To them, it was just good business.
To me, though, it meant a lot.

It was the summer of 2006, and to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the entire city of Salzburg was throwing a party. The world was invited. To assist in these celebrations, my friend- and his orchestra- were going to Salzburg to perform some of Mozart's works. I had tickets to the venue, and was required to make my own way to and from Salzburg.

I thought this was also a good chance for me to catch up with a friend, who now lived in Vienna.

So I booked my tickets, flying from Manchester, via Amsterdam, to Vienna, with KLM. I got the train tickets to Manchester Airport sorted, changing at Picadilly.

This is where things started to go wrong. My train from Sheffield to Manchester Picadilly was delayed, by 20 minutes. As the train pulled in to Manchester Picadilly, I watched as my connecting train to the airport left. Nevermind, this was an open ticket, I would get the next train to the airport.

And I did. The next train was an hour later. This was cutting deep into the comfortable timescale I'd set for myself.

Unfortunately, it wasn't good enough. I got to the terminal 20 minutes before take off, 5 minutes after boarding had finished. I explained the situation to the KLM lady at the desk, but she wasn't interested. I asked if I could exchange the ticket for another flight, but she said I couldn't. Fair enough, thought I, it does say non-exchangeable. I then asked if there were any other flights to Vienna that day, but she shooed me away, and quickly left the desk.

I was quite upset by this. I made phone calls to KLM, phone calls to my friend in Vienna, my hotel in Salzburg.. I was close to cancelling the entire journey, and trying to get back as much money as I could, when I heard an "excuse me!" coming from the desk I'd just been at.

Next to the KLM desk, was an Air France desk. The two ladies from Air France had overheard my situation, and while I was calling around, they had looked for flights to Vienna for me. They offered me either a flight via Paris the next day, with Air France, or a flight today, via Frankfurt, with Lufthansa. I opted for the Lufthansa flight.

The Air France ladies called through to their colleagues at Lufthansa. I had 30 minutes 'til the flight started boarding. I ran. The Lufthansa staff were very helpful, and very quick to take my money. They gave me directions to the gate, told me where to check my bags in to get through most quickly, and generally did everything short of hold my hand and take me to the plane.

I made it in good time. I had a fantastic time in Vienna, I went to the beautiful town of Zell am See, and attended a magnificent concert in Salzburg. In all, I had a very good time in Austria, after coming so close to not getting there at all.

I know it's a small thing, and I know it probably meant nothing more to the Air France and Lufthansa staff than just getting one more customer- but I'm still very thankful to them; it remains one of the nicest things ever done for me by relative strangers.
( Thinker, Mon 6 Oct 2008, 22:44, 1 reply)

and that KLM bird can go fuck herself.

Damnit... I'm flying with them later in the week :S
(tweebianmonkey Should be known as Widget, Tue 7 Oct 2008, 12:37, closed)