Paying for a Flight and Catching the Ferry

I missed my flight to Montserrat yesterday. Four other people and me. I know it is a risk flying with BA because if the flight leaves later than scheduled then you know you are going to miss the connection. Yesterday we took off an hour late from London and arrived 90 minutes late in Antigua, meaning I didn’t get to the Fly Montserrat check-in until 5.00pm, the time the flight was meant to leave. They didn’t wait for us. Fortunately, there was a ferry running so we all go back here in the end.

So, my journey home was: train-tube-train-plane- taxi-boat-taxi-car. But I’m here. Obviously, I know that flying with BA is a gamble, and a very expensive one on this particular occasion as Fly Montserrat was charging an eye-watering US$160 for the flight.  It still worked out cheaper than flying with Virgin as their transatlantic prices this week were horrendous, but it was still a costly journey and took 20 hours.  Hopefully, I won’t have to do it again for a while.

I know that aeroplanes don’t wait, but what bugged me slightly was the fact that Fly Montserrat do change my flight times when it suits them. Before now I have had a phone call at short notice telling me that they want me to come to the airport immediately as they are leaving early, been moved to a morning flight when my connecting flight is in the evening (twice), and the plane from Antigua has left early, meaning I have to wait for my lift for half an hour at the other end.

Half an hour is long enough to catch a connecting flight if you have booked straight through and I have done this before on other journeys. In Frankfurt, I’ve been rushed through security to get a connection when the arriving plane was late and, in Dublin, did a change in 60 minutes despite long queues at the US immigration desk they have there. That was very stressful even though the plane arrived on time. I’ve been told that it is too expensive to book straight through to Montserrat, but it can be inconvenient. We were lucky that there was an extra St Patrick’s ferry.

To make it worse, the ferry was delayed. Immigration announced that they had processed one less person than the ticket office had sold tickets.  It took half an hour to sort that out, and we didn’t start boarding until after the ferry was meant to have left.  I’m not sure what the problem was but we eventually boarded one by one as they called our names out.  I got some sleep though.

I’m sure there are technical reasons why the plane can’t wait for half an hour (although these don’t seem to apply when they want to leave early). Fly Montserrat also advises that you take out travel insurance to cover the cost of missing a flight, and will book you on another, at a cost of US$35, if you do it before the check-in time.  I have done this before, emailing from Gatwick, but it means an overnight stay if you are booked on the last flight. If it is a ferry day then the cost of the ferry is only US$20 more than the price of changing the flight time, plus the cost of a taxi at each end.

It seems to be an unresolvable problem. I could try SVG, but their website never seems to be working, and I need to be able to book both flights together. I’m sure the situation would be the same for them anyway. I will try to fly with Virgin in future, although they don’t fly every day and can sometimes be more expensive. So what I am considering doing is applying to Fly Montserrat the charge for changing flight times that they charge customers.

“Can you go to the gate now as we are leaving early” No problem. Can you pay me in EC Dollars?

“Can you get to the airport now, as we want to go early”. That’s fine, I only take cash though.

“We’ve moved you onto the 11.30 flight, so you need to come now”. OK, that’ll be US$35, plus the cost if a meal and wi-fi at Antigua airport.

It seems reasonable to me.