I will let you have the laugh

I stayed in Spain one week longer than I was hoping to. This may not sound bad to some but considering the winter, the cold climate in Madrid and the extremely light clothes in my luggage, it was not too pleasant.  Here is what happened:

 

I went to catch my flight to South America.  I first didn’t see it on the departure board and I was slightly annoyed with myself as I didn’t check with terminal it departed from. In Madrid, all my flights have always departed from Terminal four so I go there automatically now without checking.  To get to terminals one, two or three, you have to use another underground station so before taking the bus transfer, I thought being clever and ask in the information desk exactly where it was.

 

The guys in the airport information just stood there with their mouths open. “You didn’t know?” they asked. “Know what?” I was almost as surprised myself. The airline is bankrupt and stopped flying a couple of weeks ago.

 

Apparently there was a big story in Spain with lots of people who couldn’t get back after Christmas/New Year but as it is a small Spanish airline, not flying to northern Europe, there was nothing in the main coverage in either BBC or SVT.

 

It took a couple of days to submit the complaint letters and organise for alternative tickets and next departure was 6.5 days after the first one. Considering the short timeframe the ticket wasn’t too expensive but still cost me more than the first one. Although, if I manage to get the money back from the first flight, it will not be a big catastrophe in my budget.