, Canada. Not sure it's just a coincidence of 2 episodes of unluckiness, or that something in their system is really screwed up.
After a 5 month darling-drought, finally flying to Italy to meet darling. Little did we expect a big obstacle to stand in our way, before finally permitting us to see each other again. =(
Sunday, 18th December: Flight was at 11am, so got up early. my friend had kindly offered to send me to the airport. We reached the airport by 9am, to check in 2 hours before for the international flight. Got into the queue for the air canada flight check-in, which was actually some other airline counter (think i was united or something) cos air canada doesn have a rep in RDU, they're only based in Canada and UK i think. so other airline usually do the check-in for them. one whole hour of waiting... before they decided to start checking in for our flight. before that, those counters were trying to check in the flight to chicago which was leaving in 50min. there was a whole bunch of people all waiting to check-in for that. u know, with the minimum half hour before flight time check-in thing with domestic flights, everyone waits till the last moment and rush to the airport.... sighz. so finally when it was 200% certain that the remaining people were gonna miss the flight, we were FINALLY un-ignored.
oh yes, and i found out while in the queue that that the flight was also delayed by half hour or so. and though international flights supposed to check in earlier, but RDU din have the customs facilities or something, so actually we din have to check in that earlier. sigh. waited at the gate for boarding. 1o minutes past the flight time, 20 min... dunno how long i waited, before they finally announced for boarding. the flight was i think delayed for about a good (additional) hour. at least my connecting flight was much later in the evening. so a long connecting time at the airport was simply cut down. no big prob there.
at Toronto airport, an announcement was made that the baggage would be automatically transferred to the connecting flight. so we din have to pick up the baggage to deposit again. ok, tt's great. so walked around, dinner, and went to my gate. flight was unfortunately... delayed for half hour to forty five minutes. oh dear. poor darling's flight was already arriving about 2 hours earlier. and now this. oh well.
thought that all was done. flight landed. i came out of the plane, the 2nd person to clear the security, and went to the luggage belt area. nope, darling's waiting area was outside of the collection place. boo. so had to wait for luggage before getting out, finally meeting darling. =) but... waited and waited. until there were no more baggages coming out. uh oh. went to check with the counter, got directed to the lost baggage place. there was a whole line of people who took my same flight who din get their baggages too, all connected from some other flights. screwed up.
thank goodness i had my SG phone activated. so waited for darling to call me (using a public phone outside). finally, he called. told him the prob. and no choice, i had to wait inside, he outside.
it was only about another 1, 2 hours (wat felt like eternity) that i got the claim done, and FINALLY COULD GET OUT... ='( with poor darling waiting for dunno how many hours liao.
which is why we ended up staying in rome that night, so can pick up my bag the next day from the airport (they were relatively sure that the bags got stuck in transit at Canada, and the next flight into Rome would be same time tmr. we din have a add for them to send to, and no way they would send it to the Dolomites (alps) way north right?!! (besides, i wouldn risk them losing my bag again while delivering, or taking ages to deliver too) screwed up our overnight train plan to dolomites. which is why we ended up taking the next day afternoon train to Belluno. reached there too late to catch the bus to carprile and ended up stayed yet another night in the little ulu town. ate up our one day of skiing, and our hotel booking too (thankfully was a one day free in the 3N + one free night package). =(
that's only the RDU-> Rome screwed up episode. part 2 to come... SIGHZ...
If ever u are booking a flight, be aware of this.
If u can help it, avoid taking Air Canada, or transit in Toronto, Canada. Not sure it's just a coincidence of 2 episodes of unluckiness, or that something in their system is really screwed up.
After a 5 month darling-drought, finally flying to Italy to meet darling. Little did we expect a big obstacle to stand in our way, before finally permitting us to see each other again. =(
Sunday, 18th December: Flight was at 11am, so got up early. my friend had kindly offered to send me to the airport. We reached the airport by 9am, to check in 2 hours before for the international flight. Got into the queue for the air canada flight check-in, which was actually some other airline counter (think i was united or something) cos air canada doesn have a rep in RDU, they're only based in Canada and UK i think. so other airline usually do the check-in for them. one whole hour of waiting... before they decided to start checking in for our flight. before that, those counters were trying to check in the flight to chicago which was leaving in 50min. there was a whole bunch of people all waiting to check-in for that. u know, with the minimum half hour before flight time check-in thing with domestic flights, everyone waits till the last moment and rush to the airport.... sighz. so finally when it was 200% certain that the remaining people were gonna miss the flight, we were FINALLY un-ignored.
oh yes, and i found out while in the queue that that the flight was also delayed by half hour or so. and though international flights supposed to check in earlier, but RDU din have the customs facilities or something, so actually we din have to check in that earlier. sigh. waited at the gate for boarding. 1o minutes past the flight time, 20 min... dunno how long i waited, before they finally announced for boarding. the flight was i think delayed for about a good (additional) hour. at least my connecting flight was much later in the evening. so a long connecting time at the airport was simply cut down. no big prob there.
at Toronto airport, an announcement was made that the baggage would be automatically transferred to the connecting flight. so we din have to pick up the baggage to deposit again. ok, tt's great. so walked around, dinner, and went to my gate. flight was unfortunately... delayed for half hour to forty five minutes. oh dear. poor darling's flight was already arriving about 2 hours earlier. and now this. oh well.
thought that all was done. flight landed. i came out of the plane, the 2nd person to clear the security, and went to the luggage belt area. nope, darling's waiting area was outside of the collection place. boo. so had to wait for luggage before getting out, finally meeting darling. =) but... waited and waited. until there were no more baggages coming out. uh oh. went to check with the counter, got directed to the lost baggage place. there was a whole line of people who took my same flight who din get their baggages too, all connected from some other flights. screwed up.
thank goodness i had my SG phone activated. so waited for darling to call me (using a public phone outside). finally, he called. told him the prob. and no choice, i had to wait inside, he outside.
it was only about another 1, 2 hours (wat felt like eternity) that i got the claim done, and FINALLY COULD GET OUT... ='( with poor darling waiting for dunno how many hours liao.
which is why we ended up staying in rome that night, so can pick up my bag the next day from the airport (they were relatively sure that the bags got stuck in transit at Canada, and the next flight into Rome would be same time tmr. we din have a add for them to send to, and no way they would send it to the Dolomites (alps) way north right?!! (besides, i wouldn risk them losing my bag again while delivering, or taking ages to deliver too) screwed up our overnight train plan to dolomites. which is why we ended up taking the next day afternoon train to Belluno. reached there too late to catch the bus to carprile and ended up stayed yet another night in the little ulu town. ate up our one day of skiing, and our hotel booking too (thankfully was a one day free in the 3N + one free night package). =(
that's only the RDU-> Rome screwed up episode. part 2 to come... SIGHZ...
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