The Region of Murcia is about to open their new international airport. An airport that will connect their tomatoes and caldero to the blue eyed people with thick wallets. Today's option to be trapped in the Mediterranean Cancun of La Manga, is to drive 40 min to Alicante Airport.
But what happens if you are not one of these whitesocks+sandals kind of guy? What if your reason to eat plane food (if any) is to actually produce rather than consume? Well ... Good luck. When you look at the number of flights available from those touristic airports to business destinations it rather pathetic. And I'm afraid to Murcia wont be an exception.
Maybe I'm just saying this because I am sitting in a city that I never intended to travel to and because my 3 hours flight has turned into a 24 hours one. How can things go so wrong? Well... They can. But what really makes a difference is the people's will to solve problems (rather than create more) and options to choose from. Spanish airlines and Spanish airports offers very little of both.
Let me just tell you what happened yesterday.
While waiting for boarding to my flight from Copenhagen to Barcelona, I noticed that the incoming fligth was retaining the passangers in the aircraft for over an hour. Which meant we would be late. Again.
When they finally came out, I learned that one of the ground staff did break the plane door. Which made it very hard to open and impossible to close. "A plane with no door=no good" (you dont need to be a frequent flier to know that).
After much deliveration, the over qualified and undermanned SAS staff shouted some confussing directions about going to the next gate and board to Madrid flight. "oh no" - i thought
Not that I dont like Madrid. But when you only have 2 days to spend with your loved ones before you need to start dealing with this again, it's not such a good idea to start your trip this way. Plus the 177 passagers on BCN would never fit on the other fligth. But for some reason I made it. This is going to be Ok, I thougth. First mistake.
The boarding of the selected ones took nearly 2 hours. Must have been the undermanned and this time not so qualified SAS staff. Plus the confussion of what to do with the luggage of BCN fligth. Needless to say, the cabin crew were super polite and service minded during this Spanair tapperware meeting. And very reasuring about everyones connecting flight. lol
The fact that I have been in these situations far too many times and that I had online flight search, made me doubt that. The chances that I would manage a connection to Alicante or Murcia were at best, slim. For hose sleepy, go back to the beginning of this post.
So a few thousand miles , a few nintendo screens (thanks to my underaged companion) and a few peanuts later, I landed in Madrid.
One could think that they had enough time to organise all the connections. The fact is that they had. But for some reason. They didn't. I was left in an empty terminal and the reasurement that , as a ground staff told me: "Be aware: you will not flight today"
So they offered me a flight the day after. There was stil some late flights, but they argued its only Iberia and they are too far away in another terminal (?????).
Anyway. I could manage to enjoy my godsons birthday celebrations at Madrid casinos and jump on this other plane (already 45 min delayed) one day later
And now I enjoy my sofa with both my little ones on my lap making it hard to finish this post before I need to start packing again. I have the feeling that Murcia will lose another business traveller very soon ;)
