Woman Overboard, Delays, Compensation - Is This Good News?

Problem
A woman fell or jumped overboard from a cruise ship off Croatia in August 2018. She was miraculously rescued ten hours later. Ten hours in the water! On Facebook a friend reported that somebody was claiming compensation for two days delay in Venice. The comment was, Lucky or not.

Lucky for the woman being picked up from the water. However, as for the delay, at first sight it could be good news for some.

What could go wrogn, go wrong, go wrong?
I wrote:

Lucky to sit in the sun. Lucky to postpone going home. Not so lucky if you have to sit all day in the hall waiting for the call, because the coach to a ferry or plane or muster point might collect you any time they arrange it.

I remember one year when we were on a flight from the USA at Xmas. We were on an American airline leaving American soil, so we knew our rights for compensation, or at least our fellow passengers did. On a flgight into the USA, or on another airline from outside the USA, the rules might be different. Check the latest.

The flight was overbooked and the airline staff made repeated requests for volunteers to be bumped. The compensation was a free flight. Plus, of course, a free night in an airport or city suburb or city centre hotel, but we were in transit, in a cold city, where good restaurants were all fully booked, and would miss a day of our short Xmas break in the Caribbean by the beach.

As the compensation increased, still not enough volunteers. As our hours of delay increased, I asked the people next to me why they had not rushed to volunteer. You'd think there would be a Ruby scrum of people fighting to get the free return ticket.

I heard these stories:
1 'I can't extend my long weekend break and take time off next week. I'm a surgeon and have operations booked. I would lose a lot of money, lose my reputation for reliability, and endanger seriously sick people.'

2 'I don't want to lose a day of my holiday. I can't take another day off. I am a teacher. I have to be back in school teaching my class. I can't abandon 30 children and upset them and their parents and the head teacher organizing a supply teacher, which costs the school more money.' (Again, she had to consider her own reputation for reliability, not to take a free holiday at the expense of being responsible to the pupils, parents, and staff.)

3 I am seeing my fiancee for a long weekend. We haven't seen each other for months. We had a special celebratory dinner planned for tomorrow. We'd miss the dinner and we wouldn't get our money back for the missed dinner.

4 What makes you think they will get you on tomorrow's flight? It will be overbooked like this one - with all the extra passengers bumped off today's flight as well?

We ended up getting a free flight.

On another occasion we were unavoidably delayed coming back from a beach resort to our home city. It sounded great. Unfortunately, I was dressed for the destination, Cold London, England, at Christmas. So I was plodding around a tropical hotel in boots and long socks, warm clothes and a coat.

The swimming pool looked lovely.

However, I had no swimsuit.

We had spent all our cash at the airport. At the hotel, for small items we could not pay with a credit card.

From then on we always made sure to carry onto planes: spare underwear, a swimsuit, and a book to read. I don't spend every last cent. I keep it for the next journey.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. (Please share links to your favourite posts.)

How To Unpack Efficiently: Everything From Food to Laundry, Keys, Passports and Suitcases

Suitcases
Check you have all your suitcases, coats, bags of souvenirs and food and drink. If anything is still in the boot or your car bring it out. Anything left behind in the taxi - phone immediately. (Always get a receipt so you can phone the correct cab company and identify the taxi and time if anything is lost.)

Check for damage to suitcases in case you need compensation. Photograph, phone and write immediately.

Wash off or wipe off stains on fabric and dirt on wheels. Place note on the handle of any bag which has damaged handle or damaged wheels so that you can avoid that case on your next business trip when you need to look smart, or don't want to spend time lugging an awkward bag.

Alternatively take it for repair. Go online to check for a replacement suitcase well in advance of your next trip. Or use damaged, torn or stained item on a trip where further damage might occur.

Problems
Wet Swimsuits
Sometimes you arrive home in a flurry and forget your wet clothes. In the tropics, Singapore, I swim all year daily. When we were when living as ex-pats in Rockville, Maryland,  I swam daily. I had to rotate swimsuits.

Make sure the wet one was always drying in the same place. Otherwise I would be delaying everybody, or postponing my swim and finding the afternoon rain had started. In a thunderstorm - you might be willing to risk it but pool attendants insist you vacate the pool for your own safety and to set an example to children.

In Europe we return from the gym daily or pool or from jogging with wet swimsuits and sweat-soaked tee-shirts. Once, after a holiday, I discovered a wet swimming costume in a suitcase, three weeks later. It smelled terrible, was stained green and black. My brand new costume!

If I washed it in a washing machine, that might destroy the elastic. The alternative was to throw it away. That was not an alternative. So I threw it straight in the washing machine, holding it with a disposable bag. I didn't want to touch it or distribute the spores around the kitchen.

After one wash it looked, clearn. It was clean enough to handle but too smelly to wear.

After a second wash it smelled all right when held at arms length. But not right when sniffed close up. Other people might not notice. But I still did not want it next to my skin.

After the third wash it was restored.

FOOD
After other trips, even just to a local restaurant, I have found food going off in my bag the next day or a week afterwards.

DRINK
Half-opened bottle contents may need finishing or go in the fridge. New wines should be stored horizontal if in bottles with corks to keep the cork moist and prevent shrinkage which would let air get in and eventually turn the wine off. Store wines in a cool dark place, out of reach of children and out of sight of the public and passers-by, ideally under lock and key to prevent theft.

I now have a mental checklist. If I am really tired, I make a physical checklist on the train or plane home so I can just follow it when I fall through the door.

MILK
If you bought milk at the airport or en route put it in the fridge. If you have saved milk cartons from an airlines meal, a hotel bedroom, or from coffee on the train, you can use that to make a decaff coffee or tea for yoursel of others.

KEYS
As you leave the hotel, check you have handed them their key.

Check the key to get into your home is handy in an inside pocket, not still packed in the lid of one of your five suitcases. If you are collecting your car from the airport, check the car key and any paperwork you need are in your pcoket or bag.

Check And Record Location Of Your Stored Tickets, Passport
Have a set place for your passport, especially if it is cocnealed in a drwwer ,box, suitcase, cover. I once lost my pasort which I had left inside the lid of my suitcase because i thought that way i could nto rush off without it. I cancelled my trip because I could not find my passport in the study drawer.

On another ocasion I was given a pretty silver passport cover, free with a magazine. A few weeks later, I looked everywhere for my passport. I could not find it. I missed a trip to France.

Later that year, I was diligently checking every notebook, writing the contents, the year, the trip, or EMPTY, on the front of empty notebooks, with post-its, to find empty notebooks to take on future trips, when I found the missing passport.

Why Keep Tickets?
Do not throw away your plane or train tickets until you have taken a photo, and/or noted where they are stored. (eg, left of middle shelf on bookcase, in study / in red box file on top bookshelf marked New York Trip documents).

Why? You might need your plane ticket to claim airmiles, or check they have all been registered. You might need your train ticket, eg in the UK for one month afterwards to claim about ten per cent of the fare back as compensation for delay over half an hour.

It may be saving paper to leave everything on line. Perhaps you can photograph the vital line or reference numbr and print that. When you reach the check in point and your phone is out of battery because of the flight delay, or no reception, you will find it handy to have the reference.

When you reach home and thre eof you turn to each other and ask, "Who's got the door key handy?", you want to be the efficient, reliable person who says, "I have - here you are!"

(Hint. Do not give your key to somebody else who can now lose both the keys. Open the door for them and replace your key where you know where it is.)

UNPACKING CHECKLIST
1 KEYS
a)  Check house keys.
Leave them in the ouseide of the door, or back in your pocket, or leave the door on the latch when unlocading suitcases from the car.
Did you  remove them from the front door?
Are they back in your pocket or bag or on the hook or table for when you rush to the shops for milk or off to work or social engagement or to see the family?

2 Check Other keys.
b) Keys to your home, keys to your second home, or office.
c) Car keys. Hire car keys.

2 DOCUMENTS
Plane tickets.
Train tickets.
Visas and expiry. (You don't want to pay for another visa when yours still has another year on it.)
3 Check passports and train and plane tickets. You might save on the cost of a visa by bringing your next weekend away forward a week or two.

3 FOOD
Check all carrier bags and handbags, pcokets and suitcases for food. Put it away in the fridge. (Or eat immediately.) If food is likely to go off, write a Post-it note on the front of the fridge to remidn yourself and others what to finish first.

4 CLOTHES TO WASH
Some people keep dirty clothes in a labelled wash bag, or a laundry bag saved from a hotel. Other systems are:
Turn dirty clothes inside out; keep in a bag.
List items you have worn, or check them on your packing list. (This tells you what to wash this time, and what to take instead next time so colleagues see different outfits. Alterantively, it tells you to take the clothes on your worn and washed list, leave behind the clothes you didn't wear on this trip, next time you pack for that desitnation.

5 UNPACK EVERYTHING
If you are too tired, you could use the one item an hour system. Every hour, or every time you walk past your suitcase, remove one item. When you are near the end, the task won't seem to overwhlming. Another system is to tip everything onto your bed. You have to clear it all by bedtime.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and phtographer, author and speaker. Please bookmark and share links to your favourite posts.

Nuts On Planes - Is Banning Possible, Practical?

Problems
The problem for the mother is that her child is allergic to nuts. She asks an airline to desist from selling or supplying nuts and to announce that passengers should refrain from eating nuts.

The problems for the airline is that they cannot guarantee a nut-free plane and don't want to risk inconveniencing passengers, a medical emergency, a diverted flight costing passengers and airline money and risking the nut allergy sufferer's life.

The problem for other passengers is that they cannot eat nuts which sustain them, especially if they have diabetes. Alternative snacks do not proved calories in a fast sustaining way and nuts are natural but crisps are reputedly bad for health. They may have only nuts in their pocket and not want to buy alternative foods (especially if they are vegan). The nuts in their pocket may already be opened, forgotten, or pockets may have crumbs.

Nuts are in many other foods, such as chocolate bars, peanut butter sandwiches (technically peanuts are not nuts but it seems they may contain nuts or items affecting allergies), cereals.

On land a medical emergency can be dealt with by calling an ambulance fast. In flight medical help is not a v a i l a b l e.

Costs
An airline might not want to carry a mother who is l i t i g i o u s (included to go to law). The airline might want to avoid conflict between a nut allergy mother and a diabetic or drunk.

Passengers speaking minority languages might not understand the announcements. Older and/or hard of hearing passengers might not her announcements.

An ongoing or quick return flight might not be cleaned and people on previous flights might have left sweet wrappers.

A quick stopover without cleaning or a quick stopover with cleaning means some parts of the aircraft may contain sweet wrappers.

By the time the announcement is made some pope may already be eating nuts or have nuts in pockets. They might quickly finish their nuts, hide or throw away the wrapper, and wash their hands leaving
t r a c e s of nuts on the toilet taps.

Answers
The mother(s) say(s) that:
They carry an e p i p e n  and doctor's letter. (Spaces to prevent spell checker changing words.)

Some airlines make an announcement asking passengers not to eat nuts.

The mothers can book flights on a ferry and sit on top deck breathing fresh air far from people eating food.

The airline could ban nuts in one section of the plane, make an area or a class (such as economy or business or first class) banning nuts. (But the problem is that the air circulates the traces.)

A notice could be placed on both all airline advertising and the airline ticket saying that the flight may contain nuts and nut allergy passengers must inform the airline, fly at their own risk, and are responsible for any costs incurred by themselves or others.

The passengers should take a course of treatment to cure allergies.

Conclusion
Passenger Safety
It seems to me that if a passenger cannot survive without being near medical attention involving a diversion of a flight, they could / should take alternative transport.

If pregnant women in late term are banned, people with other conditions can or should be banned.

A person requesting an announcement needs to have it translated in numerous languages.

Announcements could / should end with a request to remain silent during announcements made in other languages.

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

UK delayed train compensation

In the UK look for leaflets and websites and news articles explaining your rights to compensation and how to claim if you paid for a journey which is cancelled or delayed. You may need to keep a ticket or photocopy of it and a record of the time your train should have departed and reached destination and when it did so.
   Why would anybody want to cancel their journey or claim compensation? Restaurants often give away your booked table if you're late. Some restaurants allow you 15 minutes. Other  only five.
   Apple Store's one hour one to one lessons told me that you are allowed to be only six minutes late. A business meeting or job interview may be cancelled. Or you might not get the business or job. Your date standing waiting under the station clock to meet you will have given up and gone home. There's a limit to the number of cups of coffee and bags of crisps you can consume.