British Airways IT Crash

All BA flights cancelled

So yesterday started off fine.  I took the big yellow bus to Vienna Airport.  I was supposed to fly on BA from Vienna to London Heathrow at 14:10 and then on to Dublin.  I should have arrived in Dublin at 19:00.

That's not how it turned out.  By 14:30, we still hadn't boarded the plane.  Eventually, we were told that the flight would be delayed until around 15:30.  Everyone was given a €10 food voucher.  We were then told that the flight was cancelled.  Something about an IT glitch.  We had to go to the airport service desk to sort things out.

I had already gone through security and passed immigration since the UK and Ireland are outside of Schengen.  So I had to get stamped back in to Austria in order to go to the service desk.  The queue was kind of long when I arrived but it didn't take long for it to get even longer.

After a few hours, I finally made it up to the desk.  The solution was I would be put on an Austrian Airlines flight to Venice, Italy.  Then an Aer Lingus flight to Dublin with a 00:30 arrival time.  I was told that my previously checked in bag would be transferred to Austrian and get checked through to Dublin.  The flight to Venice would leave in 35 minutes so I had to rush to get through security again.

Rebooked on Austrian Airlines

In Venice, the gate agent asked me about my baggage.  I explained what had happened and that was the end of it.  Or so I naively thought.


I finally made it to Dublin early Sunday morning.  My bag didn't and there was no one at the Aer Lingus baggage desk.

Staff didn't show up for over 1,5 hours

It took over 1,5 hours before anyone bothered to show up at the baggage desk.  Let's just say that I wasn't a happy camper at 2 AM.

I gave a lost luggage description.  The guy told me that he doubts the bag ever even left Vienna.  He gave me a claim number and a customer service number but the office would be closed until Monday morning.

I finally made it to bed around 3 AM Sunday morning.  I only had my laptop and a baseball cap in my carry on bag so I don't have a change of clothes or toiletries.  Fortunately I'm not in a hotel this trip so I can borrow clothes and my host gave me a spare toothbrush.

Let's hope that I receive my bag soon.  As it is, I had to work from home today because I don't have any work clothes for the office.  Looks like I'll be working from home tomorrow too.

Here's a video about the IT crash that I found on YouTube.

 

©ABC