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Taken September 2005 from Athens (Athinai) (Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport) - ATH to London, England (Heathrow Airport) - LHR

Flight number OA269/7th September 2005.

I wonder if anyone else remembers this flight, or is it just normal for Olympic?

Flew Ryanair to Brindisi - great!

Got a ferry from Bridisi to Corfu - great!

Flew Aegean to Athens, then to Heraklion - fantastic!

Then the nightmare started.

Checked in for OA269 two hours early. Boarded the plane an hour late, then sat on the tarmac for two hours. The followinghappened:

* The captain said there was a minor technical fault

* Some security guards came on and marched down the plane to a seat, and went through the overhead locker

* A bag was offloaded from the hold

* Some blokes in boiler suits stood on the wings, pointing at the plane and shrugging their shoulders

* The captain came back on and said that the fault was not repairable and that we had to get off.

We were taken back up the air bridge to the departure lounge, and qued for ages to get new boarding passes for a replacement plane, which was to be four hours later. It then became apparent that the "new flight" was in fact an existing flight, scheduled for later in the day, which was to be combined with ours.

We were then told that this had been cancelled.

A heathrow flight then appeared on the monitors about an hour later, at a different departure gate - by this time the Olympic reps had gone.

We went to that departure gate, where it became apparent that two plane loads of hopefuls were waiting to get on one plane. The plane arrived, hours late, and a riot ensued. The airline had issued us with boarding cards (red) and the original passengers of the flight had theirs (yellow) so there was duplication of seating.

The reps called the "yellow" boarders first, at which point the "red" (us) boarders went mad. It was chaos like I had never seen in my life. All the reds were pushing to make sure they got on the flight. When we eventually got on, it was rammed, and the boarding cards meant nothing as the "yellows" were already in our seats so it was "free seating".

The plane sat on the tarmac for another hour and a half, and I honestly thought "deja vu - we're going to be taken off again". Eventually it took off, and landed in Heathrow six hours late.

It was horrendous, panicky, shambolic and awful I genuinely beleive that, with duplicate boarding cards and free seating, the airline had no idea who was on the plane and that some passengers (Reds) couldn't have got on. What happened to their bags I can only guess. In the post 9/11 era (and, OK, I have to asume they vaguely knew what they were doing, but I doubt it) this is unnacceptable.

I love Greece, I go there every year, but I will never, ever fly with Olympic again.

Buyer beware!