Bagel Belly Blog

National Distress

As they say, the best-laid plans of mice and men... after a wonderful event in Milan, I had something of a nightmare of a journey home. It made a pleasant change for everything to go smoothly with my Easyjet flight (something like 75% hit rate with delays so far), and we actually got in to Gatwick 15 minutes ahead of schedule.

From Gatwick my plan was simple - catch up on email and business at the airport, then hop on a National Express coach back to Norwich, sleep through the journey, and arrive in time for an early start at the office. Unfortunately, National Express had other plans. With no warning and no reason, they cancelled the coach service from Gatwick. I found myself, along with 16 other passengers, stood outside the airport at 2 in the morning with no means of transportation.

I called National Express, and their response was "do you have a ticket?". The answer to that was simple - no, I didn't, since National Express clearly advertise that you can turn up at the station and pay for your journey. Many of the other people waiting had tickets for an earlier coach, but their flight had been delayed so they'd missed it. Three other passengers were fortunate enough to have a ticket for that specific service, and found a taxi waiting to ferry them to Heathrow. Unfortunately they were beaten to the taxi by two other frustrated National Express passengers determined to get to their destination.

After explaining the situation, National Express stuck with "well, sorry, but that coach was cancelled". I asked them why there were no signs up warning passengers in advance at the coach stop, and they couldn't give an answer. I asked them why there was no warning on their website when I checked times and prices, and they weren't able to give an answer. I asked them why there was no warning at the National Express service desk in the airport, and they weren't able to give an answer.

Feeling increasingly frustrated, I asked them what they expected the 16 stranded passengers to do. National Express basically said "we reserve the right not to run a service, you'll just have to take the next coach". They couldn't offer any assurance that the next coach would actually show up.

So it seems that there's no point in assuming you can catch a National Express coach at any advertised time with them, which as far as I can tell renders the whole point of their service, well, pointless. National Express? Try National Distress instead, or maybe National Disgrace.

The main reason I opted for National Express was because they (in theory) run a service when the trains aren't running overnight. In the end, I waited until the first train out of Gatwick at 4.30am, and after an exciting time with closed tube stations, and catching the first tube train on two lines and the first train out of London, I stumbled into my house around 9am this morning, some twelve hours after I took off from Milan.

An exciting journey. I think next time, I fly from Norwich or not at all.