well it is loooooooong how much time do you have??
In brief Dec 2002 I was on a work trip to 5 African countries with a colleague. Our flights in and out of Africa were on Lufthansa (economy class).
First problem was that when we arrived at our first destination - Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, we found our luggage had not made it onto our connecting flight in Frankfurt. It was Saturday night when we arrived and we were told that our lugage would arrive on the next flight which was on Monday night. As we had to work Monday morning we were not impressed!
There was no Lufthansa representative at the Airport at that time for us to speak to about it (not surprising in Addis). We made several calls to the airline the enxt morning before speaking to someone who told us they would give us US$100 each as compensation and that we could collect this from the airline desk when we went back to collect our luggage. We asked if they could deliver the luggage to our hotel, they siad NO, due to airport security. WHATEVER! So we had Sunday afternoon to find some clothes. Our work contact in Addis kindly arranged a taxi to take us to the one clothes shop open on a Sunday. Needless to say the shop was overpriced, aimed at the higher echelons of Addis Ababa society (yes there are rich people there too, not just famine and war victims) and everything was size "tiny" so all I managed to get was a really ugly wrapround skirt and I think my colleague ended up just buying some undies.
Anyway ............ Monday night we persuaded the hotel to arrange a car to take us to the airport again to get our bags. (This being the Sheraton all they had was a stretch limo god did we feel stupid!!). So finally got the bags then went to hunt down the Lufthansa rep. She dodged us all over the terminal, I kid you not, we literally had to run her into a corner at which time she finally admitted she did not have our money and asked us to come back the enxt night. I blew my top and finally she managed to scrape up $200 in cash from somewhere. So episode 1 finally over.
Episode 2 occured on our flight out of Accra, Ghana (one of my favourite parts of the world by the way, beautiful beaches, very cheap) back to London, via Lagos, Nigeria. While our flight was making its scheduled stop in Lagos a fault was found in one of the engines so the flight was grounded. It was late at night and they had no way of getting the parts needed to make the necessary repair. Fair enough. But the way we were treated by the airline was outrageous. It was about 11pm by the time they decided to ground the flight and it was an hour after that before they started sending people to hotels for the night. Somehow my colleage and I ended up in a group of about 10 who were left to the end so finally at about 1am we were told all 3 star hotels were full and they would look for a 2 star. Several of us said SOD THAT MATE take us to the 4 or 5 star!! Lufthansa refused. I then asked if we could all use the telephone to call home to let people know of our delay in travelling. At first they said NO to this again at which point I put on my lawyers hat and started reading the mthe riot act. So then they grudgingly allowed us 1 phone call each, I had to waste mine calling our boss. The more hanging around and arguing with the Lufthansa rep about hotels. finally we were shephered int oam ini bus and driven to god knows where miles away and told this is your hotel ..... um well I won't tell you what this place looked like from the outside but I have seen cleaner pig stys. So then the drivr took us back to the frgging airport where the Lufthansa rep told him to take us to another hotel. By htis time it was 3 am. The next hotel was also disgusting but at this time of night we really had no choice. My colleague and I had to share a bed (!! thank god we are friends as well!!) and we also had to share a room with 2 other girls from the flight.
We were told someone from the airline would come by the next day and collect us. Yeah right! Of course no-one showed up. Then around midday some guy in a van came to the hotel delivering water. One of the other guys from the flight offered him US$5 to take us to the airport and he agreed. So we sat in the back of his van, on these massive water vats, no ventillation for about 1/2 hour in sweltering temperatures of god knows what. Once back at the airport more hanging around for about 5 hours then we were given Lufthansa vouchers as compensation - 500 euros each.
In between all this, I had managed to hcarge up my work cellphone at the hotel and rang Stu (who was still living in CA at this point, in fact we had only met in person once). He immediately got on the phone to Lufthansa Frankfurt who didn't want to know but at least he got to swear at them in German!!. Then he contacted my work to tell them all the above - who then rebooked us immediately on a BA flight.
So we finally got out of there on BA. Fully intended to write a huge letter of complaint to Lufthansa but with work pressure never got around to it and I doubt they would have given us any more compensation anyway. No way would I ever go on Lufthansa again. Used my vouchers to buy Stu a return flight to London to visit me!
I'm exhausted all over again just thinking about it!
