A mid-flight panic, motorbike taxi, no sleep and meltdown with the BA app – inside the Arc weekend I’ll never forget

PLANES, motorbikes and automobiles.

Arc weekend took a twist for me late Sunday night as it all kicked off trying to valiantly return home from Longchamp.

Sun Racing’s Matt Chapman is (somehow) all smiles at the airport alongside top jockeys Tom Marquand, left, Hollie Doyle, and Kieran Shoemark

Who says the life of a globe-trotting jockey isn’t all glamour?

Our intrepid reporter is whisked off to the airport on a motorbike taxi

As it turned out, I ended up with my own version of the classic 1987 Christmas movie Planes, Trains and Automobiles featuring Steve Martin and John Candy.

Yep, the one with the shower curtain rings!

The final leg, however, was not where my travel woes even started! Oh my…

This, incidentally, is not a column that in any way looks for sympathy, just sit back and enjoy the read.

I was down to work for Sky Sports Racing yesterday to bring you all the Paris interviews from 10.30am to 6pm. That happened.

But to be quite honest it was a miracle.

My 48 hours of travel chaos started on Saturday as I was working at Newmarket and heading to Heathrow – via Twickenham – in the evening.

Alert after alert came through on my phone telling me my 8.35pm flight to Charles de Gaulle was delayed.

It started at a 30-minute delay, then went to a 40-minute delay.

At 6pm in the evening I was told my flight had been delayed to 9.20pm.

So, having already checked in with no baggage I set out to arrive at the terminal at 8pm.

Imagine my horror when I’m on the tube at Hatton Cross at 7.45pm to get another alert saying my flight was now on time.

Still, I was confident all would be well.

The plane was not boarding and I would be at the terminal in ten minutes.

So, I arrived at departures at 7.55pm, only to be told I could not go through. Ouch.

Although the plane was not yet boarding I was then informed by British Airways I’d missed the flight.

No one could explain the alerts I had telling me the flight was nearly an hour late when it wasn’t!

At this stage I was remarkably calm. But panic did slightly start to set in.

British Airways had no help on hand or help desks.

‘Do everything on the app’, I was told.

Well that’s all well and good, but there were no more flights that night and the morning flights were full. No one could assist me.

In the moment I tried the Air France app, and they had a flight at 6.15am Sunday morning with two seats left.

I bagged myself one at a tasty £262.

It meant going to sleep at midnight and getting up at 3.30am. But needs must.

It was, though, disappointing to find the flight they would not let me board was indeed eventually late to take off.

Half an hour late. If they don’t want you on, they don’t want you on!

That, though, was just the hors d’oeuvres to the main dish of travel hell.

My return flight was 9pm Sunday evening.

A terrific motorbike taxi ride from the Arc to Charles de Gaulle left me in a good mood.

A flight delay of an hour to 10pm was a slight hassle, but hey it happens.

So I took off at about 10.15pm, with jockeys Tom Marquand and Hollie Doyle, Kieran Shoemark and bloodstock agent Matthew Houldsworth also in the mix.

For an hour we flew in peace, before an announcement that due to a technical difficulty our flight would turn around and head back to Paris.

The Frenchman next to me had tracked it. We had never gone more than about 20 miles, and had been circling for about 40 minutes.

Initially, I just thought let’s hope it lands! This could be it.

But with the benefit of hindsight I suspect there was nothing wrong with the plane at all, rather that because it took off late there was no one at Heathrow to help land us!

Air France could offer little assistance once we were back. Nothing helpful anyway.

Some were offered a flight today (Monday) to Amsterdam and Genevre, arriving home within 24 hours!

Now I like a night out in Amsterdam as much as anyone, but not on the back of an already long day.

That was no good to any of us.

Ultimately, at about 1am we booked an EasyJet from Paris Orly to Southampton for 7.30am.

An unbelievable 48 hours (almost) ends at Southampton

We headed off in an Uber to the airport and arrived at a lush Ibis at 2am.

Asleep by 2.30am (separate rooms bar Tom and Hollie!) I woke up at 5.50am, headed to the airport and flew back.

Waiting for us at Southampton was Marquand’s driver and off we headed to Heathrow to get our cars.

In the end it was five hours sleep over two days.

There were moments of hilarity, but it’s good to be home.

Hope Tom, Shoe and Hollie go well at Yarmouth and Wolverhampton today!