The Red Carpet

After having packed all our lugage and cleaned our home for several hours we were ready to heave the now heavy luggage into the car and head off for the evening check-in at the Airport of Zurich. It took us only twenty minutes or so to go there. There was not too much traffic as I expected during the rush hour.

At the Check-in 3 desk we were welcomed by a staff member which carried a huge pile of papers - must have been all the schedules for tonights flights. It was not the first time that we went through the process of checking in the day before but this evening something was different because we were immediately guided to another check-in desk, the check-in desk 2. First Uta and I were a little bit irritated but any way because of the lady´s friendly smile we didn´t doubt that she was right.

Check-in 2, Checkin-2. We followed the signs and arrived at row eight desk seven. How amazing Qatar Airways´ desk was in front of us. Only another Swiss couple was checking in and we were lucky that we were supposed to be next. Wasn´t that a good idea to stress Uta a little bit while packing and to convince her that evening check-in is much more comfortable than queuing in a big crowd just a few hours before boarding? At the desk I was asked to present the passports and tickets. The young lady checked both carefully, did some keystrokes on the keyboard which allowed her to review our records in the booking system. "To Doha and then to Delhi" she murmered and then a sudden question addressed to me: "Did you have to wait for a long time to get your visas"? What a question! Does it have any imortance. Fortunatly we got our visas in less than 15 days because when it comes to any administrative applications I am always late to get passport photos or other necessary documents well in advance. Later it got clear to me that she only wanted to feel her clients confident and not to let the ipmression to come up that something must be wrong with the booking system. After a while she got very nervous and said: "I have you on status E. Staus E means that I can´t do the check-in. I have to call the Qatar Help Desk".

Status E! We are on status E! I checked if Uta standing next to me had her typical expression on her face which she always gets when the normal flow of an action is interrupted. But she realized the situation much faster than I did and wanted to know what it ment to be on Status E. The answer she got did not help at all. In the meantime the lady who was supposed to be behind the desk pasted around was talking to her colleages on other desks made some phones calls but finally came back telling us that the Qatary crew had already gone and that she does not see a chance to do the check-in this evening even though the big display above the desk showed in big letters "Qatar Airways, Evening check-in".

Status E caused the problems. No check-in this evening. What else could we do as to carry our heavy lugage back to our car and give Qatar Airways another chance tomorrow. To make sure that we were not totaly wrong on choosing this desk I asked the lady if the check-in would take place here tomorrow at the same desk. "No, no" she answered "That´s only the Evening Check-in desk. Tomorrow you have to go to desk number one where you will find a red carpet on the floor".

While driving back home we blamed the dammed booking system not the lady behind the desk which did not let us check in. But be keep in mind that tomorrow we will check in with a soft nice red carpet under our feets.