Well, sitting here in Terminal 7 at JFK, waiting for our BA flight to London Heathrow I can attest that the last +36 hours have been a bit 'emotional'.
We found out at very short notice, i.e. actually whilst waiting, booted & suited in our uniform in the hotel lobby for our crew transport from our Ottawa hotel over to the cities airport (
to operate the return UK flight), that the transport would not be coming... due to the collapse of Zoom Inc also dragging down Zoom Ltd. We had absolutely no inkling that this was on the cards. It was most definitely a shock (
much tears), along with the speed of this demise.
After a moderately lengthy wait (
one can imagine that it was a tadge chaotic at back at home base), it was decided that the best course of action, i.e. to expidite our UK return, would be to go by road from Ottawa to JFK (
as there more UK flights from JFK)- a journey of 480 miles, which took us exactly 10 hours in a minibus through the night (
i.e. leaving at 7pm and arriving at 5am).
Here at JFK we joined up with some other Zoom Cabin Crew (
whom had been stranded off a New York trip), and were fortunate enough get ourselves booked (
sub-load basis) on to Virgin Atlantic - courtesy of much work behind the scene between Zoom Ltd & Virgin Atlantic (
albeit that the New York crew had been 'bumped' once, or twice?, all ready; and that you couldn't pick a worse weekend to for air travel if you tried, as a great many flights - especially VA's - are chockablock full / overbooked).
People worthy of mention in this tale include:
- The folks still working behind the scenes at Zoom who are trying to sort something out this mess for both stranded passengers and stranded crew - and with bugger all money available to do so, and suffering from systems which are being closed down as I type.
- The hotel manager at the Southway Inn in Ottawa who kindly provided us with a gratis 'day-room' whilst we came up with plan 'A'.
- Luis, the Southway Inn's consierge who greatly assisted in sorting our overland transport.
- The the transport company (name escapes me, it's been a v.long 2 days) who magic'd up a minibus & driver at incredibly short notice.
- Our minibus driver, Michael, who drove us safely for 10 hours through the night to JFK. A rocky steady rock solid bloke.
- The folks at Vigrin Atlantic who've been helping assist with repatriating us (albeit that their a/c might be a tadge over-full this weekend.... it's still the thought that counts).
- To BA, who agreed to accept our Virgin Atlantic tickets, given that BA has some spare seats tonight (and that VA was probably going to be full, which would result in us still being stranded).
- To Zoom's Operations Director, (MS) who decided that enough-was-enough and organised (from own pocket?) firm-seat tickets with BA for all the crew stranded in JFK (especially so given that Iceland Air has cancelled it's flight and is now code-sharing their flight with BA, and therein it suddenly looked like we were going to get bumped off BA unless we had 'firm seat' tickets). Bravo Malcolm!
- To the BA cabin crew folks whom will be serving the crew & I copious G&T's et al on our way home tonight... cheers in advance, hic.
I'm sure that similar heriocs are being conducted at many locales by Zoom Crew, plus facilitating airlines and associated industries.
I'm confident when I say that I & my crew will be
VERY relieved to be home tomorrow morning, even if it is into a somewhat changed world of job searching and belt tightening.
TTFN,
OKC
Ps. Since Virgin Media kindly barred / blocked our Captain's mobile phone's earlier today, it's been the devils own job trying to keep comms open with our LGW Ops and has caused serious inconvenience (
& cost) to people whom are stuck overseas and who have just lost their jobs through no fault of their own! Nice one Virgin Media, NOT!
PPs. 'Air Canada' should hang their heads in shame.
Keen to avoid the journey to JFK if at all possible, we personally went to the airport in Ottawa to to see if Air Canada might assist us (
veritably as a crew in their hour of need) in repatriating some (
or even all?) of us on their London service yesterday evening?
Oh they had seats alright, indeed plenty for all of us, but the deal we were offered was... now get this?!...
"Just the Captain & the F/O, but not the Cabin Crew".
So we agreed that the F/O should go (
it's one less person after all to have to repatriate) and that I would stay with the Cabin Crew, i.e. to ensure their proper & safe return to the UK... and hence our 10 hour dash to JFK.
So Air Canada, imho, you are a bunch of first class A1 tossers!