Argentina: landing at... a workers' assembly!


Llegar a Buenos Aires justo en el momento que INTERCARGO empieza una asamblea... 

Apenas aterrizamos desde Johannesburgo tuvimos que esperar unos 10 minutes dentro del avión. El piloto se preguntaba a través de los parlantes por qué no acercaban la manga... Por suerte la acercaron y los casi 300 pasajeros salimos del avión sin imaginarnos que habría problemas. Al rato de empezar a esperar las valijas nos avisaron que había una asamblea de INTERCARGO, que nadie sabía cuándo bajarían las valijas y que tuvimos suerte no nos dejaron dentro del avión porque la misma compañía se encarga de las "mangas".

La compañía de vuelo no podía hacerse responsable de enviar el equipaje porque el problema no era de ellos sino local.

Nadie podía darnos ninguna información. "Hay asamblea". "La asamblea terminó". Por ahí se movían las cintas y se volvían a detener. 

La asamblea terminó después de una hora y media o dos horas (realmente no miré el reloj) pero si bien fuimos los primeros en llegar (después de un vuelo de 11 horas) fuimos los últimos a recibir las valijas porque la prioridad la tuvieron otros vuelos que llegaban del resto del continente y a nosotros nos tocó esperar casi cuatro horas. 

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Back in Argentina after more than two years. A very good flight with SAA which landed 45 minutes early. After waiting for a while the pilot himself wondered why the jetway (or "finger" or "passenger boarding bridge") was not being brought closer. When it finally happened we left the plane, went through the passport control and quickly to collect our luggage.

The process had been quick and so soon there were many of us waiting until someone came to let us know that workers at INTERCARGO (the handling company at the airport) had started an assembly and nothing would happen until it was over. No one could tell us how long it would last or what to do. SAA could not take responsibility as the problem was a local one and not related to them. 

About a couple of hours' later we were told the assembly was over but we still had to wait for two more hours as though we were the first ones to arrive... we were the last ones to receive our suitcases. It did not even matter that we had travelled for 11 hours. Priority was given to continental flights. 

Aside of the fact that every few minutes we would be reminded there was an assembly (and later one the fact that it was over) the lack of information at the airport seemed to be a "normal thing" and people did not know if they should wait or not and who to contact to deal with their connecting flights to other parts of the country.