What time was that flight again?

Report from Spain IV: The second mishap of our trip occurred Tuesday. I confused the time of our flight to Granada with the time of the one we will be taking back to New York from Madrid, 11:00am. Actually, our flight out of Barcelona was scheduled for 10:25. It didn't help that my e-ticket was in Spanish, and I didn't recognize the column headed SAL meant departure time. We arrived at the airport some time before 9:45--in plenty of time, we thought. We waited in the slow-moving Iberia Airlines check-in line. When it was finally our turn, the agent said it would be a miracle if we made the flight. We were dumbfounded. We asked why, since the flight left at 11. No, she said, it leaves at 10:05--just to make matters worse, they had changed the departure time after I got the tickets, without notifying me--why not, I don't know. They certainly had my e-mail address.

We still had a few minutes though, and I think we might have made it, except that we had to pay the overweight charges for our luggage. And unlike in America, they don't don't handle payments at the check-in counter. We had to go over to the Iberia sales counter to pay. So we went over there, and waited for a couple of Romanians to buy tickets to somewhere. We finally paid, took our receipt back to the check-in counter, got our boarding passes, and ran to the gate. There was no hold-up at security (which seemed much more laid-back that in the U.S.).

But we were too late, the gate personnel sadly informed us. This was one of those bus-to-the-plane deals, and they had already called for a bus just for us, but the plane had already moved out.

We were told to go to Belt 22 to reclaim our luggage. We went there, and watched a planeload of people get their bags. But ours weren't among them. I checked over by the lost luggage counter, but they weren't among the few they had there. Back at Belt 22, my wife flagged down an Iberia staffer, and she said they usually sent the returned bags to Belt 20. She advised us to watch both belts, but if ours didn't come in 15 minutes to see her at the lost luggage desk. We did that, but nothing of ours came on either belt.

I stayed and watched the three lonely unclaimed bags on Belt 20 make their unending circumnavigations, while my wife went to the desk. Eventually she returned and said our bags had been located (thank goodness), and they would be put on Belt 28--which was all the way at the other end of the baggage claim area. So we trekked over there, and found Belt 28, which stood motionless. So we sat down to wait. Ten minutes or so later, the belt started up, and we were finally reunited with our luggage.

Then we went back to the Iberia sales desk to see about another flight to Granada. The line wasn't too long. But when we gave the agent our boarding passes and explained what had happened (first in my wife's Spanish, then in her English), the agent was totally perplexed. As far as their system went, once the boarding passes were issued the tickets were used, so she couldn't exchange them. She came out of the sales booth and said she had to go over to the supervisor's office. She came back (rather quickly, actually) and told us that our tickets had been re-validated. Furthermore, they would do our re-booking at no charge, on the excuse that they had changed the departure time from 10:25 to 10:05 without notifying us.

The next flight was at 4:30. There was actually room on it.

We got our new tickets and headed back to the check-in counter, first removing all of the tags on our luggage from the missed flight. I hoped we could find the same check-in agent as the first time, but she wasn't there. But the check-in was easy anyway. There wasn't even a question of the over-weight charge--our prior receipt worked just fine.

So it was just a matter of waiting. We went back upstairs, through security again. Still laid-back. We found a sit-down restaurant and sat down. One of my three lambchops actually had a significant amount of meat on it. I wondered about the steel table knives--there was nothing to prevent someone from pocketing one and boarding a plane. I said that security was laid-back. But I think they are more worried about suicide bombers than hijackers at this point.

There were still nearly three hours until boarding time. There are a huge number of stores at the Barcelona airport--it's a shopping mall, basically. My wife got a cute skirt, and a pantsuit she had been wanting for a while. I got a newspaper and a little 8.50€ chotchka to remind me of the fun(?) I had in Barcelona.