FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - Multi-Modal-Mayhem - To Toronto with a bevvy of Economy madness...
Old Sep 25, 2011, 10:59 am
  #4  
Kevincm
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands, UK
Programs: Mucci, BMI*G, M&M SEN, FB Gold, PC Plat, Father of GhettoIFE
Posts: 3,972
Transiting at LHR - and a nasty call....

However at LHR my phone went off with voicemails stacking up. Whilst I was walking to the UK Border and the Transit bus,, the phone rung again. When it’s displays the caller as Blocked it can normally mean only one thing - it’s the office. And stupidly, I picked up. And there was a flap on the other end about a disk that had gone in a server.

*various swear words*

After talking through how to get a new one I was asked “When are you back... because we could really do with someone installing it ASAP”

ARGH. As much as I would leave a server in a compromised state, the kind person in me won out, and I negotiated that the office pay my train fare back to Birmingham on the Monday when the disk arrived. And stupidly, I agreed to do it before the end of play on Monday so I could a bit of Tuesday to myself.

For those of you counting, that means two segments have gone up in smoke - the LHR-FRA, and the FRA to LCY segments.

So much for a pleasant little trip. Stupid HP Equipment and thanks my silly organisation for using 8 year old servers in a production environment... of course no one listens to the tech until it all goes pear shaped...

Oh well. Calm down. It’s only £88 down the pan. If it buys me 10 minutes of peace and quiet in the office, so be it.

I made it through the Transit Zone, and onto the transfer bus without any issues, and begun setting about cancelling the FRA-LCY Segment, and would deal the way back in Toronto.

I was through security in a minute with no secondary - rather the security agent was amazed that I was fully prepared. Quickly through, I made my way to HMV to get some bearable headphones (and that’s a GhettoIFE.com article in the next few weeks on *very* Cheap headphones ). A glance at the departures board the board had gone to boarding for the flight already. Knowing this is Heathrow and signs can mean next to nothing, I made a lounge stop to see what was going on.

Lounge Stop: Air Canada/SAS “The London Lounge”
Hot Dogs consumed: 2 (Well it was Hot Dog Friday!!!)

After being welcomed in, I was advised to rest and take my time as there was a medical emergency on the inbound, and the plane was being prepped. I took this as an excuse to grab a meat based snack for a bit and just chill after cancelling flights here and there.


It was Hotdog Friday!!!

Once again, I powered up the laptop and kicked back, not even looking at the departures board as I was informed that a call will be made when boarding was ready to be commenced.

And it seems that post breakfast catering in the London Lounge is a lot better than the breakfast catering. The range of hot items and salad was good, along with noodles and crisps - all that my heart could desire in its dazed and confused state.


Off to the gate....

Eventually, the boarding call was made, so it was time to wander around the T3 dungeon to Gate 31 where our bird was waiting. A boarding scan and security check, and I made my way directly aboard.

AC857 London Heathrow Terminal 3 to Toronto International Airport.
Air Canada Code Shared as BD4857, Seat 41G, 16/09/2011
Boeing 777-300ER
The Photos - http://www.photoblog.com/kevincm/2011/09/16/


I made my way aboard, long before the main economy lot begun. Unfortunately, I knew what was going to greet me for the next seven and a half hours - an isle seat in the middle block. Not my first choice of seat by any part of my imagination, but by the time I got a valid PNR for the Air Canada legs, it was isle seats or middle seats.

And I don’t do middle seats. So an isle seat was the acceptable compromise.


Compromises...

Loading continued until there was a practically full load heading to Toronto. (I counted 2 seats free on the whole of Economy, with Business checking in as full). As we were late boarding, we had long missed our slot for departure. By the time we were up in the air, we were 1 hour and 5 down already.

For those of you who are sick of my YouTube takeoff videos, good news! As I was nowhere near a window, no video . During this period, I paid attention to the safety video and drifted in and out of sleep.

The flight took a northerly route over the United Kingdom, and up over Greenland, over Goose Bay ,then down to Toronto - a slightly unusual route, but one do I like as I’ll show later.

After we had levelled out, the first service begun - the main meal. Choices were as usual - chicken, or pasta. Fearful of pasta for various reasons, I chose the chicken.


Roll


Pasta Salad


Cutlery and "Desert"


Chicken

The chicken itself was Chicken in a ginger sauce with beans and carrot and potato mash. Now for those of you who only live in Business and First Class, I’m now making a concentrated effort to make economy class food look edible.

Yes, I’m a sadist at heart

The Chicken itself wasn’t bad, wasn’t overcooked and was cutable quite easily. The veg mash wasn’t sloppy, and the beans weren’t completely floppy.

The pasta was a very nice take on having something that isn’t salad, and was fresh and cold. However roll was indeed a projectile, and could be used as a weapon on-board if someone put their mind to it, and the cheap person who put a cookie as a desert does need to be taken out and hung.

As usual, there was a bottle of water on the tray, and a drinks service followed - the water being pocketed for later on in the flight, and a Coke Zero and a Plastic bottle of Savingon Blanc plonk.

The meal - whilst not the worst on the planet could had done with a bit of attention in the desert department. But I don’t fly airlines for the culinary experiences... Lets put it like this: it still beats certain other airlines in the meal department.

After the clear down, another drinks service followed and another glassful of Diet coke appeared, at which point I drunk it, and zonked out for a few hours.

Being in the edge of sleep and awkake, I tried to keep awake, and browsing through the IFE, I found The Great Escape - with Chickens.



Of course that couldn’t keep me awake so again, I was out cold for bits of the flight until we reached Greenland, where my body kicked in awake for a bit. And I’m glad it did as when I wandered down to the back of the plane to stretch my legs I saw this:



[IMG]http://pb-i4.s3.amazonaws.com/photos/6247-1316395774-17.jpg

[/IMG]Damn. I wish I had a window seat this flight.

Upon returning to my seat I made a GhettoIFE system (sickback + iPhone + table-back mount = IFE system) where I fancied the Boys from the Dwarf...



But that didn’t keep me awake until a snack service was literally up the isle. Either my body is good at this detecting when there’s movement, or I’m just good at guessing when food is near.


Snack - yes, the bird is the word.

Snack of course is Pretzel-bites and coke. Where I dozed off to sleep again. And woke up, with the final service commence - the Monty’s Wrap service (as most BMI Premium customers are discovering what they are). And shock and horror - no Five Spice Chicken this time - instead, it was a sort of curry chicken. Still it was hot, edible and filled a spot.


Wrap

Cleardown was relatively quick as the service had been delayed till under the 1:30 mark... where they decided this would be a good time to give out the immigration forms for Canada. And if there is one part of the Air Canada service that could be improved is this. Give out immigration forms after takeoff and not under an hour to touchdown. It’s a small thing, but would save a sense of panic when people were hunting out pens in the final part of the flight.

Anyhoo. With paperwork done, the cabin started filling with light as people opened their blinds, seats going into the upright position, and the rubbish collected.

1 hour late, we touched down at Toronto Person, and after a short taxi, the plane docked. I thanked the crew and made my way off for my date with destiny.

Overall: Again, Air Canada did an impressive service with a full load on the plane. A few things could be changed (such as the immigration form run) and the excuse of desert in Y needs to be addressed, but the hard product is good (and sleepable in), the IFE is excellent and the crew were engaging and talkative. A nice job overall.

However, I knew I was arriving in Canada, and there was possibly going to be trouble ahead. I made my way up and the Express Escalator whisked me to the immigration points, where I followed the signed and joined a queue.

Last edited by Kevincm; Sep 25, 2011 at 11:28 am
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