I love Air France.....not.So my return from Germany was a bit eventful and took a while. The plan was to fly from Nurnberg on Monday morning, connect in Paris and land in Atlanta late Monday afternoon, but it didn't quite go down that way.
There was quite a bit of snow in Germany on Sunday and Monday, but we got off on time, which was great because we had an extremely tight connection in Paris. We knew we'd be running from terminal 2G, which is in the middle of nowhere to 2E. Our next plane was a run, 15 min bus ride, run, stop through emigration, train ride, security line and run away and we only had a little over an hour to do it. Thankfully, or at least we thought at the time, our flight to Atlanta was delayed by an hour. Believe it or not though, we would have still made it in time! Our flight was scheduled for 1:30pm
So anyway we boarded the plane and sat for 4 hours waiting for our slot to takeoff. They served us a beverage and I even watched the movie Hancock (good flick). They told us the airport had slowed way down because of the snow to 10 takeoffs an hour, but we could still see planes coming and going so we figured we were just waiting our turn. I guess Paris doesn't get much snow and they're really not all that prepared. The crew really gave almost no info about what was going on. Me being a Wisconsin boy thought the 1-2" dusting looked like nothing. Then came the news, our flight had been canceled and we had to get off the plane after over 4 hours! I guess our crew had "burned out" and didn't have enough hours left to legally fly. Total bummer, I was supposed to be at work the next day.
They told us to stand in line and they'd get us new flights and hotels. They had 4 people at the gate trying to help 270 people and we literally didn't move for 3 hours, customer service was closed. We were about 2/3 of the way in the back as we sat in the back of the plane. We heard rumors that there were no hotels and no flights home until Thursday as everything was full. Then they had a moment of customer service "brilliance" and decided to close those 4 windows and ask everyone to go to a customer service window halfway across the terminal which they opened. In reality what happened was the back of the line now became the front as it was just a wild scramble. Customer service had one person. Oh, and we were also supposed to claim our luggage and we had bought 4 bottles of duty free French wine that we didn't know if we could get home now or have to maybe try drink because we'd have to leave security and they only allow 3oz back in!
I overheard an Air France lady telling another customer, "No flights today or tomorrow, maybe Wednesday or Thursday, oh, no hotels left either. We recommend you leave and try your best to find a place on your own and we'll reimburse you, If you can't find a hotel you can sleep here. Call tomorrow." I ended up calling work back home from my cell (can't wait to get the bill on that one) and they found a place nearby after about 15 minutes of looking, why the airline couldn't was beyond me. Work also stayed on-hold with Air France in the US for over 2 hours and no one ever answered, more on that later. By some miracle our luggage was still there at baggage claim some 6 hours later along with about 2,000 other bags still going around the belt (we found out later it was a good thing we claimed our luggage, the people who slept in the airport were told the luggage would be put back if they didn't claim it, but we got an e-mail from one girl saying hers is still missing one week later). Got to the hotel right near the airport at about 11pm, keep in mind our flight was supposed to leave at 1:30pm. Had a nice dinner with fish and salsify (very interesting veggie). Tried to call and go online to Air France, but the front desk said the airline had shutdown the website and the phone, people just stayed on-hold forever. Went to bed slept like 2 hours. Found out later they had just closed customer service later and the people in front of us (who became good friends) never made it to the window. They told everyone that they had decided, finally, at 2:30am to reschedule our flight for the next day rather than try to get us on other flights. Why the wait is beyond me. They basically said, "Closed, we go home now. We get you tickets tomorrow and grab your stuff and sleep in another terminal because this one is closing." Felt bad for our new friends the next day, we gave them my cell and said they could sleep in chairs or anywhere they could find room in our hotel, but they decided to stay at the airport and try to get flights.
Woke-up at 4am and left for the airport shortly after. Wanted to be in the front of the lines as we learned how slow they moved the day before. The airport was nuts. Customers were sleeping everywhere on cardboard, on luggage belts in kiosks, it was nuts. Heard rumors of near riots. A fellow passenger later remarked, "We're all just 24 hours away from becoming hobos....how true." There were already large lines and the windows weren't set to open for about an hour. We didn't realize the flight had been rescheduled yet, but heard a rumor.
Finally went to an elite counter (my reward for flying too much for work) and found someone to take mercy on me and helped me even though it was a baggage check counter and not really open yet. I asked him about the rumored 388a, the rescheduled flight, and he said we were on it and it left at 11:30am. Praise God! After some more gymnastics and about a long process of checking luggage (since at first they could find no record nay part of our reservation at first) we were reunited with our new friends at the gate. To tell all the highs and lows would take forever, believe it or not this is the abbreviated version!
Well we ended up boarding 2 hours late. The airline communicated almost nothing, as usual. After we boarded we sat for about 5 hours on the plane. We all lived in fear of our crew timing out again, but they assured us we'd leave. We pushed back, then I heard an engine cutoff and then out my window I saw two guys on a ladder taking apart the engine. My heart sank, you have to be kidding me! It ended up (and thanks to the pilot for finally being a member of Air France that knew something about communicating) that they were doing a deicing verification. After some deicing of the wings and taking the taxiway to China, to much relief we took-off to the cheers of a happy (well maybe more relived plane). Some of us weren't relieved until we were halfway over the Atlantic and couldn't return to Paris! At 10pm we landed in Atlanta, what a long day. Some of our new friends had missed connections and were now looking forward to spending a night in Atlanta, felt for them. I got home at 1am, almost exactly 48 hours from leaving my sister's in Germany with only a few hours of sleep in between. Had to be into work at 8am the next day, yikes, but by the grace of God I really survived it with very little trouble somehow.
What a journey.
Bottom lines.
- Being stuck in Paris, not nearly as great as it seems. We had a one day stopover on the way to Germany to tour, so at least we had seen the city recently.
- Based upon the customer service I saw in Paris, I'm not holding my breath about being reimbursed for my $350 hotel (and that was a cheap hotel)
- I understand the movie, "The Terminal" based on a true story from the Paris airport.
- We got home safe and sound, the most important thing, and this didn't tarnish an amazing trip to Europe. At the time it was rough, now it makes a good story.
- Met some cool people and it's amazing how fast people can bond and become like family in certain situations
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