In Hibernation. Review on Icelandair

The hasty plan

My trip to Ireland was unexpected. After all my midterm exams were going on, and even though I had spring break right after, I was in no mood for travel frenzy. But some bizarre mails from a family member, and I was all set to go to Ireland.

When I went to my travel agent, I was told that there was only one ticket available, and that was on Iceland Air. My route: Minneapolis (MSP) to Reykjavik (Iceland), Reykjavik to London, and London to Dublin. The return journey was the other way around, and I would fly Icelandair till London, and then take British Midland (BMI) to Dublin

I was tired enough from all the chaos and sleeplessness over the past week, and the last thing I wanted was a late flight.

The torture begins

Sure enough there was going to be a 45 minutes delay and no reasons were given. When 45 minutes passed they said that there was a technical problem and would take more time - maybe another hour. I somehow killed that hour reading, but it wasn’t over yet. The airline then came up with a brilliant idea to console the increasingly impatient spring breakers and decided to announce what the technical problem was. And the problem: a hydraulic leak. If it was just impatience until now, imagine adding panic to this. Americans are paranoid enough about air travel after 2001, and this enlightening announcement by Icelandair just added fuel to the fire. People were nervous and had never ending questions. You get the idea; it was just a mini fish market down there. So the airline came up with yet another way to calm people and decided to do what everyone does in this part of the world. Blame the weather. They announced that the unusually cold temperatures was making it hard to conduct repairs and it was unclear as to how much more time it would take to fix the problem. This was probably the closest to the truth. The temperature outside was -20 C, and everyone knew what it was to be like in that weather.

After a three hour fifty-five minute delay, at 9.55 p.m. the airline announced that they were giving complimentary food coupons for people to have dinner. Oh the benevolent creatures! The truth though is that hardly anyone eats dinner this late in the U.S., and the other reality was that food stalls at this airport closed at 10 p.m. It didn’t matter that not many people took up the offer; the gesture was still sleazy and cheap.

The journey?

Finally at 11 p.m., after a five-hour delay they announced that they would start boarding in ten minutes. The take off didn’t happen until midnight. And it was no joyride inside either. The stewards were outright hostile, not just impolite. After the entire debacle one would think the least they can be is friendly, but no. No smiles, not even the usual plastic ones; just a smut face that was more emotionless than a robot. Even the tone of voice was grouchy and monotonous. I won’t even discuss the attitude. It was like a traveling in Stanley Kubrick’s space shuttle in ''2001: A Space Odyssey.'' The stewards were worse sounding than HAL, the computer/robot in the movie. The plane crew spoke English, but when they came to me they decided to switch to Icelandic. What was that all about? Did I look like an Icelandic fisherman to them?

Less than an hour after we took off they served food. Who the hell wanted to eat at 1 in the morning? I didn’t. I was too furious to eat.

The nightmare

At early dawn we reached Iceland. I was unsure if the connecting flight was waiting for us. Fortunately they were courteous enough to wait. After all, it was another Icelandair flight, and the mistake was theirs. I got off from this one and ran to the next. Just when I was breathing a sigh of relief, a plane full of angry Icelandic people and crew were staring at us with an intensity to kill. As if it was our fault for the delay. There I was for another four-hour joyride!

We took off immediately, and breakfast was served. I was hungry by now and less furious, so I asked for a vegetarian meal, and they didn’t have one. There went my breakfast! The only vegetarian thing they had was watered down orange juice and coffee, and I had to make do with it. All I wanted was to get out of this dump of an airline.

A brief relief…or is it?

By the time I was in London, I was panicking. I wasn’t sure if my connecting flight to Ireland was waiting or not. London was extremely chaotic, congested and busy. There was a Tirupati like queue - the longest line I have ever seen in any airport. But I have to admit that London was the most customer friendly airport I have ever been to. They were quick, knew how to manage, and extremely helpful. (The cons of this airport are: too small and congested, but most of all - they smoke inside.) I was given a different BMI flight in an hour, and I was on my way to Dublin.

What a contrast BMI was from Icelandair. They were extremely professional and courteous, just like the London airport staff. But things were determined to go wrong. When I reached Dublin I was told that Icelandair had failed to transport my luggage, and there I was in Ireland with no luggage. BMI promised to transport it in their very next flight and deliver it at my hostel at the earliest. My luggage was there in just 3 hours.

The king of nightmares

I had my fun ten days in Dublin and was dreading to go back, go back on; you guessed it: Icelandair. The BMI to London was smooth, but the next two Icelandair flights were not. I’ll spare the details (no space frankly.)

When I reached MSP airport, if you didn’t guess already, my luggage was missing. I was more than just furious. Why? Because my luggage was in LONDON! Icelandair failed to transfer it. They even admitted it, but didn’t even bother to give a lousy apology. They just bluntly said that there were no connecting flights from London on Icelandair, and that they simply wont be able to transport my luggage for another three or four days approximately. I asked what approximately meant, and they said that their planes are fully booked, and my luggage would transport only if there was space. In short, if there was no space for a month did it mean I won’t get my luggage until then, I asked? And the damn lady had the nerve to say YES in a harsh tone. She said she would give me a call when my luggage arrived, and that I could come and pick it up. I told her I lived some 200 kilometers away; didn’t have a car, or wasn’t going to come even if I had one just to pick up my luggage all the way from there. She acted as if there was no other alternative or didn’t have a clue as to what to do about it. So, I did the job for her, or so I thought. I wrote my address and phone number and asked her to courier/deliver it to my house. That is the common policy I told her, and she pretended not to heat it.

Ten days later I get a call from them saying that they sent my luggage on a plane to a city in the neighboring state, and I was supposed to pick it up from there. I complained that the city they were talking about was 50 kilometers away, and I was told that it was sent there because that was the closest airport to my town. When asked why it wasn’t sent through courier, she said that it wasn’t their policy to do that, and that they had never promised to do so. I asked how I was supposed to pick it up from 50 kilometers away when I didn’t have a car and in the absence of public transport, she told me that it wasn’t her problem, and that it was too late to do anything else now. I wanted to ask her to go to hell, but instead I just hung up. I will never fly Icelandair again, unless I decide to go to Iceland. (You also learn how much better Air India is!)

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