Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder Friday the 30th of June,

almost halfway through the year and on the eve of the main holiday months of July and August.

And that's what we've been talking about all week. Key consumer issues and to round off the

week well the general title for this is what could possibly go wrong and well quite a lot and so I just

thought it would be useful with my excellent colleague Charlotte Hindle to spin through the many

things that could go wrong and what

you do about it. So where would you like to start, Charlotte? I don't want this to be too negative,

but the thing is no one ever contacts you when things go right. Everyone always contacts you

when things go wrong, so it's quite funny. So airport, let's start with the airport. Could you just run through what happens if you are running late for your flight by mistake?

Okay, well it all depends what the mistake is.

So you might get caught in terrible traffic because there's an accident along the way. Your train

might break down. That's different from if you know in advance that there's going to be a train

strike in which case you're not going to get much help there. Or indeed even something like

the security queue is so absurdly long you miss your flight. So let's untangle those.

Many airlines will say if you're not here 40, 45, 60 minutes before departure,

you are not getting on the plane.

And you might say, but that's ridiculous.

Look, I can see the plane.

It's just over there.

You know, please let me on and they'll say, no, that's the rules.

Can I just ask, but when you say here, do you mean at the airport or at the gate? No, this would be, we'll get onto at the gate in a moment. This is where you get to the airport. And quite often they've actually programmed the gates these days. that certainly happens for for instance, a British Airways Terminal 5,

where if there isn't enough time for you to get through to the plane, as they see it,

...