London – Paris Orly – Nosy Be
I left London on Wednesday 19 May at 12.30pm on the EuroStar and as they owed me a ticket as compensation for the mess in the tunnel over Xmas (I’d been delayed by 2 days) at least I didn’t pay the £200 ticket to go over (1 journey being flexi – always useful in case of problems). I arrived in Paris at 3.45pm, got the RER to Anthony Station in good time (I seem to recall it took about 40 mins), then took the Orly Val (overground rail) for 13 mins and was very pleased with myself when I got to the Nouvelles Frontieres (“NF”) counter for 5pm when we had been advised to get there for 5.30pm for our check-in. The Corsairfly flight was due to leave Orly at 8pm, to arrive at Antananarivo (“Tana” for short as the locals call it) @ 11am or so. “The direct flight to Nosy Be had finished the week before”, we had been told, which meant we were going to waste more time staying overnight at Tana as we would have missed the connection to Nosy Be @ 8am. This was truly infuriating but past a certain point, Air Madagascar were banning direct flights so that they could increase their business by forcing all passengers to use their internal flights from Tana to Nosy Be.
So, I picked up my travel documents at the NF desk and headed for check-in. When I got there though I noticed that the flight was going via Nosy Be though which totally baffled me. I had no desire to go to Tana as such (there were having riots in certain parts of town that very day and 1 person had been killed). I asked if there was any chance I could get off at Nosy Be as it’s pretty much where I was going anyway but they said they couldn’t as my ticket was valid all the way to Tana.
Not one to be deflated, I went back up to the NF to question this fiasco and bumped into the couple who was booked on my trip. She was 52 I seem to recall and called Sylvie as well, and he was Patrick, 56 maybe and we struck up a rapport straight away as they had just been to check-in and were on my same wave length, questionning as well, why on earth we had paid £250 more to go to Tana and stay overnight in a 3* hotel when we could have got off at Nosy Be !!!
The rep for NF had no real answer except that Corsairfly’s website was obviously not updated properly and it looked as if the direct flight had been ‘cancelled’ one week before it actually was. He also said that as a rep would be waiting for us in Tana with all our travel documents, we now had to go to Tana anyway and back-track to Nosy Be next day ! We were not impressed but being just 3 of us, we felt our moans didn’t have much impact.
We went for a drink and a chat and then our separate way for a little while to explore the airport and knew we’d see each other again at the boarding gate. Our flight was first “delayed to 9pm”... then “delayed to 10pm” and then ... shock and horror “cancelled”... due to the flight “not being waterproof”. Hum. Back to NF... ‘now what do we do?’. The guy was pretty cool ‘don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll take off early afternoon which means you’ll still be able to make your connection for Nosy Be as you’ll be landing at 4am instead of 9am”. Easier said than done because unless we slept on the plane, we were going to be pretty wrecked on arrival and it was going to mean a much shorter night too... but still workable.
We were given vouchers for a night at the Ibis Hotel (within the airport) and vouchers for breakfast & lunch. No complaint on that one, the hotel was very comfy and the buffets just gorgeous (boy, French food is truly something else!). However, Corsairfly would not let us get our luggage back “to save time the next day, in order to leave as soon as possible”. So it’s a good thing I had a toothbrush on me and some make-up too. Patrick kindly lent me his comb (“as I have less hair than you do”), otherwise it’d have been tricky to wash my hair and I really needed to !
We had agreed to meet up for breakfast and then head back to the NF desk for 10am to get an update on the situation. When we got there, the guy said that unfortunately, the flight would now take off at 9pm, no longer 4pm, meaning we would definitely miss our connection to Nosy Be. This was no laughing matter since we only had a 7 day tour as it was and it was shrinking to five right in front of our eyes.... Considering I’d been waiting 4 years to make the trip I was just speechless and deflated... The other Sylvie being even more assertive than I was (must be something in the name !) really pushed for our being allowed to get off at Nosy Be. We had worked out between us that the only way we would not lose too much time would be to turn the itinerary on its head and instead of landing in Diego Suarez and driving down to Nosy Be, do the route in reverse. However, we would then need to get our luggage out of the security area and have them re-labelled as we didn’t really want to get off at Nosy Be and find our luggage went onto Tana ! Corsairfly agreed that, in view of our unusual circumstances they would retreive our luggage.
By then, we were getting seriously desperate to GO... I’d left work at 11am the previous day, it was now 24H later and I felt I’d barely moved.... Orly airport is not the most exciting airport in the world either so we went back to the hotel and chilled in the garden (it was a beautiful sunny day) and we were given more vouchers for use in the cafe upstairs. We were eating lots... but exercising very little... and I could feel myself ‘widen’ (not great for pictures me though as it always goes in my double chin, yuk).
At 9pm we eventually took off.... They served us more food on the plane (!) and then I just took a sleeping pill and dozed off. The plane wasn’t very full thankfully and we all managed to have 3 seats to ourselves which makes a huge difference when one tries to grab some sleep in a cramped space.
Corsairfly, as a ‘cheap’ airline, isn’t bad at all. Their return flights to Tana was around £700 (i.e. £300 cheaper than AF or Air Madagascar) and their seats were comfy, lots of leg room, nice staff, good food... but no control over the choice of movies. Still, they showed Avatar on the way out (by then I was out myself so I missed it) and Evictus and Sherlock Holmes on the way back. They also were quite happy to re-shuffle passengers to ensure that everybody was as comfortable as possible (i.e. everybody had 2 seats for good measure - to ‘spread’).
I left London on Wednesday 19 May at 12.30pm on the EuroStar and as they owed me a ticket as compensation for the mess in the tunnel over Xmas (I’d been delayed by 2 days) at least I didn’t pay the £200 ticket to go over (1 journey being flexi – always useful in case of problems). I arrived in Paris at 3.45pm, got the RER to Anthony Station in good time (I seem to recall it took about 40 mins), then took the Orly Val (overground rail) for 13 mins and was very pleased with myself when I got to the Nouvelles Frontieres (“NF”) counter for 5pm when we had been advised to get there for 5.30pm for our check-in. The Corsairfly flight was due to leave Orly at 8pm, to arrive at Antananarivo (“Tana” for short as the locals call it) @ 11am or so. “The direct flight to Nosy Be had finished the week before”, we had been told, which meant we were going to waste more time staying overnight at Tana as we would have missed the connection to Nosy Be @ 8am. This was truly infuriating but past a certain point, Air Madagascar were banning direct flights so that they could increase their business by forcing all passengers to use their internal flights from Tana to Nosy Be.
So, I picked up my travel documents at the NF desk and headed for check-in. When I got there though I noticed that the flight was going via Nosy Be though which totally baffled me. I had no desire to go to Tana as such (there were having riots in certain parts of town that very day and 1 person had been killed). I asked if there was any chance I could get off at Nosy Be as it’s pretty much where I was going anyway but they said they couldn’t as my ticket was valid all the way to Tana.
Not one to be deflated, I went back up to the NF to question this fiasco and bumped into the couple who was booked on my trip. She was 52 I seem to recall and called Sylvie as well, and he was Patrick, 56 maybe and we struck up a rapport straight away as they had just been to check-in and were on my same wave length, questionning as well, why on earth we had paid £250 more to go to Tana and stay overnight in a 3* hotel when we could have got off at Nosy Be !!!
The rep for NF had no real answer except that Corsairfly’s website was obviously not updated properly and it looked as if the direct flight had been ‘cancelled’ one week before it actually was. He also said that as a rep would be waiting for us in Tana with all our travel documents, we now had to go to Tana anyway and back-track to Nosy Be next day ! We were not impressed but being just 3 of us, we felt our moans didn’t have much impact.
We went for a drink and a chat and then our separate way for a little while to explore the airport and knew we’d see each other again at the boarding gate. Our flight was first “delayed to 9pm”... then “delayed to 10pm” and then ... shock and horror “cancelled”... due to the flight “not being waterproof”. Hum. Back to NF... ‘now what do we do?’. The guy was pretty cool ‘don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll take off early afternoon which means you’ll still be able to make your connection for Nosy Be as you’ll be landing at 4am instead of 9am”. Easier said than done because unless we slept on the plane, we were going to be pretty wrecked on arrival and it was going to mean a much shorter night too... but still workable.
We were given vouchers for a night at the Ibis Hotel (within the airport) and vouchers for breakfast & lunch. No complaint on that one, the hotel was very comfy and the buffets just gorgeous (boy, French food is truly something else!). However, Corsairfly would not let us get our luggage back “to save time the next day, in order to leave as soon as possible”. So it’s a good thing I had a toothbrush on me and some make-up too. Patrick kindly lent me his comb (“as I have less hair than you do”), otherwise it’d have been tricky to wash my hair and I really needed to !
We had agreed to meet up for breakfast and then head back to the NF desk for 10am to get an update on the situation. When we got there, the guy said that unfortunately, the flight would now take off at 9pm, no longer 4pm, meaning we would definitely miss our connection to Nosy Be. This was no laughing matter since we only had a 7 day tour as it was and it was shrinking to five right in front of our eyes.... Considering I’d been waiting 4 years to make the trip I was just speechless and deflated... The other Sylvie being even more assertive than I was (must be something in the name !) really pushed for our being allowed to get off at Nosy Be. We had worked out between us that the only way we would not lose too much time would be to turn the itinerary on its head and instead of landing in Diego Suarez and driving down to Nosy Be, do the route in reverse. However, we would then need to get our luggage out of the security area and have them re-labelled as we didn’t really want to get off at Nosy Be and find our luggage went onto Tana ! Corsairfly agreed that, in view of our unusual circumstances they would retreive our luggage.
By then, we were getting seriously desperate to GO... I’d left work at 11am the previous day, it was now 24H later and I felt I’d barely moved.... Orly airport is not the most exciting airport in the world either so we went back to the hotel and chilled in the garden (it was a beautiful sunny day) and we were given more vouchers for use in the cafe upstairs. We were eating lots... but exercising very little... and I could feel myself ‘widen’ (not great for pictures me though as it always goes in my double chin, yuk).
At 9pm we eventually took off.... They served us more food on the plane (!) and then I just took a sleeping pill and dozed off. The plane wasn’t very full thankfully and we all managed to have 3 seats to ourselves which makes a huge difference when one tries to grab some sleep in a cramped space.
Corsairfly, as a ‘cheap’ airline, isn’t bad at all. Their return flights to Tana was around £700 (i.e. £300 cheaper than AF or Air Madagascar) and their seats were comfy, lots of leg room, nice staff, good food... but no control over the choice of movies. Still, they showed Avatar on the way out (by then I was out myself so I missed it) and Evictus and Sherlock Holmes on the way back. They also were quite happy to re-shuffle passengers to ensure that everybody was as comfortable as possible (i.e. everybody had 2 seats for good measure - to ‘spread’).
posted by Sylvie at 9:51 PM
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