Monday 10th October - the journey home

It was an early start and up and away from the hotel without breakfast and then off to the airport.  It was a breeze at the airport with no hassles from anyone, no arguments about overweight cases, in fact no complaints about anything!  Was it all too good to be true - well, yes, it was!!

Our departure time with Egyptair was 08.45, but that time came and went with no explanation as to why.  Another passenger asked what was happening and announced to everyone that there was a delay due to not having a time slot for flying into Heathrow.  It turned out that there were problems over European air space and we had to be given another time.  We saw the departure time change to 11.00 and, when we eventually took off at 11.15, quickly realised that there was no way we would make our flight from Heathrow up to Scotland which was scheduled to leave at 16.35.  However, to give Egyptair their due, they did give us a free drink of juice while we waited at the airport.

Farewell Luxor (if you look really closely, you can see Karnak Temple)

 The flight was fairly uneventful apart from a few bumps on the way, and we arrived at Heathrow at 15.45 and headed for the baggage hall as our luggage could not be put straight through to our final destination.  The luggage, of course, was late in arriving (16.20) so there was no way we could make our connecting flight.  After our cases eventually arrived, we headed for the BMI desk where we were unfortunate enough to be served by a totally unsympathetic member of BMI staff.  The four of us had to pay £189 each for our one-way flights home!!  However, two ladies in exactly the same position as us has been served by a different member of BMI staff and he had given them their flights for £50 each.  To say that I was angry was a big understatement!!  Not wanting to create a fuss at the airport, I resolved to sort it out by letter once I was home and in a better frame of mind!!

Cutting a long story short, we were eventually able to make an insurance claim - but it took absolutely ages for confirmation to come through from Egyptair to explain what the delay was, and we were unable to make our claim until we had that information. Surprisingly, our claim was subsequently successful (minus the usual excess of course!!)

Although we had had a really great holiday and were sad to have left Luxor, it was still nice to be home and there's always something comforting about being able to sleep in your own bed!!