Swanhunter

A nostalgic final, final trip from T4.

Check in

As publicised elsewhere, the old Concorde/F check in area has closed with dedicated desks provided at in Zone D as part of the old Club check in bank. In true T4 fashion there was a 5 minute queue to actually see someone, as once again the kiosk had a fit when presented with my booking. Nice enough chap on the desk. QF have totally seperate desks now.

There is also a nicely signposted F/Club CS desk adjacent to check in, with 2 agents having a lovely chat while we queued.

Someone was being downgraded from Club to Y at the next desk, and was not a happy bunny. BA's revman seems to be having some challenges right now.

Fast-Track

Operating normally, though the normal queue was shorter. That said, once you allow for Y pax who can't comprehend the concept of taking things out of their pockets, I would have been better off sticking with the experienced travellers in the other queue.

Terminal

Oddly quiet, compared to the T4 hubbub I remember of old. Just a handful of BA and QF flights, one Air Malta and TAM to Brazil. A few of the shops have closed down for - I assume - refitting.

Lounge

Urrgghh. Packed, and not very clean. The Club Kitchen is still belching out the same crappy noodles, soggy pasta and greasy garlic bread. The F pre-flight dining area is in the same bit of lounge, and looks to have all the fixtures and fittings from the CCR moved in. Not a soul eating there though. A very mediocre experience.

I do hope they call the 11 soon.

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

Sounds like a less than premium experience.

Enjoy your flight!
^
Regards

TBS

TravellerFrequently

Thanks for the report, and I hope that the inflight experience makes up for the less than perfect pre flight experience.

Enjoy Singapore - the warmer weather there should be good !

vla

Provided I'm able to travel to Oz at the end of the week (long story) I will aim at arriving in good enough time to update my Iris registration and spend a nostalgic quarter of an hour at Gate 1 with a strong midday fortification, but that's it, really. And thanks for the offer BA, but I won't be taking the bus over to T5 arrivals lounge at 0630 on the return.

Fraser

I guess it was inevitable that the "premium experience" at T4 would be no more once a lot of the flights moved to T5 and the Lounge Pavilion closed...

My last passage through at the end of July was rather pleasant. No wait in the F check-in area, FastTrack security was really quick and the Gate 1 lounge was reasonably empty. The week after the Flounge opened back up again...

Swanhunter

Well, it has got worse. There are large groups of people stood around as all the seats have gone, and the whole place has the ambience of a City pub on a Friday night. Compared to the spookily quiet terminal, it is pretty horrible. Still, boarding soon and I have the delighted of SQ F from SIN to CGK to look forward. How much Krug can one man drink in a 1h30min flight?

The _Banking_Scot

Hi,

I will go for 2 bottles!!

Regards

TBS

Gaz

I suppose when a load of flights leave a terminal, it goes one of two ways... and T4's gone the wrong way. T1 was a dream shortly after T5 opened when I flew BMI. Same with SIN T2 after T3 opened.

jjpb3

What an experience to look forward to -- I'm green with envy. I hope you have good in-flight experiences all the way to CGK, and thanks for the mini-TR. I've been wondering what the T4 experience is like these days.

wumpus

I flew out of T4 in F 10 days ago and the lounge was absolutely deplorable. The place got absolutely packed, as you say, the floor was filthy and he furniture had definitely seen better days. The bar areas were not restocked - I tried in vain at 2 bars to find a single bottle of Red and failed. The food supplies ran our very quickly and were not replenished. The staff looked bored and matched their surroundings. It was as far removed from a premium First experience as I could imagine.

Luckily the in flight service on BA009 made up for it nicely.

justin_krusty

Sounds awfully like the QF SYD/MEL domestic lounges on a Fri night... So should be a familiar experience for most of the QF regulars there

I flew out of T4 a week ago, and I pretty much wanted to die rather than stay in that lounge. I went for a wander in the shops instead, which are also much quieter now.

MAN Flyer

None actually, as they have stopped serving Krug on the shorter regionals. HKG is the shortest flight with Krug now.

You'll have to make do with Dom only I'm afraid.

macabus

T4 sounds like an abomination.

As TBS posted earlier, 2 bottles would make us all proud.

I polished off 2 bottles of Dom on the 2 hour flight to BKK, and would like nothing more than to see that record fall to the noble hunter of swans.

Board early and you can do it.

Smirnoff

Take a visit to SVO First Class Lounge, and will never complain about an airport lounge again.

You first encounter a fight with a peroxide blonde hag, who looks like something out of a museum of Sovier memorabilia, and tries everything within her hag-powers to stop you entering.

Into the "lounge", which has a handful of worn leather armchairs with years of food encrusted in them and cigarette burns all over. Next flight is to China - lot's of passengers slurping pot noodles they brought in with them, with half the pot making it into their mouths, and the other half joining the mounds of old food on the floor.

The "cleaner" hasn't yet discovered the magic of post-Soviet deodorant, and walks around with a straw broom, stopping to look at the piles of cake, crisps and noodles on the floor, tutting, and walking away.

Help yourself to Lays Crisps and stale cheese pies. The coffee machine doesn't work, the jugs of juice have cigarette butts floating around in them. The hag behind the "bar" scowls if you take a bag of crisps.

The smoking area is the whole of the non-smoking lounge. The toilet stinks, has two badly cracked urinals, so half your offerings drip onto the floor. The cubicle has a badly fitting door, hanging off its hinge, and a 5-10cm gap, meaning the man on the throne is on display to all.

Passengers don't get invited to board the plane, they get screamed at by the hag to go to the gate immediately when boarding has closed.

A lovely experience.

Swanhunter

Oh noooo...

Clearly T4 Gate 1 isn't the worse lounge in the world (the Garuda lounge in Solo City wins that prize, closely followed by VS's lounge in NBO and the contract lounge in SJJ), but it is pretty poor for a hub airport experience.

I'm ensconced in the Silverkris F lounge which has never been a favourite of mine, but it is blessedly quiet, clean and has food you'd want to eat plus a nice lady walking around offering drinks. Tranfers check in was a scrum though, really surprising for SIN and SQ. Flight out was decent, and we arrived 20mins early. ^