
Ok, let me tell you about the Warsaw odyssey I just experienced…
I came to Warsaw for a work training. And yesterday, I wanted to fly home. My Swiss flight was supposed to leave at 19:40, but then departure was delayed to 20:40. After we all boarded, a very frustrated captain told us that Warsaw had given us a departure window which was too late and wouldn’t allow us to land in Zurich before the night-time restrictions go into effect (no air traffic allowed between 23:30 and 5:30). Big tired sighs all around…
The sweetest thing, however, was that the captain kept us informed and even, after a while, went personally from passenger to passenger, to answer questions… while we waited and still hoped that somehow air traffic control would let us fly… the chance dwindling away more with every passing minute…
In the end, air traffic control‘s answer was “no.” We got off the plane, where extremely unhelpful airport staff awaited and gave us no information. They waved their arms around tiredly and mumbled “check-in counter.” So, people walked off in all directions trying to find their way to the exits and back in again to those counters.
Meanwhile, I received an email from Swiss in which their re-booking robot had put me on three successive flights throughout the night to first Kosice (no idea where that even is), then Vienna, then Zurich. The flights were booked so tight that I would never have made it in time from flight to flight.
I called the hotline of our company travel agency, and the very helpful agent laughed and said, “Oh my god Sir, in all my years of working as a travel agent, I have never seen a worse itinerary. This is not just unacceptable. It is impossible.“
Standing in a long line of exhausted passengers who had expected to be home by then, I finally got to the counter whilst the agent on the other end of my phone line tried to solve the puzzle. The person at the LOT airline counter was grumpy to say the least and unmotivated as fuck. In the end, I thrust my phone into her hand and basically forced her to talk to my travel agent. After another seemingly endlessly long 20 min at the counter with my, by then, least favorite human, the lady changed my three abhorrent automatically re-booked flights into one more humane flight early in the morning. But… she put me on standby.
At the next counter, I received a voucher for a hotel and taxi vouchers. This also rather wordless lady pointed vaguely outside and, yes you guessed right, mumbled something unintelligible. Unmotivated mumbling seemed to be a thing here.
A fellow passenger and I went outside together and were turned away by every single taxi. None of them accepted the vouchers we had been given. I suggested we walk into the hotel across the street and ask for reception to help us call the specific taxi company. They did – yay – and by midnight we arrived at Warsaw Novotel, some 10 min away from the airport.
We had been given a dinner voucher, too. But, of course, by then the kitchen was already closed. My stomach rumbled as sonorous as a full orchestra and I was so exhausted that I was beyond sleep.
Nevertheless, I managed to doze for 3 hours, and got up at 4:30.
As expected, the kitchen was not yet open for breakfast of any kind (another voucher rendered useless) and the taxi the Novotel reception had called for me took 45 min to arrive. Had I known, I could have walked.
At the airport… again… many grumpy, unhelpful employees who all told me they couldn’t do anything for me and that I needed to go to the gate.
Off to security… again… with already insanely long lines of people queuing. Warsaw Chopin airport plays Chopin over their speaker system non-stop while you queue for ages to be scanned. They might have ruined Chopin for me now 🤣. I am all “chopin-ed” out.
On to the gate, where I was told that lots of other people were on standby, too, everything was overbooked, and it didn’t matter that I had arrived there ahead of all of them.
Finally, though, I was faced with a polite and competent airline employee, although he looked like a very thin and long, scary thug version of Jean Reno. I kept asking and insisting, and finally, 1 hour later my Jean Reno (and by then favorite person in the world) gave me a ticket.
A few minutes ago, I finally landed in Zurich, now already laughing at the whole episode and, due to exhaustion, probably sounding a bit unhinged as I giggle to myself during the tram ride towards a long day of home office.