Cubana service was intolerable

Letter of the week

Cubana service was intolerable

During a recent trip to Cuba, I spent half a morning in the Cubana office in Havana to reconfirm my flight and get assigned seating.

Three days later, on Friday, I arrived at Havana airport three hours before departure. I was told 40 of us had been overbooked and that our only choice was an Air France flight via Paris on Saturday at 5.15pm.

We were offered overnight accommodation in Havana and asked to leave our tickets at the airport so that they could be reissued with Air France.We were assured that our flights via Paris were guaranteed.

On Saturday, we went to the airport to pick up our new tickets, which turned out to be with French carrier AOM, not Air France, to Paris via Varedero.

I asked whether the Paris-London BA335 flight – which had an OKstatus on our tickets – was to Gatwick or Heathrow. I was told Gatwick.

We arrived in Paris at 9.50am on Sunday. I went to the British Airwaysdesk to be told this happens every week and all flights to the UK were fully booked.

We were all told to go to AOM which represents Cubana in Paris as we were not booked on the flight to Heathrow – contrary to what Ihad been told in Havana, there are no flights from Orly to Gatwick.

AOMbooked most of the group on the BA flight from Charles de Gaulle to Heathrow at 7.15pm.

However, I and several others went on standby for the 2.40pm BA/Air Liberte flight from Orly to Heathrow – arriving home 27 hours later than planned.

The majority of people who took their confirmed flight at 7.15pm had to change airports at Paris and arrived home 32 hours late into Heathrow.

Everyone affected had reconfirmed our flights and checked in well before the time given to us by Cubana.The other thing we had in common was that none of us had booked complete holiday packages.

The moral of the story – book your clients on a total package, not independently.

Cathy Jones, Thomas Cook, London