It was supposed to be a romantic weekend for two. My girlfriend and I visiting Amsterdam, a city I lived in and around for nine and a half years, and just before Christmas. A little sightseeing, some festive shopping, a couple of cosy dinners and then home to start another working week. And even though the weather forecast had talked of snow, being the out-in-the-Midday-sun Brits that we are, we didn’t see this as a reason to worry.
Even on the Sunday morning, as we trudged to breakfast pancakes through blizzard conditions like Captain Scott just popping out for a bit, we were confident that all would be fine later. No, really, this was just a dusting of snow, and that by the time we were meant to leave that afternoon, our modern plane, with its weather radar and automated flight systems, would soar up through the clouds.
It didn’t. As we were getting into the taxi to Schiphol Airport, a text message from British Airways said our flight had been cancelled. No suggestion of how we were now meant to travel, mind, just that it was off, and have a nice day. Tra-la-la. The missive provided a couple of numbers to call: the first didn’t work at all (BA’s Amsterdam call centre) and the second just offered details of a third number, in Newcastle, which of course everyone else was ringing, so you couldn’t get through. For the next 45 minutes I listened to a loop of soothing string music and suggestions of how I could get the best out of my weekend away. Marvellous.
At Schiphol we joined a queue that possibly led to a British Airways person to see whether we could get a new plane, or a hotel room, or a pot of gold or, frankly, anything. I decided to be bold and secured accommodation for the night at the Schiphol Sheraton (no point being inconvenienced for a night and uncomfortable). Eventually, a clearly already-weary BA employee rebooked us onto a new flight departing the next day, and that was all we could do about it. No other options, not even the train.
It was at this point that I begun to wonder where we actually were. This was Amsterdam, a city founded by intrepid international traders and now inhabited by one of the most vibrant, affluent, technology-savvy urban populations on Earth. And yet it was starting to feel like we were struck in the back of beyond in the midst of a crippling natural disaster. Little did we realise just what a crippling natural ”“disaster” we were stuck in for real.
That morning’s photogenic frosting had reduced the seven-runway Schiphol to just one and, worse, London City (where we were supposed to fly back to), Heathrow and other airports in the UK had been closed. Europe - or at least those parts of Europe unable to cope with snow - was grinding to a complete halt. Flights into and out of Schiphol, and again to and from the UK, were being progressively cancelled, leaving planes, crews and passengers in the wrong places at the wrong times. BA alone was said to have 50,000 passengers stranded around the world, which meant more than 300 aircraft were not moving.
The following morning we stoically camped in the Sheraton’s executive lounge, with the Schiphol and BA websites continuing to say our flight was on time, even when most others were being cancelled for a second day running. Ominously, it started snowing again, whiting out the planes we’d been reassuringly watching taxiing for most of the morning. But, thinking we still had a flight to catch we boldly left the comfort of free refreshment and went off to drop our bags at the terminal.
It was almost inevitable that our hubris would be shattered. In the 15-minute walk from bag drop, through an empty security inspection, to the lounge, our rebooked flight had been cancelled. And this time, no 24-hour delay. It would be a full two more days before BA would be able to get us out of Amsterdam. This was no longer a mere inconvenience: our two nights in Amsterdam had extended to five. Yes, there’d be compensation, hotel costs covered and a somewhat miserly £25 a day to keep us fed and watered. But we would now be delayed 72 hours to get home from a city only 230 miles away as the crow flies (were it able to get clearance to take off...).
Now, I know what you’re thinking: why, at this point, didn’t we drive or take the train? Well the first option was nixed by an absence of driving licences (plus the conditions would have been treacherous) and the second by train seats costing hundreds of Euros each disappearing before our very eyes.
By this stage we'd been reduced to the ‘you couldn’t make it up’ state of mental paralysis. We weren’t yet ready to cry and, oddly, not yet ready to lose it, either. Northern Europe had been caught by the weather, and Sunday afternoon’s chaos had snowballed - if I can use that word - with knock-on effects. BA's rebooking algorithms had made a huge assumption that it would be OK for us to turn a basic weekend into a five-day holiday, and that our employers and (in my girlfriend’s case) children wouldn’t have a problem with us being away for three nights longer than planned. But, of course, throughout there was no one to actually speak to, even if we wanted to complain as - guess what? - you couldn’t get through to anyone if you tried.
So how does this story end? It is now Wednesday and we’re in the British Airways business lounge at Schiphol, checked in for a flight back to London this afternoon. The snow is clearing and it is drizzling, but the temperature has gone up and Schiphol has declared itself fully operational again. Life returns to normal.
Frankly, I’m amazed that both of us have remained sane throughout this experience. We've repeatedly reminded each other - and our Facebook friends - that there really is not a lot we can do other than sit it out. Our respective employers have also said the same, which has been wonderful of them (lucky that we have jobs with such flexibility). But, really.
Travel, as I'm prone to observe, seems to bring out the worst in people. But sometimes it brings out the worst in travel. Situations like ours are where people go mad and start lashing out. Twitter provides a somewhat healthy outlet for venting, as a search of the word “Schiphol” revealed. Inevitably, though, the poor employees staffing airport desks have taken the brunt of frustrations. To be honest, you can’t blame some complainants, as missed business meetings, college lectures, family gatherings and everyday normality is turned upside down by a transport infrastructure, that we normally use without blinking an eye, comes to a halt.
Those of us of a more rational composure will accept that snow is simply Mother Nature at work, even if mankind has done much to make severe weather “events” more severe. And we will accept that for all those hundreds of days in the year when planes take off and land like clockwork, once in a while it will all go Pete Tong, and there’s absolutely nothing you can do.
If there is one observation to offer, however, it is to British Airways: the blame for Sunday’s 'Snowmageddon' could hardly be placed at the airline’s feet (no - that must surely be shared between whoever didn’t order enough snowploughs and the weather forecasters who didn’t see such a huge dumping coming...), but there’s plenty BA must improve upon when these situations occur. It was only a few months before that an IT outtage left 75,000 of its passengers stranded throughout the world, and the once proud British flag-carrier’s reputation has taken a pounding ever since, by everything from shrinking seats and charging for food on short-haul flights, to its ageing aircraft fleet and making passengers with the cheapest tickets board those planes last.
BA’s low-cost rivals have their faults (Ryanair’s pilot shortage catastrophe might even make this week’s difficulties pale), but the absence of true customer service since Sunday seems to point to a threadbare organisation more concerned with short-term profit margins rather than long-term sustainability built on a quality product and the customer loyalty that deserves. And while BA’s chief executive Alex Cruz has promised a multi-billion pound investment in much needed new aircraft, as well as facilities like an improved business class and in-flight WiFi to help it catch up with its biggest competitors, this will do very little to repair the company’s reputation today. Because issues like paying for a sandwich are trivial when you can’t even get through to a helpline to get on a plane to begin with.
I’ve worked in corporate PR for many years and know that the first rule of crisis communication is to engage your stakeholders properly. If that means calling in every single employee on a Sunday to man the phones or hand out coffee and snacks at the airport, that’s what you’ve got to do. You can’t rely on automated text messages and bots rebooking people onto flights three days after they were due to depart as customer engagement if that customer isn’t being informed of the whys, hows, and whens. In a crisis you communicate and communicate often. Because if you don’t, an information vacuum develops leading to frustration and, in the case of travel - rarely the most placid of human conditions - palpable anger.
Lessons should have been learned from the May IT meltdown, when passengers complained about the lack of information as to what was going on, either collectively or in individual situations. A cursory text message may be a modern way of saying getting out information quickly, but if the follow-up process falls down, the engagement is pointless. Just as airports should have been better prepared for the snow, airlines should have been better prepared by putting staff on standby. Just two people on BA’s information desk at Schiphol on Sunday wasn’t enough (a problem replicated throughout the airport with other airlines), and although Schiphol employees were handing out bottled water and bars of chocolate on Monday, there was no such comfort on the day it all went wrong.
Perhaps, though, the worst lapse was in something that shouldn’t have cost a penny: an airline acknowledging that lives had been disrupted, that people wouldn’t be returning home to families or that business appointments would be ruined, that what should have been the simplest of excursions had been turned on its head.
