[canucklad]

Ahhh but there’s the con eselle…….
Let’s put aside MCT for the moment……How many times have you heard the proud claim that you have arrived ahead of schedule. Not at the point of engine’s off,but as soon as the plane starts taxing,sometimes long taxing to the gate. And indeed the amount of times the BD crew would say that we had made up time on our flight down from Edinburgh and they were pleased to announce we’d arrived as “scheduled” at 20.30 was too numerous to specifically mention. I’d look out my window to see our aircraft exiting the runway opposite the cargo apron ! And who can argue, I was in London at 20.30 as promised. Not bad time to make up,after all we we departed EDI a 1/2 hour late.

[seasonedtraveller]

We all know that touchdown time bears no resemblance to gate time or even disembarkation time.
Last Saturdays flight to ORD touched down 45 mins late but then, a taxi time of 25 mins plus a further gate delay awaiting the airbridge so, from touchdown to disembark – 40 minutes….
Thankfully, I wasn’t connecting

[MrDarwin]

Flying from CDG to Boston once via AMS with KLM/Northwest, the first flight was delayed by 1.5 hours. I was seated about half way down the plane so it took a little while to disembark. I sprinted down the walkways, taking no prisoners, towards my gate which was in another ‘wing’ of AMS. About halfway there I stopped at a transfer desk and asked if I was going to make it, and they said the flight had just closed.

At first they refused to rebook me as they said other people from the same flight had made the connection. I was totally out of breath and sweaty so it was clear I had made a valiant attempt at making the flight. I’ve no idea if or how others made it. They then said all they could do was fly me to JFK and asked if my friend in Boston would drive down to collect me. On Christmas Eve. Errr… no. After about 30 minutes of deliberations they finally caved and put me on an AA flight via Heathrow (and kindly forgot to load my bag).

I’ve flown with KLM many times and have always found them to have a kind and professional service with this episode being the one exception.

Rules and regulations aside, sometimes it all depends on whose shift it is on that day at that time.

[canucklad]

Hi Mr Darwin,
Your story is so similar to my experiences with AF at CDG. On one occasion the aircraft actually landed early and we still missed our onward connection to EDI. The AF rep did blame us for missing the connection, and she actually quoted the extra 15 minutes to us !!

another 20 people on the inbound HK flight also missed the onward EDI flight , yet the AF people didn’t take responsibility. And like you, all of us were rushing, ironically accompanied by an AF rep, who fast tracked us through security !!

[MrMichael]

Thankfully not a connection, but recall arriving at LHR a few years ago on Thai, bang on time landing and then a whopping 2 1/4 hours to get to the gate and doors open.

[Author]

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