Couple go through airport nightmare
Michelle Watts and her husband Martin Watts had left Auckland bound for Doha and then on to London.
It started well for the couple with what she said was a routine departure from Auckland and a pleasant flight for 15 hours.
"The captain came on speaker and said we were landing in Muscat, in Oman, due to the security situation. Only a 20-minute warning before we landed," she said when contacted yesterday.
A quick web search soon revealed the reason for the change of landing — the Iranian missile strike on Qatar.
Iranian missiles targeted the largest United States military base in the Middle East, Al-Udeid, although no damage was reported.
The plane landed in Muscat and the passengers waited on the plane.
"We sat on the tarmac in the plane for four to five hours in Muscat before the all-clear and then took off and continued to Doha. We landed at around 2am.
"It was a little confusing but obviously we needed to rebook as we had missed our connecting flight. But every other plane arriving had a similar issue, so with the large number of planes arriving the rebooking system was completely overwhelmed by thousands of passengers.
"An eight-hour queue stood up, jostling and waiting for a rebooking."
They rebooked a flight and thought they were on their way to London.
"Once rebooked we felt much happier, only for the new scheduled flight to then be cancelled without explanation. So we had to start the process again and queued for 11 hours this time to rebook."
They were expecting to fly out last night [NZ time] for London after waiting for another five-plus hours.
She said there was no real tension at the airport regarding the missile attack but she was critical of the lack of a working system when things went off course.
"There was an awful lot of frustration at the rebooking system which was immensely slow and inefficient. It was a model of what happens when a possible/likely event is not planned for at all.
"We could make many suggestions for systems improvements, many of which were blindingly obvious.
"One or two angry passengers needed to be de-escalated by airport security. Staff were at all times pleasant and professional but clearly overwhelmed and not trained for such an event."
The couple hoped to get to London at 2pm today [UK time].
From there her husband had a conference lined up while she would be having a holiday. She was not planning to hang around airports.
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