Day Zero - British Airways Will Rue The Day!!!
It wouldn’t be the start of a grand adventure without many travel bumps along the way, I suppose. I was traveling at least every other week when I was at PUMA and that my favorite movie is Top Gun: Maverick, so I consider myself a bit of an air travel connoisseur but even I was not prepared for the day ahead of me.
Long story long, my red eye to London was delayed 2 hours because 3 (three!!) people decided not to actually get on the flight and so their checked bags needed to be found in the baggage hold under the plane before taking off. No matter to moi because guess what movie was available to watch? Thank God for TG:M.
When we landed in Heathrow I hustled my ass across essentially all of the UK to get to the gate of my connecting flight to Cork. It required me getting on a train and not one but TWO buses and sprinting a mile down the terminal. I arrived just as my flight was boarding - victory!! But when the gate agent scanned my ticket she informed me I was not allowed to board the flight because British Airways had assumed I would not make it to the flight in time so they had canceled my ticket. Well, British Airways had underestimated my commitment to doing a full Home Alone style sprint through the airport.
I was then informed that they had decided to downgrade the size of the plane on the only other flight to Cork that day so they could not book me a ticket. This is when I allowed myself 45 seconds to cry, something I famously am barely capable of but sometimes exceptions need to be made.
I was sent back to the original terminal I had come from (yet another two buses and a train) to deal with British Airways counter agents. After waiting in line for 2.5 hours surrounded by some of the most (understandably) upset and angry people on planet Earth, an agent told me the best they could do was a flight to Cork the following evening. I was very cool calm and collected when I told the nice woman that would actually be no bueno for me as I had just spent every United States Dollar to my name to attend a cooking school in Ireland and I would not be missing the first day.
I convinced her to book me on an afternoon flight to Dublin and would hire a car to drive me the 3 hours from Dublin to Ballymaloe. She told me that British Airways would reimburse me this cost as it was their fault they couldn’t get me to the city I needed to be in*. No kidding, Deborah.
An important side note to give my readers a real sense of my airport experience - did you know Heathrow has approximately four billion perfume shops? I couldn’t for the life of me find any food to eat but boy oh boy I was literally swimming in every single name brand perfume - all available to me duty free! Thank god!! The entire airport smelled like getting a migraine or being car sick. I digress.
I made it to Dublin where a very nice Dublin native named Dave was waiting to transport me to Ballymaloe in a Mercedes that he assured me was not his. Irish people love to make sure you know there is nothing fancy about them which I respect. Unfortunately for me and my new friend Dave, British Airways wanted to say fuck you one last time by not putting my checked bag on the flight, despite me confirming with no less than three separate gate agents that my bag had indeed been put on the plane.
Off to Ballymaloe me and Dave headed with essentially the clothes on my back, my laptop and every over the counter medicine American CVS’ has to offer. Who needs clothes when you have tylenol extra strength on your side?
When I finally arrived to the pitch black countryside at 9pm, all of the orientation events were long over and I hadn’t slept in 36 hours so I didn’t care or even mind when a middle aged man showed me to my room with the enthusiasm of someone shooing a stray dog away from their lunch.
But I had made it! Despite the combined and focused efforts of a 19.3 Billion dollar international airline, I had made it. British Airways hates to see me thrive.
*Pam from the future here. As of October 6th I have yet to be reimbursed by my enemies at British Airways. Any lawyers in my life please do not hesitate to reach out on my behalf.