The flights to Italy

On the morning of our departure, the first problem was when I went to the Iberia site to do online checkin.  I know the site to be clunky, and when it first said your first flight is operated by Vueling and you should go to their site (not correct), I disregarded that and proceeded to enter our information with our passport numbers and the quirks in our names, and that went well.  When it said approximately "We see that your seats haven't been selected, would you like to choose them?" I knew that to be wrong, so I skipped that step.  They went straight to our boarding passes, and they weren't in row 1; they were in the middle of row 2.  This was very displeasing to Margaret and we made calls both to Iberia and LEVEL who said to try to resolve it at the airport, one saying that for some reason the row 1 assignments were cancelled.

Following other last-minute worries--did Margaret lose her ATM card for use in Italy (not found) and did I lose my Italian SIM card (found)--with a late-night departure we could take the Dartmouth shuttle from Lebanon, N.H., at 5 p.m.  That got us to Boston Logan Airport 3.5 hours before departure.  Their Terminal E for international airlines has counters whose airline designations change during the day.  They had banners for where to stand for LEVEL Premium and Economy, before the signs on the counter designated the airline.  We were first in line, and the counter opened a little earlier than the time they posted.  Margaret told the check-in agent about the problem; this agent silently checked our bags and gave us boarding passes for row 2.  When Margaret asked, the agent directed us to the supervisor at the next counter. 

This woman said we'd been displaced because other passengers had paid for these seats.  I said my recollection was, when I called to make the seat reservations, that I had said we'd be willing to pay the price first quoted for row 1 seats, but the agent said we didn't need to pay in the case of a passenger with a disability.  Anyway, we had a confirmation email printout that said "Seat 01J confirmed," and no indication had been given that someone could pay to displace us, but there was nothing doing.  I know from following many airline discussions that seat assignments should only be considered requests, especially with European airlines.  The excuse that one of the agents we called in the morning gave was that the aircraft had been changed was one that we found not to be true, since it matched the listed type and seat map I'd been following for months.  I know that sometimes airlines make up excuses after they have to give a seat in front to an air marshal, but I don't think that's the case with the two women we eventually saw in those seats.

Before the flight, I try not to relive some tense times between us.  Leaving that aside, Margaret got a wheelchair as she needs, a nice lady attendant getting us through security.  In our gate area, away from the other international departures, the Vineyard Grille was the only sit-down restaurant.  The airport site showed it as open until 30 minutes before the last departure, but over two hours before that, they said the kitchen was closed.  The attendant took us the bustling upper level and we ate at Stephanie's, a high-priced meal of lobster rolls.  That attendant turned up again at the right time and got us back down to our gate.

At the gate, with Margaret in a wheelchair, there was no call for preboards.  They called for Premium Class passengers but didn't look our way, so it was a hassle to board at the proper time.  The ground handlers for LEVEL in Boston were a disappointment, but the inflight experience was better.

With the expectation that all we would get would be slightly better Economy seats, the row 2 seats were fine, with good legroom, until the people in front reclined the seats to an extent that I, in the middle seat, would still need to displace Margaret in the aisle when I wanted to get up. They distributed a cup with amenities including toothbrush and toothpaste, socks, and eye mask.


With a departure after 11 p.m. and having eaten, we'd been thinking of declining the meals, even though they were free for us, but when they were offered we went ahead and took them, choosing the beef meal, which was decent.

Even with a late departure time favoring sleep, I didn't get much.  We had a decent breakfast in the morning, and landed in Barcelona.  They asked wheelchair passengers to wait to alight, and it wasn't for long, with jetways both in front of and behind the three Premium rows.  We had a woman to take us through the connection, with whom I could practice my Spanish with mixed results.  That airport has a bewildering setup: first we had to wait to be cleared by security to enter a certain hallway, then down one level to what appeared to be passport control and security only for assisted passengers.   Then down to our gate level, with many shops, and we cut through one shop.  Then a special waiting area for assisted passengers when our connecting gate hadn't been posted. Margaret went on her own to find chocolate pastries and coffees for us.

After our gate was posted, passengers were put on a motorized cart, and I was instructed to walk along with it.  We got to our gate, and before too long we were able to board first on our Vueling flight to Rome.  I hadn't seen visible signs of  the strike at the airport, maybe we were full because of other cancelled flights, but I didn't have a sense that there were many standbys.

Vueling is a low-cost carrier, charging for bottled water and coffee, but the experience was o.k.  We had our landing in Rome, with a wheelchair attendant waiting.  I noted that our arrival concourse had airlines with baggage claim at either Terminal 1 or 3, so people needed to be alert, and here too the route to baggage claim was past many shops.  We got our bags, and the attendant took us to a taxi.