Ikimasho!

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Not again...

I don't know why it has to be so bloody difficult to fly these days. I mean, the concept hasn't really changed that much. You arrive at the airport, board the plane and take off. This Friday proved to be another good example of why flying in Europe is usually best avoided. Yes, the fact is that when it comes to airline operations, the first world still has a lot to learn from the third. But before jumping into the fray, let me first ponder a moment on the reason for this annoyment.

The story begins on December 31, 2006. As luck would have it, I had a sizeable chunk of Eurobonus points to spend, points destined to be scrapped at the end of the year. I had completely forgot about this, and with only a handful of hours left I sat down on New Year's Eve to make a booking panick-style. With Tokyo, Beijing, Singapore and Bangkok to choose from the decision was pretty simple. Not only is Japan clouded in fog of war on my mental map; it is also home to the most respectable and entertaining event of events, as far as sports go that is. Yes, it was finally time to watch a grand Sumo Basho. There are six tournaments in a year, spread out over fifteen days every second month, starting in January. Out of these, three are hosted in Tokyo, one in Osaka, one in Nagoya and the sixth and last is held in Fukuoka. Naturally, Fukuoka was my choice. Located in the far west of Japan on Kyushu island it is but a stone's throw from Nagasaki and has a rich history of trading with other cultures. It is also the hometown of Hiroyuki Koga, or as he is more commonly known, Kaio, the mighty ozeki.

Sumo tournaments are usually held fifteen days straight, starting on the second Sunday of the month. Tickets are released roughly one month ahead of the tournament. Since the Kyushu Basho starts in November I could not possibly know what days I would manage to secure tickets once they were released ten months later, so I played it safe and booked then entire two weeks, figuring I could do some other sightseeing once I was in the country. The booking was placed on December 31st. What followed was ten months of agony.

The first attack was launched in January when Scandinavian decided to rearrange the timetable and remove my flight from Jonkoping to Copenhagen and replacing it with a go around via Stockholm complete with a twelve hour outbound delay in Copenhagen. Thanks, but no thanks. Calling SAS and spending time in their charming telephone queue accomplished little. These are EuroBonus tickets you know, they are not changeable. To which I opposed that it was in fact SAS who had changed the tickets themselves. After patiently pleading my case a few times the sales agent agreed to seat me on a plane from Gothenburg instead, so that I wouldn't have to wait more than one hour in Copenhagen, something I should apparently appraise as special treatment. Never mind the additional cost incurred of going to Gothenburg to catch the plane over there, a cost which would be coming out of my pocket. The booking remained unviewable through the EuroBonus interface on the website, and I began to wonder if it would really turn out to be a non existing reservation come November.

The most severe incident occurred in September. A recent string of calamities at various Northern European airports saw three Scandinavian Dash Q400 commuter planes collapse upon landing, as each time the righthand landing gear would fold due to stress and rusty parts and force the entire plane to skid off the runway on its belly. At first there was a grounding of the Q400 fleet while technicians worked to find the cause and rectify it. The faulty components were found and removed, and the planes were put back in service again. A few days later another Q400 was found spread eagle on the runway and by now the situation started to get out of hand. In what seemed a reaction based on fear and panic the SAS management decided to not only ground their twentyseven Q400s, but to retire them for good. All planes except one were to be handed back to the owner from which they were rented; the manufacturer. Naturally the manufacturer wasn't all too thrilled about this chain of events, as they claimed the plane was operating successfully with all their other clients.

However, no amount of brand management and damage control could compensate for the fact that several airports around Scandinavia suddenly found themselves without connections. As was the case with my hometown, the disappearance of the Q400s meant that we suddenly lost our connections to and from Copenhagen, something that SAS failed to notify their clients about or even correct in the current reservations. On November 8th, one day before my trip, I learnt that SAS had no plans to connect to Jonkoping Airport for the remainder of the year, and I was again forced to make a rescheduling of my trip... Welcome to SAS. We have many callers right now. You have been placed in a queue. There are currently forty... eight... calls ahead of you - Wonderful.

For preferential treatment, please type in your SAS EuroBonus customer code. *Pip, pip, piiip, pip, pa-pip, pip, pip, piiip* The voice returned: There are currently forty... eight... calls ahead of you. Brilliant.

What followed was an amazing achievement of concurrent processing, something all computer students learn to dread at the university. What basically transpired was that one employee managed (with impressive tweaking of the system) to rebook me on to a return flight to Jonkoping from Copenhagen via Stockholm, spread out over two reservations. She attempted to call me three hours ahead of my outbound journey. At that time she only reached my voicemail since I was waiting in line at the Scandinavian service line to figure out just what was going on. And even though I told the person I spoke to what had transpired and who had helped me to set up an alernative booking she didn't notice the second reservation and told me that the only reservation I had was incomplete, and that I had to be rerouted to Gothenburg instead. She proceeded to delete the itinerary that had just been fixed. I learnt of this an hour and a half later when I double checked my email regarding a hotel reservation. My heart jumped, I feared that myticket was now double booked. I headed over to the SAS service desk immediately to make sure that this was not the case. It is not uncommon for double booked tickets to be deleted, leaving nothing behind.

The service desk was empty and not a soul in sight. I headed over to the lounge to inquire and was adviced to go seek out the public information telephone to reach the SAS ticketing office which was now on the other side of the security zone. Instead I got to the main switchboard of Luftfartsverket, a government agency who of course had nothing to do with SAS. She recommended I seek out a desk clerk at some random gate preparing a flight for take off; as if they'd have time with such a request. Amid all this we had to board for Copenhagen, so we were rushed onboard the plane. Once onboard we were adviced that we had received a slot time due to bad weather in Copenhagen and that we would have to wait an additional thirty minutes in Gothenburg before taking off. A lot of passengers got unnerved thinking about their onward connections, myself included. I did not fancy missing the Tokyo flight, since it would mean my domestic flight in Japan would be scrapped. My domestic ticket, which was a four step Japan AirPass ticket only purchasable abroad and non-changeable as well. However, as we arrived at Copenhagen Kastrup Airport I realized I did not have to worry about not getting onboard the SAS flight for Tokyo. That plane was delayed two and a half hours as well... The reason given? Apparently a completely different plane in Beijing had suffered a bird strike. Just exactly why that left us 8000 kilometers away two and a half hours on the ground sympathizing with them I guess I will never understand.

The Kastrup service center was crowded with tired Friday commuters awaiting information about their flights. They could not do anything for me. I would have to sit this one out, and then start panicking once we landed at Narita Airport, since ANA does not have any representative here. I called SAS again and once I had spent another 30 minutes waiting in line the guy at the service line told me that the Jonkoping ticket was gone and lost forever. There were a lot of nasty thought rushing though my brain at that moment. As we finally boarded for Narita at 6.15 pm my trip had really got off on the wrong foot.

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