The original plan was to fly out of Chicago on Wednesday night to London Heathrow. After a two hour layover in London, I’d be on my way to Tel Aviv. Bing bang boom.

But on Saturday morning, I received a text message that said:

“From BA: Your flight has been canceled. Apologies.”

And then a phone number to call. Excuse me?? I thought it was a joke at first but then doubtfully said to myself, “Can they do that??”.

Apparently they can.

Let me get you up to speed with a few things going on at London Heathrow airport. British Air just completed construction on a brand new terminal dedicated specifically to British Airlines. It was an exciting addition to the airport with great hopes of easing travelers delays and allowing space specifically for BA. But instead of being helpful, it’s only been a pain in their ass.

The computers aren’t working. Baggage isn’t getting routed. Flights have massive delays or are being canceled completely to help ease the strain. Thus, my flight getting canceled. I was one of the lucky winners. Thank you, terminal five.

Fortunately, I don’t have a strict arrival time constraint in Israel since my classes don’t start until April 28th. At this point it was more of an inconvenience. So, I called and rescheduled to the next day, Thursday. I managed to get the same exact flight times, only one day later. I rationalized that I could have used an extra day to prepare and maybe it was for the better.

The next day (Sunday) I got another text message:

“From BA: Your flight has been canceled. Apologies.”

Shut the “F” up!!!

So I called the airline folk. Yep. Canceled. AGAIN. They overestimated their ability to catch up in the sorting of the baggage and flights. At this point, British Air has a back log of over 15,000 pieces of luggage sitting in Heathrow waiting to be united with their owners. Instead of leaving out on Wednesday night, I’m rescheduled to Friday night at 5:30pm.

Even with all the changes, I’m feeling pretty good at this point. Einat’s still able to pick me up at the airport without having to change her schedule around. I’m feeling a little relieved at having a few extra days to prepare at home. And British Air will compensate me for a massive portion of the flight costs essentially providing me a free flight to Tel Aviv. I went to bed last night feeling relatively good about everything.

As I’m on my errand run today, I missed a phone call on my cell. Can you take a gander as to who (or is it whom?) left a voice mail?

Damn you British Air!!!! (shaking my fist violently at the sky)

I’m at a loss of words at this point. This will be the THIRD time my flight has been canceled in the last 72 hours. The first representative I spoke with was absolutely useless so I called back and spoke with a more informed employee.

I was advised that at this point, they still have not fixed the computer systems that sort the baggage at terminal 5 in Heathrow. They have an excess of 20,000 pieces of luggage sitting in a warehouse in London waiting to be sorted and sent to their owners across the globe. They (again) overestimated their ability to catch up and it’s only getting worse. My flight was canceled, again.

Instead of rescheduling to an even later date, I had to bite the bullet and take an excessive lay over in London. My route is now changed to:

Leaving Chicago Friday, April 4th at 8:25pm to London arriving Saturday 10:00am local time
Leaving London Saturday, April 5th at 10:00pm arriving in Tel Aviv Sunday, April 6th at 5:30 local time.

Cliff notes version: 12 hour lay over in London. Total travel days: 3.
Originally, I was toying with the idea of having an extended lay over in London since I’ve never been there before. I guess in the end I don’t have much choice in the matter.

Maybe I’ll actually have a chance to score authentic fish n’ chips.

Does anyone else have any suggestions of what to do with a 12 hour layover in London?

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