Horrible hubbing: This is why direct flights are a good idea

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Andrew Feinberg

White House Correspondent

“The next SkyLine Shuttle will depart in zero seconds.” That was one of many fibs I was told during a long, winding and annoying journey on Tuesday afternoon and evening from Tirana in Albania to London Heathrow.

I was a late booker on the route: just two days ahead. For the only nonstop flight between Tirana and Heathrow on Tuesday, British Airways wanted a very premium £380. Lufthansa, in contrast, would settle for “only” £255. That was far more than I wanted to pay; my outbound ticket had cost just one-10th as much. But I saved £125 compared with BA.

The journey on the German airline came with downsides, though: three hours’ extra journey time, plus the extra complexity of changing planes in Frankfurt.

I tried to rationalise the decision on the grounds that Lufthansa has an excellent reputation for timekeeping and that the chance to stretch my legs halfway between Albania and the UK would be a benefit.

How wrong could I be?

The Lufthansa Airbus A321 left Tirana 33 minutes late and with at least two empty seats. The first 15 minutes of delay was due to an unexplained absence of buses to ferry passengers to the plane at Mother Teresa International airport. Just as everyone was strapped in and ready to go, the cabin crew identified a passenger who, they felt, was too ill to fly.

They managed the incident professionally and compassionately, stressing that the poorly passenger and her companion would be able to travel on a later flight at no extra cost once she had received medical attention.

No doubt in good faith, the captain promised that most of the delay would be made up en route; we arrived 20 minutes behind schedule.

Now, I wasn’t trying a multiple airline connection such as FlyErbil to Icelandair (in fact, because they are both in Hall E of Terminal 2, that would have been much simpler). Instead, I was attempting to transfer between two Lufthansa flights at the German airline’s main base. Any international-to-international connection should possible within an hour, the carrier says.

A potentially reckless assertion, given the scope for disarray. Someone in ground operations decided that the plane from Tirana should end its journey at a “Schengen Area” stand – presumably because it was needed for a flight to a destination in the EU.

Since we were arriving from non-Schengen Albania, passengers could not exit via the jet bridge directly into the terminal. Instead, we would have to board buses. Unusually, only the rear door opened. So not only was the number of likely missed connections increasing by the minute, but it was business-class passengers who were most likely to miss their onward flights.

One benefit of being bussed to the terminal is that it drops you right in the heart of the action. Except at Frankfurt. The driver meandered around the airfield, eventually dropping us at the “Pier A” satellite terminal – from which all connecting passengers are obliged to travel on the SkyLine shuttle.

The choreography was immaculate. Just as the first surge of passengers from the bus reached the departure station, the shuttle set off, empty, For the next 10 minutes the screens insisted the next departure would be in “0 seconds”.

A double security search is another good reason not to book a connection (though when I connected between London City and Halifax at Dublin recently, the check at the UK airport was assessed as good enough to swerve the Irish search).

The laconic operation at Frankfurt devoured many more minutes. But as I was waiting I noted one good touch: a Fast Lane at security for which you need not pay. If your connection is in jeopardy, just show your boarding pass for a flight that is leaving imminently and you can jump the queue.

Believe me, I do not mess around when changing planes. I happened to be near the back of the arrival from Tirana, and therefore could get one of the first buses to leave. Even so, after clearing the many hurdles, en route to the departure gate for London Heathrow, I turned up 57 minutes after the plane from Tirana had been due to arrive. Luckily, I had a couple of hours of padding.

“Expecting an on-time arrival tonight,” said the pilot of the Heathrow flight when finally we boarded the flight to London at gate B24.

“Tonight’s flight time is expected to be one hour and 12 minutes,” said the lead member of cabin crew.

Presumably neither of them had flown into Europe’s busiest airport before. At the time we were supposed to be leaving the plane, we were still flying around in circles waiting for permission to land. And when the Airbus pulled up to the gate at Terminal 2, evidently no one had told the ground staff a plane might be arriving.

“There is no one to operate the air-bridge at the moment,” said the captain. Now where are those buses again?