ACSAC22: getting stuck in London

Among all my traveling misadventures, this definitely takes the first place in terms of “bad luck”: not only I had issues for the first trip—which led to me missing my connecting flight; but I also had extremely unpleasant issues for the return trip (the title of this entry is a spoiler, in this regard).

But let’s describe things one at a time. In 2022, ACSAC was held in Austin, Texas, USA. There are no direct flights from Zurich to Austin, and the best solution I found was to go to London Heathrow (LHR) first. Among all possibilities, LHR was the best since it allowed me to avoid border controls (which are mandatory when you land in the USA), which could cause significant issues if you have a connecting flight. Nevertheless, LHR was the intermediate stop for both trips; there was one hour of stopover for the first trip, and two for the return trip. The entire flight was operated by British Airways (BA).

My trip to Austin

My arrival at the Zurich airport was relatively smooth. However, my flight to LHR was delayed by ~15m. When I went out of the plane, I only had ~45m to reach my connecting flight. For some reason, the LHR airport was packed. I had been at the LHR airport many times before, but that day was a mess. Moreover, human operators were trying to coordinate the flow, but they were not very successful (I even asked for info, but it was not helpful at all).

Still, after some time, I realised where I had to go to catch my connecting flight. To my surprise, I had to go through security screenings again… and there was a huge line. When I was past these screenings, only 15m were left before the departure of my flight. I ran as fast as I could, but when I reached the gate the doors had already been closed: I asked the operators nearby if I could still go onboard, but this was not possible. I was very angry: given that I arrived there with a BA flight, and that many other people were supposed to take that flight (also operated by BA), I was not discounting the possibility of delaying the departure of that flight by a few minutes since they should have known that many passengers were missing.

I went back to the main terminal, and waited 30m at a counter of BA. I asked to be rebooked to another flight that would make me reach Austin on that day. Unfortunately, there were no direct options: the only possibility was by doing an intermediate stop at Chicago. Since there was no other possibility, I went with this option. I waited 3 hours at LHR, then took my flight to Chicago, and waited another 2 hours there before taking my flight to Austin..[a]Actually, I was so tired when I arrived at Chicago that instead of going to the gate for my flight to Austin, I went to the gate for another flight headed to Dallas (also in Texas) which was scheduled to depart at the same time as my flight. Thankfully, I realised of my mistake when I still had time to run to the other end of the terminal to reach my gate…. When I reached my hotel in Austin I was exhausted—but this did not prevent me from enjoying ACSAC.

My trip back to Zurich

This is when things get “fun”. As a necessary preamble, however, I must say that at ACSAC’22, I became acquainted with a very nice researcher, Stefanos Koffas, who was going to take the same flight to London as me (albeit his final destination was Amsterdam, and not Zurich). We arrived at the Austin’s airport together, and during the wait I told him of some of my traveling misadventures (including the issue I had in reaching Austin). Little did we know of what would happen a few hours later.

An odd landing

My (our) plane landed in LHR ontime (around 10am). When I deactivated airplane mode on my phone, I received an email. It was from British Airways. It stated “Your flight to Zurich scheduled for Sunday, December 11th at 1:00pm has been canceled. But don’t worry: we have automatically rebooked you to the best flight to reach your destination. Your new flight is going to depart at 8:55am of Tuesday, December 13th.” What? Like, what???? Two days later? There must be a mistake. (proof)

I was very fast at checking my phone after our landing, but soon other passengers started to realise that “something was wrong”. Regardless, the first thing I did was try – with my smartphone – to choose a different flight. But for some reason no “viable” options were available (I will elaborate on this later). I even tried to look for flights offered by other airlines, but they all stated “canceled”. Surprisingly, however, after 30m since our landing, we still had not reached the gate: our plane was, apparently, stuck in “taxi” mode. I tried asking some flight attendants if they knew anything about this situation, and they said that “there has been some issues, but we know nothing” – and their faces spoke the truth.

It took 90 minutes before we finally got out of the plane. The entire London Heathrow airport was KOed. The reason? Snow and ice. Or rather, “unforeseen” snow and ice:.[b]I believe that “snow and ice” in December in London is not a very “unforeseeable” circumstance. But I digress. during the night, the temperature dropped so low that most of the flights scheduled to be departing in the morning had ice in their engines which prevented them from taking off—and, at the same time, prevented any incoming flight to reach the gate, since the gates were all “occupied” by the planes that could not take off. On Sunday, December 11th 2022, very few flights departed from LHR (you can read more here.

(Futile) attempts at dealing with BA

But what about me? I was very upset, but could not believe what I was going through. Of course, the first thing I tried was queueing up to the counter of British Airways, asking to be rebooked (it was still noon, and as long as I could had reached any other major European airport, I could have easily found another flight to Zurich) or, more generally, to take any alternative means of transportation to reach my final destination (e.g., the train). To my disbelief, despite the huge size of the BA’s counters, there were only 2 operators managing them—handling the 100s of (desperate/angry) passengers in a similar situation as I. After waiting for ~90 minutes in queue, it was finally my turn. I explained the situation, but the operator said that they could do nothing (albeit I am certain some were successful in obtaining some rebooking). I knew it was not that person’s fault, but I was still enraged of the entire situation. Hilariously, a few seconds after I finished discussing my case with the BA’s attendant, a voice echoed in the loudspeaker throughout the entire LHR’s airport: “This is British Airways. We do not have the means to fulfill all your rebooking and accommodation requests. Just do things on your own, and then present a claim to us. Thank you.” I found the entire thing almost ridiculous.

Now, it was around 2pm, but I didn’t want to raise a white flag yet. I took out my laptop and began looking for alternative solutions by myself. I noticed something “weird” in my attempts at rebooking. Put simply, I accepted that it was unlikely that I would have reached Zurich on that day; however, I still wanted to reach Zurich on the following day (i.e., Monday, and not on Tuesday). Hence, granted that there were no eligible flights for Sunday, but what about Monday? Perhaps surprisingly, there were options… but I could not take them. Why? Due to a bug.[c]I think that given how “silly” this functionality is, the only way to define it is that it is a bug because I refuse to accept that BA’s information systems are intended to be working in this way. of BA’s booking systems.

To be more specific, I could autonomously choose to be rebooked to another flight. However, this was only possible if I changed “the entire package”—which meant that I had to take another flight from Austin. In other words, I could not simply “choose another flight for the LHR->ZRH leg”: I was forced to select a completely different flight package from Austin to ZRH. However… I was already in LHR! And yet, the BA’s system was proposing me to take another flight from Austin to LHR that was going to depart “in 1h from now”, so that I would arrive in LHR the following day (on Monday) and then take a flight that would bring me to ZRH (also on Monday). Awkwardly, I could not simply choose to be put on the flight from LHR to ZRH of this package that was leaving on Monday: either I changed the entire package, or not. Simply put: there was a LHR->ZRH flight (operated by BA) that had (at least one) free spot that was leaving on Monday, but I could not (autonomously) put myself onto that flight. I was forced to go to the option that BA automatically assigned me (i.e., departure from LHR at 8am on Tuesday), and there was no way to change that—at least by myself. But maybe someone from BA could do that for me.

Hence, I began calling BA’s by phone. My request was simple: put me on the LHR->ZRH flight on Monday, which according to your booking system, had one free spot. However—and of course—getting the line was impossible: everyone was doing the exact same thing. I even tried to call the contact numbers of different countries of BA, but after 20m of waiting, the calls always ended without me managing to talk to anyone. I then began wandering around the LHR airport, trying to find any human operator from BA I could talk to—but I found none. Actually, all service desks by BA were closed. So I asked some operators for advice, and they recommended me to use some kiosks—which I did, but I still was not able to rebook myself. I was even scared of selecting the “entire package” option (i.e., from Austin to LHR, and then from LHR to ZRH) because I would have counted as a “no-show” for the Austin->LHR leg, meaning that the entire trip would have been canceled for the airline.

Layover in London

I eventually decided that I had enough at 5pm. I accepted my fate: I was going to stay 2 nights in London, and take the 8:55am LHR->ZRH flight on Tuesday. So, I began looking for nearby hotels: most of them were already fully booked. I managed to find one not-too-far-away (around 20m with the tube). So, I took the tube and, after a few stops, got out to reach my hotel. I realised of another issue: in London, it was freezing cold (-5°C). However, since my trip was meant for Austin, and the average temperature in December in Austin is around 20°C, I had no clothes that allowed me to withstand the cold. So… I had no other option but to spend two days in London, in my room.[d]Actually, I still went out that night and the following night to eat dinner. It was really a challenging and tough experience, but I did not want to make that stop even more miserable: at least I managed to eat some delicious fish & chips.

Yet, surprises were not over yet. On Monday evening, I asked the hotel’s receptionist if they could book a taxi for 5:50am on the following morning. They acknowledged my request. At 5:45am on Tuesday, I was downstairs, waiting for my taxi. At 5:50, there was no taxi. At 5:55 there was still no taxi; I asked the receptionist to call again and ask for information as to my taxi’s whereabouts. The call was put on hold and, after 2m, the line dropped. I said some not-so-fancy words, and then began running. With my luggage, in a freezing-cold morning and with icy snow on the ground, I was running headed to the nearest tube’s station—which I reached at 6:30am. I got the tube, I arrived at the LHR’s airport sometime after 7am, and thankfully managed to go past the security controls without too much trouble. I eventually arrived at my house at 4pm on Tuesday—almost 48h after my original ETA.[e]As for Stefanos, he was stuck in London for a few days, too. Funnily enough, however, he did not need to make this stop in London: he found out that there was a direct flight from Austin to Amsterdam… still, he came to the realisation that he should contact me before he takes any flight, so as to make sure that I am not on that flight, too.

Lesson Learned (?)

I don’t think there is much to learn from this story. For the missed flight in the first trip, I could have been a bit more ruthless in going through security (I really missed my flight for mere seconds), and this is something I will keep in mind should I be in a hurry (i.e., I can politely ask people to let me go ahead). But for the return flight, I don’t think there is much I could do to “prepare” for something like that.

After telling this story to some people, I was told that “you could have autonomously gotten on another flight, or taken the train, and then asked for reimbursement to BA”. This is true: I could have. But would BA have paid? After all, they did provide me an alternative solution (albeit arriving 2 days later). Given that such alternatives options were all quite expensive (no less than 300€ overall), and given the impossibility of contacting BA to request if this was something that they could reimburse me for, I decided not to do that.

Probably, the lesson learned here is “if possible, avoid London”. Which makes sense: there are many “large” airports in Europe (e.g., CDG, AMS, FRA). As a matter of fact, as of October 2024, I have not stopped in LHR after this event (and, more generally, I am avoiding BA).