It is always nice to be able to report good news rather than having to focus on things that have gone wrong and so it was a particular pleasure when we received a call from Rod McGhee recently. Rod is a member of the long established and well known La Marina Walking Group and for those of you who may not know, this group travels to far away places to tackle some very vigorous challenges.
This year it was South America and 16 members of the group set off on January the 2nd this year for a trip that would take them to Chile, Argentina and Patagonia, visiting locations such as the Atacama Desert, Tierra del Fuego and the Beagle Channel over a two month period. All went well until close to the end of their trip when they arrived in Buenos Aires. They were due to fly to Santiago in Chile for a three day stop over before flying back to Europe at the completion of their trip.
However, when they got to the airport they discovered there were no flights taking off to Santiago because the earthquake had just struck Chile on Saturday the 27th February. Planes that were already in the air from other destinations on their way to Santiago were being diverted to nearby airports.
They rang the British Consul in Buenos Aires but were told there were no immediate contin-gency plans. It looked as if they were stuck. They then went to the Iberia desk to talk to them, because their flight home from Santiago to Spain was booked with the Spanish national carrier. Rod said at first they did not seem interested but clearly they realised that there would be other passengers in the same situation. So at around midnight on the Saturday night they came to the rescue of the La Marina Walking club group and others who were stuck flying them out of Buenos Aires, directly back to Madrid and all at no extra charge. Rod rang us to express his gratitude to the airline for the help they gave them all to get them out of what had looked like a very difficult situation.