By 7.30pm last Friday night, I was racing through the foothills of the Pyrenees at 294kmph, according to the display in the Ave train. The setting sun prised its way through the storm clouds to cast dramatic shadows across the valley. Corrugated ridges of hills on either side – sometimes decorated with fast-spinning wind farms – funnelled the high-speed railway and accompanying autopista northwest to Lleida, the capital of the Catalan Pyrenees.
At the start of the day, I had no intention of being on this particular train. But due to a snarl-up that had begun at Gatwick airport 12 hours earlier, I was trying to catch up with the fragments of an itinerary frustrated by a last-minute flight cancellation. And trying to ignore the nagging reality that this was actually my fault.
The mid-morning Vueling flight from Gatwick to Barcelona was the key to an adventure in the mountains. But less than two hours before departure, I learnt it was cancelled.
Short-notice flight cancellations are exhausting, especially if time pressure is involved. As each new piece of information comes in, you reprogramme like a satnav belonging to an errant driver. “We’ve rebooked you tomorrow afternoon,” the helpful ground handlers said. That did not accord with my plans, nor with air passengers’ rights rules. The airline finally found seats on a later flight the same day, also from Gatwick. As long as I reached Barcelona in time for the last possible train, that would work.
Murphy’s law piled on the jeopardy. Everyone sat on the replacement flight for half an hour before departure, waiting for a slot. The plane was assigned a remote stand on arrival in Barcelona, which meant waiting for everyone to board buses and then hanging around even longer while the owner of a handbag left on the plane was traced.
The “Brexit queue” was huge. The line for taxis even longer. But Uber was fast in tracking down a driver named Ali, who threaded through the rush-hour traffic and deposited me at Barcelona Sants station 10 minutes before the last possible express departed for the foothills.
As I subsided into my extremely expensive seat (distress purchases on Spanish trains are painfully expensive), the day already felt as though it had been going on for, well, days. It would take five more hours of travelling by rail and bus before I arrived at my final destination: the mountain village of Esterri. Even by the generous standards of Spanish dining, it was way too late for dinner.
The breakfast buffet the next morning was seriously dented as I piled on the carbs for a three-day trek.
In such circumstances, you want someone to blame. Vueling triggered the problem, and in the next “Plane Talk”, I will be digging into the way that airlines handle cancellations. But the real moral of the story is to build in a “meaningful buffer”. That means a spare day that you intend to spend pleasurably, but which can be sacrificed if disruption descends.
I could have planned extra time in Barcelona, checking out the latest culture and cuisine. Flight cancelled? No problem, I will head for Brighton instead and enjoy a night at the Gatwick Hilton at the airline’s expense.
The same applies coming home: anticipate travel disarray and you can benefit rather than despair about plans turned to dust.
My colleague, global travel editor Annabel Grossman, demonstrated this beautifully last year: “I hopped off an SAS plane from Kiruna to Stockholm to find that my BA flight back to London had been cancelled last minute. I got a text saying I had a flight booked in 24 hours. Found a representative who sorted me an airport hotel and gave me a dinner voucher. Went for a swim, had some food.
“Then up early the next morning and had a lovely day strolling around Stockholm, saved and submitted all my receipts, including meals and the transport into the city. Then flew home. Basically, a free city break in one of the most expensive cities in the world.”
This week, a Tui flight from Montego Bay to Manchester arrived 60 hours late, due to an air rage incident that diverted the plane to Nassau, coupled with a technical problem. Many of the 340 passengers stranded in the Bahamas found the whole episode upsetting. But I hope that at least a few of the passengers made the most of their extra time in a desirable destination.
Simon Calder, also known as The Man Who Pays His Way, has been writing about travel for The Independent since 1994. In his weekly opinion column, he explores a key travel issue – and what it means for you.
