Flights To Europe

We drove to Logan Airport in Boston for our flight to London. Check-in went by without any issues. We had lunch before security which was pretty good and then headed to our gate. The TSA were fine this time. I had to go through the full body scanner, but this time didn’t have to have a second screening as I did last June – although I was waiting to. The one main issue we had was when we were boarding our flight. We were supposed to pre-board, but the Virgin Atlantic staff in Boston were very stupid and only let us board when they started general boarding and I complained.

The flight to London was fine. This time there were bathrooms in our section and we didn’t have to walk 20 aisles back. Also the entertainment system was not on a loop so you could see whatever you wanted whenever you wanted to. One thing I thought was funny was that the pilot said that London was having white-out conditions with lots of snow and when we landed there was barely an inch (you could still see the grass.)

We had no issues going through British Immigration, except for the long walk from the gate. Then we had to take the underground tunnel from Terminal 1 to 3 with our bags and the wheelchair. No one was willing to help us. We had several hours to wait in London and had breakfast. We tried to get on an earlier Lufthansa flight to Munich, but they were having a lot of cancellations and delays because of the snow and so we had to wait.

When we finally checked in with Lufthansa the guy there told us to go to the Special Assistance desk after security for help. We did and they were not helpful and pretty rude. The section where they were was very depressing with the elderly and disabled just left anywhere.

The one thing I hate about Heathrow is that they don’t tell you which gate you have to go to until about 30 minutes before your flight so you have to stay in the general waiting area (which was very crowded since many flights were cancelled due to the weather.) Our flight was delayed and when they finally told us the gate number we headed to it only to find a bunch of stairs with no elevators. The other passengers – Germans - (taking the same flight as us) simply left us and didn’t even try to help. I went into the BMI lounge which was right by the stairs to see if they could call someone for us and the woman there was a complete witch - with a capital B. She wouldn’t do anything to help and even threatened to have us removed from our flight. I really let her have it. We eventually got down the stairs and down several more levels to our gate – through no help from anyone else. At the gate I told the Lufthansa guy what an awful experience we had just gone through and he made it out to be our fault. I had a mini-scene and let them know what I thought. According the EU Regulations it is the responsibility of the airline to contact the airport about special assistance and not the passengers – that fact was overlooked by both Lufthansa and Heathrow. I have never flown BMI before and was thinking about it for our next trip to Russia, but after that stupid woman I won’t ever fly them.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. When we landed in Munich the airport staff there helped us and were very friendly. We had no issues through German Immigration and found our driver who took us to our hotel in the center of the city.