As I was about to leave for Cardiff Airport this morning for a flight to Zurich, using the new Air Helvetica service, Pauline popped in to feed Ben, thinking we'd left yesteday. We had a quick tea and a chat before she drove me to meet Clare at the bus station. She'd gone ahead earlier on an errand. As we departed, I realised I didn't have with me the Swiss Rail Half fare card which both of us were relying on for reasonably priced travel across Switzerland. Searching my office in a state of panic produced no happy outcome, and put me in a miserable mood. We caught the bus for the airport and arrived in good time, with me still fretting about the lost fare card. I'd done exactly the same thing when I went to Geneva last October, so I was doubly annoyed with myself.
Airport security obliged Clare to exchange her perfectly serviceable plastic ten inch transparent plastic bag for liquid medicines for a smaller six inch bag, something we'd never encountered flying from anywhere else. She had to pay a pound to obtain four regulation sized bags from a vending machine, packaged in a plastic sphere. The bag size rules are set by the security company employed, and there is no prior notification of this. The procedure enforces a purchase on spurious grounds, taking advantage of travellers' vulnerability at this moment, anxious about being barred from a flight. The airport unusually charges two pounds to use a baggage trolley, and a pound to drop off car passengers in the vicinity of the terminal entrance. None of these little annoyances serve as an incentive to passengers to use the airport. So it's no surprise it's proving hard to grow passenger numbers. Major carrier BMI Baby has pulled out of Cardiff. I wonder how long Air Helvetica's new four times weekly flight initiative will last. Our flight on a small-medium sized Fokker 110 jet was only 20% full.
From the comparative emptiness of Cardiff International, we arrived at the vast Zurich - Kloten Flughafen, and unusually had to queue for fifteen minutes for a passport check. Only half the gates were staffed at Friday rush hour time, with flights arriving from all over the world every few minutes. Once through, our bags were ready to be picked up, and we were just a minute's walk from the rail station and travel enquiry desk. My half fare card predicament turned out to be no predicament at all. For five Swiss francs I was issued a rail ticket sized card marked 'halb-tax vergessen' (forgotten fare card), with my card expiry date printed on it. All I had to was sign and present with any ticket bought. The details of my card purchase eleven months ago in Geneva were still on the computer system.
Much cheered, we sped to platform three with five minutes to spare to take the next train to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, where a train for Buchs SG awaited us - an Austrian inter-city express, bound for Innsbruck, no further train changing necessary. The weather was kinder to us than the last time we made this trip. The mix of evening sun and cloud produced an enchanting succession of rainbows over lake and land alike as we sped south before turning east at Sargans for the last leg to Buchs. We only five minutes to wait before a bus arrived to take us to take us the last mile and half to our destination, Grabs, for a happy re-union with our friends Marie-Luisa and Heinz, just four hours after leaving Cardiff.
Airport security obliged Clare to exchange her perfectly serviceable plastic ten inch transparent plastic bag for liquid medicines for a smaller six inch bag, something we'd never encountered flying from anywhere else. She had to pay a pound to obtain four regulation sized bags from a vending machine, packaged in a plastic sphere. The bag size rules are set by the security company employed, and there is no prior notification of this. The procedure enforces a purchase on spurious grounds, taking advantage of travellers' vulnerability at this moment, anxious about being barred from a flight. The airport unusually charges two pounds to use a baggage trolley, and a pound to drop off car passengers in the vicinity of the terminal entrance. None of these little annoyances serve as an incentive to passengers to use the airport. So it's no surprise it's proving hard to grow passenger numbers. Major carrier BMI Baby has pulled out of Cardiff. I wonder how long Air Helvetica's new four times weekly flight initiative will last. Our flight on a small-medium sized Fokker 110 jet was only 20% full.
From the comparative emptiness of Cardiff International, we arrived at the vast Zurich - Kloten Flughafen, and unusually had to queue for fifteen minutes for a passport check. Only half the gates were staffed at Friday rush hour time, with flights arriving from all over the world every few minutes. Once through, our bags were ready to be picked up, and we were just a minute's walk from the rail station and travel enquiry desk. My half fare card predicament turned out to be no predicament at all. For five Swiss francs I was issued a rail ticket sized card marked 'halb-tax vergessen' (forgotten fare card), with my card expiry date printed on it. All I had to was sign and present with any ticket bought. The details of my card purchase eleven months ago in Geneva were still on the computer system.
Much cheered, we sped to platform three with five minutes to spare to take the next train to Zurich Hauptbahnhof, where a train for Buchs SG awaited us - an Austrian inter-city express, bound for Innsbruck, no further train changing necessary. The weather was kinder to us than the last time we made this trip. The mix of evening sun and cloud produced an enchanting succession of rainbows over lake and land alike as we sped south before turning east at Sargans for the last leg to Buchs. We only five minutes to wait before a bus arrived to take us to take us the last mile and half to our destination, Grabs, for a happy re-union with our friends Marie-Luisa and Heinz, just four hours after leaving Cardiff.
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