This flight was even worse than the one we experienced several years ago that had seven screaming children. Hard to imagine? I know!
In the UK, you get a little more time between the time someone dies and the funeral than what you get in the US. But it's still not like you're booking your flight over a month out. And we were flying from Orlando rather than Dallas, so there were totally different airlines to choose from - most of which we'd never heard of and certainly had no experience with. The old familiars like British Airways, American Airlines and Delta wanted nearly $2K per person to get us to the funeral on time.
But we saw Norwegian Air. And the price was closer to $900 each. Without further ado, (ado being research) we booked our tickets. Then comes the day of our flight.
We were on our way to the airport when we got the text message that our flight was delayed - instead of leaving at 5 pm, we'd be leaving the following day at 2:30 pm. Then the next day it was delayed again until 6:30. We were concerned that if there was another delay, we wouldn't actually get to the funeral on time. Now, the next day it didn't go at 6:30 - but it did go - closer to 7:30 or 8 pm.
But because of the initial one day delay we had to change our parking reservation. That was done online and with very little difficulty. Then came the rental car. We'd reserved a car with Hertz for pickup on Monday morning, which would obviously have to be changed to Tuesday morning.
Mark phoned Hertz and got it all changed for Tuesday morning 4 am pickup. Or so we thought. He got a message on Monday morning indicating that he had picked up his car as originally scheduled. We called Hertz. We told them we'd had to change our reservation due to a flight cancellation and that we'd be picking it up on Tuesday instead of Monday.
Whoever had indicated that they'd handled it, and had given us a new price for the car, had apparently not put it into their system. I don't know who they thought picked up our car, but we certainly didn't want to be responsible for a car we didn't have.
We tried to explain the problem - which is pretty much a wasted effort when you're dealing with a Filipino call center. I'm sure they're fine when they can follow a script. But when you're telling them something like "I didn't pick up my car. I changed it from Monday to Tuesday", they don't have any idea what you're saying. They tell you that you need to speak to someone in the International Department, even though that was what you selected when you phoned in the first place. After three "customer service agents" (and I use the term loosely) put us back into the queue, we started to lose patience.
"I've been transferred to the "International Department" three times and all that happens is I get back in the queue. Do not do that to me again."
Always before when we'd phoned Hertz, we got people in either the US or the UK. I am very disappointed that they've moved their call center to the Philippines where they may be able to read the script but still don't have a clue what you want or need. After over an hour on the phone, we were able to establish that no one had "our" car and that our car would be available to pick up on Tuesday morning.
It made you want to pull your hair out but the truth of it is that if Norwegian hadn't mucked it up, we wouldn't have had a problem with Hertz.
Back to the airlines. After all the delays on Monday, we were finally airborne and would arrive at London Gatwick somewhere closer to 8 am than 4 am. But we were going to make it in plenty of time for the funeral the following day.
Never in my life have I been on a transatlantic flight that served no food. No food! Unless you count the miniscule bag of pretzels and small glass of water. Some people got food. But we didn't. Because food had to be pre-ordered. Where was that memo? I only saw the memo about reserving my seats for an extra fee. So there we were on a transatlantic flight with no food. And unlike domestic flights where they're happy to sell you a $5 cookie - we couldn't even buy anything. Because everything had to be pre-ordered. Our original flight had been cancelled - when were we supposed to pre-order? When we complained the young lady offered to get us a complaint form. &*^%$*! I don't need a form to complain. I can complain perfectly well without one of their forms. At least when Mark started getting sick because he's diabetic and hadn't eaten in hours, they did get him a piece of cake. If it's not illegal to deny people food and beverages on a transatlantic flight, it certainly should be. But the lack of food and water made the lack of blankets, earphones, and pillows seem unimportant. And who cares about duty free shopping at this point?
Then we come to the return flight. We were expecting delays - because in the meantime, we'd read up on Norwegian Air. Delay and cancel is what they do. It's a specialty of theirs. Apparently they have more complaints and lawsuits than any other airline in the world. The world! Fortunately we were only delayed a couple of hours. But this time, we went to one of the airport restaurants and bought food. (Okay, we should have bought more than we did, but at least we had some.) Oddly, this time around I was offered food, even though Mark was not. I'm not sure why, because when they asked me if I wanted chicken or beef, I said that I wasn't expecting any food because I hadn't pre-ordered. (We still hadn't figured out where or how to do that.) But also this time out, they had snacks available for sale (sandwiches and fruit) - not that we wanted to order any because, quite frankly it didn't look all that good.
The flight attendants on both flights were quick to tell anyone who complained about anything that they didn't work for Norwegian - they worked for HiFly - so apparently the crew are contractors not employees - and as soon as they were finished serving food to the chosen few who knew how to pre-order, they disappeared behind their curtain not to be seen again until time to land.
Mark posted a complaint on their website and they offered to let us a file a claim for expenses. Fools. We have no monetary loss. How do you calculate what you lose when you are denied food and water? I felt like I was in some kind of medieval prison.
So this week we took two trips on Norwegian Air. First and Last. My recommendation to you is don't bother to take any.
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