Traffic Chaos For Christmas

I suppose that we should be grateful for some things when it comes to travel, especially at Christmastime.

When I booked our flights to Florida for Christmas some weeks ago, there were no direct flights to be had from London, well at least not for the sort of price that anyone but the most desperate would be prepared to pay.   Two weeks ago I just happened to look and see what was available, and for the same price, there were direct flights from London to Miami and back with British Airways, leaving at a better time and best of all arriving in Miami 5 hours before we are due to land, which makes a big difference when travelling on Christmas Eve.

So I was a little frustrated to find that we could have had better flights, especially for the same price, but then yesterday the news was filled with the story of British Airways staging a strike for the Twelve Days Of Christmas, which is going to cause traffic chaos and grief for many thousands of travellers worldwide.   I am just so grateful now that we are traveling with American Airlines, who seem to have had few strikes over the years, and on all the flights that I have had with them, which some years were as many as 80, I rarely had a problem.

The news last night was full of stories of people who were set to fly with British Airways on honeymoon, or to see family and friends for Christmas, or who booked other once in a lifetime holidays, and now those dreams have been shattered, thanks to the thoughtless employees at British Airways.

I do sympathise with the fact that the employees have grievances, but I am never sympathetic when anyone does something that inconveniences thousands of people.   I know that if I suffered with cancelled flights due to something like this, I would be highly unlikely to travel with that airline again, so to add to their financial problems, I would imagine that British Airways are going to feel the pinch a lot more in the coming year, as passengers switch to other airlines.

So far our plans for Christmas are going ok, but we are both still concerned about getting through immigration without a problem, after Debbie’s experiences last time, and of course with it being winter you never know when old man weather is going to play his trump card either.

Do you have any travel experiences or horror stories to share?  We would love to hear about them…