TheFlyingDoctor

The plan:
16:05 Plane: British Airways BA0273 LHR – SAN (due 19:15) 3-class 777-200ER. Seat 14B (World Traveller Plus, aisle).
Earnt 6836 avios, 90 tier points (promoted to BAEC bronze / One World Ruby). Actual times 17:35 - 20:10; flown by G-YMMD.


First port of call was the American Express desk, so that I couldn't make the mistake of checking in, clearing security, then realising my travel money was landside and I was airside. Amex had recently taken over as BA's forex partner, which meant extra avios, although my order form informed me I would have to ask for them. No need to worry about forgetting that aspect- the stand was plastered with info on the link-up, and I was proactively asked for my BAEC number. On presentation of my card, my name was recognised, or rather, the details of the order that went with my name were remembered without prompting. A nice touch! Foolishly I'd ordered a round amount in dollars rather than sterling, so it arrived as a collection of $50 notes – good job I still had an assortment of smaller denomination notes from previous trips.

Check-in, bag-drop and security were apparently uneventful enough that I made no notes on them; we all know the dance by now I'm sure. I set off to Giraffe for late lunch, assembling a slightly strange combo of smoked salmon, scrambled eggs on toast, and sweet potato fries. I momentarily take leave of my senses and order bottled water too, but don't get gouged too badly on that. With tip, it came to £16, and surely was a better meal than the Novotel's continental breafkast offering at the same price! I also got the entertainment of a nearby family expressing surprise that their bill was in “british dollars” instead of american ones...

It should probably be pointed out at this stage that I'm not a serious foodie, don't drink alcohol at all, and feel that there's plenty of photographic coverage of aircraft interiors to save me the awkwardness of building and wielding my dSLR on a crowded flight. Some may wonder what the hell I'm doing in the trip report game given all these! What I might lack by way of connoisseur credentials I hope I can make up as a dedicated cataloguer of minor details – and I am always happy to dig the camera out for a beautiful landscape.





I am also, it seems, a BA disruption magnet. Of my 13 flights on BA metal in 2012, two were cancelled, one was so late it didn't leave until after it was meant to arrive, and two more had significant delays. It doesn't look like 2013 is going to be much better. Gate was called at 14:50 over in Terminal B, well in advance of our 16:05 scheduled departure. However, a never-quite-specified technical issue, and the subsequent wait for legal-signoff on some paperwork related to the work required to fix it, kept us from pushback for a full 90 minutes. Thankfully, these days on BA you can use the in-flight entertainment from boarding, and the on-demand system featured on this plane ('Upgraded TES', according to our fleet guide) has an excellent selection. I caught three films on this flight, and felt I still had strong options for the return.

All was well once we finally got airborne. Food service was at 7pm GMT (a bit over an hour after take-off), and despite the full cabin and being in the last row, all the menu options were still available. World Traveller Plus offers a subset of the Club World range, and you get the associated accoutrements such as a real plate and metal cutlery. Today's starter was potato and smoked salmon – my scribbled menu note simply reads 'not great' (see, I did warn you I'm not a sophisticated diner). The main was a choice between a seared tenderloin of angus beef with thyme sauce, basil tagliatelle, sauteéd fine beans and piquillo peppers, or a seared sea bream with green tea-infused sauce, braised chicory, carrot and cardamon mash and steamed cocotte potatoes. Despite not being familiar with all of those words, I opted for the fish, having heard a few disaster stories about BA beef. Finally, dessert was Brazilian orange and chocolate – this warranted an enthusiastic “GREAT!” in my notes.

I felt I had made the right choice in defecting from G to B, as the middle block of row 14 had a family with very young (but perfectly behaved) children. Unfortunately for me, Mr 14A wanted out from his window seat no less than five times throughout the flight... at least I wasn't sleeping, but it was still a hassle to pause AVOD, extract myself from my rather intimate headphones, and manoeuvre out of the seat due to the recline of the one in front. I'm going to enjoy being able to book window seats at the time of purchase for the next year!

The first of three drinks rounds was at 21:30 (GMT), and the baffling `afternoon tea' at 3am UK / 7pm US was a chicken sandwich. We touched down at 20:10 local, so our technical issues cost us less than an hour in the end. Still more than twelve hours in the same seat, though!

I've made a limited sample of immigration at US airports – SEA, MIA, BOS, SAN – and of those, San Diego is easily my favourite place to arrive. Wheels down to baggage reclaim was twenty minutes, with only brief enquiries (“Why are you here? Will you be leaving anything”) before the biometrics- they didn't even bother to stamp my passport! Admittedly, it was another 25 minutes before my suitcase appeared, but customs was a wave-through, and I'm pretty happy with 45 minutes all-in.