Stine Kuskner

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By Stine Kuskner - Fri 8th Apr 2011

 

5 MONTHS+ - 5 Dec. 2010

We're still in Barcelona.... The Spanish aircontrollers decided to go on an illegal, unwarned strike Friday evening, completely stopping all airtraffic over the Spanish Peninsula. We called the phonenumber provided on the news and were told everything would be OK for Saturday, no worries. We were up until past midnight packing and getting the house ready for us being gone for almost 1 month, we got up at 5:30 Saturday morning, my mother-in-law came over at 7 to be with the girls and say goodbye for a month, and at 7:45 we got in the taxi to the airport. I had checked Spanairs website before leaving, everything was fine with our flight. We had seen on the news that there were lines of up to 100m. at the airport, so we wanted to get there early. The Spanair line to Copenhagen consisted of 3 people, so 30 minutes after arriving we were checked in and past the security control - 2.5 hours before the plane was scheduled to leave. No planes were taking off or landing, but people were optimistic and the mood at the airport was fine. We walked around looking at shops (spent way too much money on things we don't need, as you tend to do when you kill time shopping...), had a coffee, fed the girls who then slept on a bench for about 30 minutes. Eventually the information was that our plane would take off at noon, 1 hour delayed. There was no gate yet, so we walked around some more. Around 11 there was a gate number with the information that boarding time was 11:25. Shortly after there were calls for planes taking off, people at the airport started cheering and clapping. But then things stopped.... 2 planes took off, next thing we know is that all planes for the day are cancelled - including ours. We were told to leave the airport immediately, meaning dragging all our carry-on stuff down to the luggage-claim, finding our 2 huge, heavy suitcases and going back into the check-in area. It looked like something from a 3rd world country; people everywhere, luggage all over the place, chaos, people crying, yelling, sleeping, eating... The line to Spanair was horrifically long, so we decided to go home and call them instead of wasting more time at the airport.

We now have a new flight tomorrow, same time. The aircontrollers are back at work, but it's still chaos since all the people whose flights were cancelled Friday and Saturday had to be rescheduled. We are lucky that we're going for a month, 2-3 days more or less wont make a huge difference, though it's a shame. Dec 6 & 8 are holidays here, loads of people were taking a mini-break for 5 days, which has been ruined by the aircontrollers' illegal strike. But we get another weekend here in Barcelona, my mother-in-law gets another day with the girls, and tomorrow we'll start our vacation - again. We're so lucky that the girls are so good, a day like yesterday is no problem with 2 smiling little angels. We're not at all worried about travelling with them tomorrow, even if the plane will be delayed.