Flight cancellation
Today, I’m supposed to finish my whole trip with a flight at 1150 back to Auckland with Latam Airlines booked with a commercial confirmed ticket (rather than a staff standby ticket at about the same price).
Knowing that the airline is somewhat unreliable on the route, with the aircraft coming all the way from Santiago de Chile, I checked on Flightradar24 as soon as I had woken up. Yep, the aircraft appeared to be stuck in Auckland and my flight wouldn’t be operating.
As I had looked at backup flights weeks ago, I knew immediately to book a staff standby ticket on China Eastern Airlines over an hour later. More than likely, Latam would grab all available seats on Qantas (and perhaps Air New Zealand also), meaning that I wouldn’t get on those flights using staff tickets.
Sorting things out at the airport
Henry dropped me off at the airport around 0900. Strangely the airport monitors showed that my flight was still on time and if I hadn’t known better, I could have gone airside using my mobile boarding pass to shop or enjoy the lounge pending assignment of a boarding gate.
I went to the China Eastern counter where they said they had a few seats and could probably take me if Latam didn’t mass-transfer passengers to them.
Knowing that, I continued to the Latam check-in queue. Actually, there were two queues, one for my flight to Auckland continuing to Santiago and another for the nonstop service to Santiago.
Staff here confirmed that the Auckland flight was now cancelled but to join the long queue of affected passengers for rebooking arrangements. On the app, my flight was still operating but as I got close to the counter, the flight updated from 1150 to a 1750 Qantas flight.
For such a major situation, a 6h delay isn’t too bad, I thought. Other people were being rerouted through Melbourne with overnight connections. Accommodation was being provided at the Holiday Inn with transport to those who needed it.
I got to the Latam counter around 0945 and they confirmed that I was on the Qantas flight at 1750. They can only reaccommodate on Qantas or Air New Zealand but not China Eastern, which was the earliest and most readily available option.
I had hoped that they could put me on China Eastern on a confirmed basis rather than have me try the Chinese airline on a standby basis, but unfortunately not.
A full refund is also an option though but it would need to be organised by phone to the call centre.
Finally, on my way
I decided that my best solution would be to fly China Eastern using my staff ticket which cost as much as the Latam commercial ticket. China Eastern gave me by boarding pass straight away when I got to them around 1000.
It was around this time that I realised that Latam had rebooked me to 1750 tomorrow, not today. It was a 30h delay. I was so glad that I was on China Eastern only 1h25 later.
Ensuring my refund
So as not to jeopardise my refund, I went back to Latam and asked once more if they could cancel my tomorrow’s flight on Qantas in case I had trouble reaching the call centre.
I got airside quickly and went to the lounge, grabbed some food and spent most of remainder of the 2h in there, trying to get hold of Latam on the phone.
Once connected with a human, they had a funny process for tickets paid with a credit card not issued in the departure country. It required a case to be created and certain details had to be provided by email.
I was at risk of these details not being processed in time before the flight departure tomorrow, which meant that I could be a “no show”. Having worked for an airline, I was too wary of how things can go wrong and had little trust in the process. But I had done everything possible.
Last flight of the trip
The China Eastern 1315 flight closed up about 15 mins late. Lockers were left open while insecticide was discharged manually before we pushed back.
It was pretty full, so I was surprised I had been given a boarding pass so quickly!
On the flight, a simple hot meal with a potato salad and canned fruit, was served with a selection of soft and hot drinks.
The PTV shows no American content under the European/American tab. All were European art-house or film festival type movies, but one was Sudanese.
Back in Auckland
Landing in Auckland at 1830, I found that the airport arrival area between immigration and the carousel had been rerouted.
The airport has been undergoing small changes continuously over the last forty years, but there’s never anything revolutionary, transformational or expansive.
Instead of a simple escalator ride connecting the two areas, there is now a claustrophobic tunnel that goes in a somewhat rectangular spiral perhaps four times around.
One’s biosecurity declaration is now checked before baggage claim instead of after. With no baggage to collect and nothing to declare, I was out pretty swiftly.