Friday - 20 July 2018

Our work at home is done, so we are ready to return to Spain and continue our journey. Today, however it was a bit of a challenge.

The alarm went off at 5:20, (deliberate but not welcome), and we were up and ready to be taken to the airport at 06:30, with our home prepared for a period of absence.  Initially all went well, safe arrival at Heathrow in good time, and an on-time departure for Madrid.

When we arrived in Madrid, we had several hours to kill but managed to find a comfortable cafe to sit in. We went to the gate and despite a bit of a scrum, everyone was soon on board, strapped in and ready to take off. At this point there was an announcement that there was a problem with the brakes on the plane and we would all have to disembark while they were fixed, which would take 1.5 - 2 hours. By this time it was well after the planned departure time and it was clear to us that we would not make our onward connections and would need overnight accommodation in La Coruna. We joined a large queue of people for help(?) from the customer services desk. Eventually, and before we had reached the front of the queue, we saw that our flight was being boarded again, so having booked a hotel ourselves, we left the queue and got back on the plane. Knowing that our son Chris was following us and expecting to have to stay in La Coruna overnight, we chose the same hotel as him. At about the time we boarded we got a consoling message from him saying his flight was also shown as delayed.

The rest of our journey was uneventful, the repaired breaks clearly worked, and we arrived back in La Coruna at about the time the last bus was due to leave, 2 steps later in the journey. It would have been nice if the airline had made some sort of apology. We headed for the hotel and went out for tapas at a local cafe recommended by the receptionist.

On our return, Chris told us that his flight had been cancelled and he was trying to re-plan his trip. This was not proving easy and the airline staff were not doing a good job of helping. We think that Chris was due to be an the same plane as we were, and the earlier delay had meant that they had run out of operating hours to fly in. It means that Chris will loose probably 2 days of his time with us, and only arrive on Sunday night.  Further updates to follow.

We are not impressed with the various Iberian elements of IAG at the moment.

Distance covered today	0	nautical miles
Trip distance covered	0	nautical miles
Distance covered 2018	1451	nautical miles

Steve (and Tricia)