Richard Turen
I was off on our annual client trip, a cruise from Venice that had attracted 41 clients from across the U.S., each with some very good reasons why they would prefer the heat and humidity of Italy and Greece in August to whatever was waiting for them at home.
We had booked a flight on a British Airways 747 to London where we would transfer to our flight to Venice to begin our cruise. I must confess to a certain pleasure in flying on a 747 again. It had been years. I resisted the temptation to look at the certificate near the front door that would reveal the aircraft’s age. It is just not a good idea to ask a lady if you can see her birth certificate.
One of the reasons I had selected this flight was that I wanted to see how BA’s seating might work out. I had never flown in an aircraft with rear-facing seats.
Instead of sitting upstairs, a place I enjoy, I was seated in business class downstairs where BA’s alternative seating had been installed. Had I read the frequent flyer blogs I would have learned that seat No. 64 upstairs is preferred by all the insiders.
Have you ever read these blogs? There is something sad about the compulsive need to record your seat experiences each time you fly. It reminds me of the folks who feel the need to take a photo of every restaurant dish placed before them for Instagram and posterity. Let me tell you about my seat.
I have never placed airline seat designers in the same category as, say, Frank Gehry. The labs that design airliner cabins almost always get it wrong, and they seem to have absolutely no concept of what comfort levels are required by folks who have paid $4,000 or so for the privilege of a superior seat and the kind of legroom that is likely to prevent deep-vein thrombosis.
As I entered the business-class section, I came face-to-face with Club World class. Every window seat in my compartment faced backward. I soon discovered that I was seated opposite a London businessman who, I would guess from his attire, had come to the States to ride bulls and was heading home with little time to peel the manure off his boots. I got to watch his nose for much of the flight except for those times when he had to get up and step over my feet. The flight attendants had a dandy time reaching over my lap, flipping down the privacy screen and doing deep backbends to try to serve the rear-facer his vittles.
I was eager to try the rear-facing seat, but not on a nine-hour flight. I wonder if I would ever accept a seat on a bus that faced backward? Why hasn’t anyone at Jaguar designed a back-facing passenger seat? What do these folks know that the chaps who came up with rear-facing airplane seats on long-haul flights don’t know?
The prevailing theory is that you might feel some slight sense of unease as the plane takes off and again when it begins its descent. But midflight, it is said that the privacy of a rear-facing seat is quite desirable for sleeping.
It is also claimed, though no one has ever proven it, that a rear-facing seat is more desirable in case of the need for a hasty exit from the aircraft. Since I actually believe that the safest place I can ever be at any time is flying on an aircraft, I just don’t think a lot about a hasty exit.
The connection in London went well despite the time required to go through customs. Even though I was a transit passenger, it took the better part of an hour to complete the process. But I knew from experience that it would. I would never allow any client connecting through Heathrow’s Terminal 5 any less than three hours to do it successfully. That is because I realize that the entire connection experience at this airport is a test of stamina and patience. It is a strategy game without clues.
As if to prove the point, all of the carry-ons from our family were targeted for special inspection. As they came through a tiny security tunnel, they hit a conveyor belt where passengers picked them up.
But a fellow standing next to the machine pressed a button and diverted all of our luggage to a different belt that was seriously backed up with about 20 pieces of luggage ahead of us.
It was a good 45 minutes before the sole inspector had time to pat down the inside of our bags with a wet nappie. She had spread much of the interior of our carry-ons across her counter and left it to us to repack as she, ever so slowly, moved onto the next bag in line. The entire security process had stopped because bags to be examined were so backed up that the “off ramp” for suspected terrorists was blocking bags exiting the scanner.
No worries. We had allowed time for the absence of competence at Heathrow. Besides, it was fun to wait around security watching the unsuspecting emerge, only to discover that this terminal does not post departure gates until about 20 minutes prior to scheduled departures. The anxiety was palpable and good for the shops.
But no worries. We made it to Venice a bit behind schedule but, all in all, in fine fettle. That is, until we entered the baggage claim area.
Some of our clients on our flight did not receive their baggage. There was one rather harried young man who spoke English trying to direct all those with lost baggage toward a line in the distance.
I was confident. I’ve lived in Italy, and Italian chaos is a thing of beauty and humor if you approach it in the right frame of mind. But my clients weren’t in that frame of mind; they were tired and frustrated. I needed to help them get their baggage back.
It turns out that the major airlines do not have their own lost luggage departments. They farm it out to a private company. Ours was called Aviapartner. I waited in its line for an hour with our clients. There were 37 of us waiting to make a claim.
After an hour, I noticed that the woman with pink streaks in her hair was still at the front window with the lone attendant. I also noticed that the operating hours for this office in the airport were 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and again from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. The airport lost-and-found closes for a two-hour lunch.
We left. But the airport was under construction, so everyone bound for the bus that would take us to our hotel had to walk in the broiling sun. The parking lot, too, was under construction. It was a horribly long walk in the heat.
Onboard the ship, we discovered that Venice has an unusually high rate of lost baggage and that August is the worst month statistically for arriving with your checked-in bags. This has more than a little to do with the fact that many of the employees of service companies in Italy take their vacations in August.
There were more than 40 guests on our cruise who were sailing without their baggage. I made it a point to check, and everyone eventually got their bags within the next five days.
Cruise ship personnel tell me that July and August flight connections through London, Paris and Amsterdam have the highest rate of lost baggage reports. This mirrors what I have been hearing from the management at our pre-cruise hotel, the JW Marriott. There were more than 20 guests who lived out of their carry-ons and what they could purchase in the gift shop.
I will likely be recommending that my clients flying to Southern Europe in August consider using a private baggage delivery service.