efincomputer

This is my second TR on FT - see Here for the first one – and my apologies for having taking so long to finally post it – 8 months later! This time I’ve decided to put it in the right place, instead of it just sitting here on the BA board! I’ll warn you in advance that it’s another LONG report (I don’t seem to be able to write these without them ending up like war and peace). This time the reason for the trip was very different however – a business trip instead of leisure, but since it’s the first time since my last trip to NYC in December 2005 that I’ve been back in BA’s New Club World (this time the NEW New Club World) then I thought it made sense to continue the very short tradition. Big thanks to Can I Help You for getting me a note of the menus before the flight (and saving a lot of typing), and to Jet Ranger for checking the seat availability on my flights for me and giving me a note of the seat maps.


Start of my journey - Glasgow Airport (GLA) – 04/04/08

I’m through GLA on a regular basis but usually to more sedate domestic destinations such as BHD/BFS, CWL, STN, LBA or MAN on company business, so I’m quite familiar with the airport. However, these are usually trips last no more than 2-3 days, and more often than not I’m there and back the same day. As I’m usually travelling on LCCs this makes a nice change for me – getting to go through the main domestic pier, instead of the right-hand LCC pier. Saying that, since BA did away with their own ground staff at regional airports a number of months back, its not quite the same “mainline” experience I have getting checked in by their ground agents (Aviance??). Feels a bit like any other time I check in for a LCC flight with a ground agent. But I digress.

Check-in went without any problems – I had used On Line Check In (OLCI) as soon as it opened for my domestic flight (24hrs prior to departure) and had selected my seats for the outbound domestic and trans-atlantic sections of my flights (having been unable to select these prior to OLCI given BA’s recent changes to their seat selection policy ) but I’d decided not to print off my Boarding Passes until I got to the Self Service Check In (SSCI) machines at the airport in case better seats had opened up on the LHR-JFK sector. As it was, the seats I had snagged (3F on the BA1483 and 64A on the BA115) were as good as I could have wished for, so no further changes were required. Due to all the problems with the opening of the new Terminal 5 at Heathrow I had opted to travel with hand luggage only so as to rule out any possible issues with hold baggage not making it to JFK with me. SSCI went without any problems – I was asked to insert my passport in the reader and then my boarding passes for both flights were issued. As I had no baggage to check in I proceeded straight to security.

There was a very small queue of about 12 PAX in front of me in the security queue and we were through quite quickly. The only glitch being that I had foolishly forgotten to check the size of my deodorant spray (which turned out to be 150ml) and had to hand it over. The security agent was very apologetic about it, and it wasn’t a problem as it was my own stupid fault for forgetting).


Glasgow (GLA) to London (LHR) – BA 1483 (Domestic Shuttle)

Having learned from my previous trip where Mrs Efin and I were denied access to the GLA BA lounge by an ill-informed lounge dragon, I had read up on the specific terms of lounge access so I could tell them where to look if there was any issues with my access ((See here)). Thanks to FT’s Fraser and the Ultimate BA Guide for the info on this. Essentially (for those unfamiliar with the rules), passengers travelling inbound or outbound in First, Club World or Club Europe on a BA flight have access to the appropriate lounge on the connecting flight regardless of the class of travel. So, as I’m connecting to a CW flight on the outbound, I am entitled to lounge access at GLA even when I have no status and it’s not a full-fare domestic flight.

Id printed off a copy of the extract to show them just in case, but as it was the lounge dragon (who was actually very pleasant) swiped my boarding pass through the reader and I got into the lounge with no problem. Given the time of day it was at this point (about 11:20am), the lounge was actually very quiet – only about another 10 PAX in it. I’ve been in here a few times before for early shuttles and its usually packed solid, so this was a nice surprise. I help myself to a couple of soft drinks and some shortbread and relax, waiting for my flight to be called. Apart from a French gent in the lounge who was talking very loudly on his mobile for most of the time I was in the lounge (despite the language difference, you can still tell a “DYKWIA” a mile off) it was a very pleasant place to spend a bit of time.

I kept an eagle eye on the board as I had noticed that the previous GLA-LHR flight (the BA1479) had incurred a 1hr 50min delay (showing departure at 12:40 instead of 10:50), so I was a bit nervous about my flight, although it continued to show its 12:45 departure time. At about 11:50, when the very much delayed inbound aircraft for the BA 1479 arrived, I checked on the BA website and it was showing an initial delay of 10 mins on my inbound aircraft. I took this to be an omen and decided to chance my arm of getting moved to the BA1479 which was now due to depart around 12:40. I went through to the reception of the small lounge at GLA and was pleasantly surprised by the “just let me check that for you sir” I received to my query. One of the agents called one of her colleagues and hey-presto I went from seat 3F on the BA1483 to 6D on the BA1479. About 15 minutes later boarding was called for my new flight. Thankfully this was the right thing to do, as my originally flight picked up a 30 minute delay, which would have eaten even further into my T4 lounge time.

The Airbus 319 operating this BA1479 flight (G-EUOB) was pretty much full from what I could see, and there were a lot of unhappy people on board who had connecting flights to get. I had bumped into a colleague at the gate who was connecting to a flight at LHR to Jordan and was worried about their connection. The couple next to me were supposed to be connecting to a flight to Germany and there were a group of football fans from Lisbon who had been in Glasgow to watch the football who also had tight connections thanks to the delays. However, the crew were great – really making the best of a bad situation. The Captain sounded resigned to our fate when he was making his announcements – apologising for the delays and was talking about our destination mentioned “we’ll be landing at Terminal 5, which needs no introduction”. The Purser - LH - seemed great too – and she seemed like she was BA old-school (not in reference to her age, but to her attitude). The poor lad in 5C seemed to be a seriously nervous flyer as his father had spoken to the crew about him while boarding, and I noticed Louise made a point of taking the young lad (who was about 18) aside in the galley area, sitting him down in the crew seat and talking away to him prior to our departure. She also moved the other pax in the their row who wasn’t with them to another seat to give the guy and his father more space, and when we were in flight (take-off and climb seemed to be his biggest problem, as he calmed down in the air) she made a lot of time to talk to him and have a laugh. Great to see this kind of attention for those who need it, but I’m sure most cabin crew would be the same in this situation.


London (LHR) T5 – “Flying” Visit and Initial Thoughts

Just 8 days prior to my GLA-LHR flight BA began the long process of transferring the majority of their flights over to Heathrow’s new Terminal 5, so as my GLA flight was one of these I arrived (for the first time in many years) in a brand new terminal. Sadly, things went horribly wrong from the outset and there were a number of well publicised problems with cancelled flights, long transfer delays and a lot of baggage that didn’t make flights, so my initial excitement at travelling through the new T5 (albeit only in transit to T4) was somewhat reduced and hedged with a bit of trepidation.

Needless to say it was a train-wreck.

We had made up 15 minutes from our delay on the flight down, but sadly due to ATC we had to hold for 10 minutes before making our final landing. Everything seemed to be going well at this point – we had what I think has to be the shortest taxi to stand of any flight I’ve ever been on. I was thinking this was great – I had essentially arrived about 10-15 minutes ahead of my planned arrival if I’d stayed on the BA1483 (and if it had run to its scheduled time) and was looking forward to getting through T5 for a quick look. So, we pulled up to stand 546 and the captain came on to say we were just waiting on the guidance being switched on before we could move the last few metres onto stand. So, we waited. And waited. And after what seemed to be about 7 or 8 minutes, the aircraft started to move forward again. Fine we thought, as we could see staff around the airbridge and knew at least we wouldn’t be waiting for someone to turn up as is often the case. However, like most things T5 related, it was not that simple. The captain came on a few minutes after we had stopped and the seatbelt sign had been switched off to say that we had apparently been directed onto an international pier, so they would not be able to extend the airbridge to us (turned out we were on the T5 Satellite B) and they would have to wait for stairs to be brought to us. Another wait that seemed to be about 10 minutes and finally we saw some movement outside and the steps being brought up to the front door. They came up, moved about, then were wheeled away again. I have no idea why, but the captain then came on to say apparently the ground crew were having problems getting the steps to the front, so we’d now be leaving from the rear of the aircraft and would then be bussed to the main terminal.

We got on the bus and were taken all the way round the whole of the T5B building (thanks to a stupid one-way system) before going into the underground road tunnel across to the main T5 building with quite possibly the slowest bus driver I have ever encountered. The limit was posted as 20mph (I accept there may be parts that are slower but I didn’t notice) and we were doing no more than 5-10mph without exaggeration. It literally took us about 10 minutes on the bus just to get to the drop-off point at T5. This was where the fun REALLY started. We went through the external doors and were then essentially in a space with no obvious signs of where to go next. We wandered round the corner to where there were a couple of baggage carousels and managed to find a “Here to help” member of staff who directed us back the way we came to flight connections (up the stairs, as the single escalator was going in the wrong direction – down towards us). The signs for flight connections were had black tape over the top of them so you couldn’t see where the arrows were pointing.

I got to the top of the stairs and followed the signs for T4 flight connections (passing the T5 connections desks), along the corridor which went across the entire width of the short end of the terminal. Round the corner, and a LONG walk along what felt like ¾ of the full length of the terminal before I found the stairs down to the busses for the T1-4 connections (certainly didn’t feel like the “centrally located” connections area BA mention in their blurb about T5). There were a lot of PAX already waiting for the T4 bus and when one arrived, it quickly filled to capacity so myself and some other pax had to wait another 5 minutes for the bus to appear. We got on and then had what felt like a scenic route of the whole of Heathrow. Through 2 or 3 different tunnels and round what felt like every terminal (we certainly passed T1, and I’m sure T3 due to the Virgin Atlantic aircraft on the stands) before we arrived at the T4 drop-off point.


London (LHR) T4 Connections and Security

I went up the escalator and followed the signs for T4 flight connections. This was another very long walk along various corridors (and of course, practically every moving walkway was off and had a barrier across it to prevent use). Arriving at the flight connections security queue, I was disappointed to see that the fast-track lane was closed off (despite it being during the hours it was supposed to be open according to the sign). BAA did themselves proud again. Big queue (took me 15 minutes to get to the scanner) and 1 machine operating out of 5 available machines. The staff looked like they just could not be bothered and I swear I’ve never ever seen a queue processed any slower than this.

So, shoes off, belt off, everything into the trays and through the scanner, and finally through the other side. I could finally see the light at the end of what felt like a VERY long tunnel and after a walk to the other side of T4 I finally arrived at the BA Lounge Pavilion. Its only the second time I’ve had the chance to use the T4 lounge pavilion – the last time was December 2005 during a trip in F with Mrs Efin (and we were using the Concorde Room), so this was my first trip to the T4 galleries. It was wall to wall with people (which I’m sure this is probably par for the course at this time of day). I’m sure it will all be sorted when they move to T5 . Upon arriving at the lounge I dropped my hand luggage off at the cloakroom and then headed downstairs to the Elemis spa. I had decided not to bother going for a treatment as I didn’t feel like one, but instead opted for a shower instead before heading back up to the Galleries lounge and finding myself a seat.

Thanks to advice from the board I knew that champagne was available upon request, so I asked for a glass and headed back to relax and start putting down some of the trip report on my laptop. I had seen from the screens that that BA 115 would be boarding from gate 23, and having a look out the lounge window I could see the big bird that would soon be taking me across the Atlantic. The time went quickly and after 1 more glass of champagne I decided to head round to the gate. Just as I was about half way round I heard them call boarding for the flight, so my timing was pretty good, and by the time I reached gate there was quite a queue of people already (who I assume had been waiting at the gate). I joined the separate priority queue for CW and F passengers, and without much ado I was down the airbridge.

efincomputer

London (LHR) to New York (JFK) – BA 115 (Club World)

Boarding onto the 747 (G-BNLN) was via door 2 and after my boarding pass was checked I was directed up the stairs to the upper deck where my BP was again checked and I was welcomed by name and pointed to my seat. I’d managed to snag 64A at On Line Check-In as, thanks to BA’s new seating policy, and me having no status, I couldn’t pre-select my seats prior to OLCI.

This was only my third time in Club World – both previous outings had been the previous New Club World flat bed, but this was my first time in BA’s revamped offering, so I was curious to see the new seat was like on this trip. I’d selected 64A as my preferred seating choice based on some advice on the FT board, and it was certainly extra roomy. For those who don’t already know, the window seats on the Upper Deck have a great deal of extra space at the side thanks to the storage boxes between the window and chair. They are great for storing any bits and pieces you might want to hand during flight (laptop, magazines, etc). This seat is also the bassinet position on the upper deck (there are also two located on the main deck in CW on the high-J config 747, which this was), so there is a lot of extra space at the foot of the seat, making that particular seat, in my opinion, feel almost a spacious as a seat in F. With the new higher dividers between seats I would also say that it felt more secluded than F.

My jacket was taken by one of the cabin crew and as I settled into my seat I was addressed by name again and asked if I would like water, orange juice or champagne, so I opted for a glass of champagne which promptly appeared, along with a pack of macadamia nuts.

I then started to have a good look at the seat. It certainly felt more padded than what I remembered of the previous seat and felt very comfortable to sit in. I have to say that the fold down tray felt a bit flimsy – it took the weight of my laptop ok but because it was quite springy I found myself using my knee to support the end of it and make it more stable. I missed the lack of a little shelf just to put your glass on without having to fold half the table out, but I found the top of the side storage bins to be more than adequate to the job (Although anyone in an aisle seat wouldn’t have this option). The divider between the window and aisle seats is a HUGE improvement in my view – much sturdier and it gives a much better feeling of privacy if you don’t know (or don’t want to talk to) you fellow traveller in the adjacent seat. The screen for the AVOD is a big improvement on the old smaller screens, but I have to say I didn’t think image quality was exactly great. Not sure if the resolution is kept down for bandwidth reasons for the system on board, but in the age of current technology im surprised the AVOD system wasn’t more high-def in its appearance. I certainly couldn’t complain about the storage for my seat – both my carry-ons fit nicely into a single overhead bin, leaving me with 4 full side storage bins for anything I wanted to keep in there. Again, I have to reiterate the feeling of space this particular seat gave due to the extra room at the bottom – it was fantastic.

As I finished my champagne and handed the glass back I was asked (again by name) if I wanted a refill, but as I’d had two glasses in lounge I declined and asked for some orange juice instead and some more nuts, which were brought over promptly.

The Captain came on to announce that there would be a short delay before pushing back as one of the passengers had turned up with the “wrong type” of passport, whatever that meant, and they were having to offload their bags.

Our two Club World crew on the upper deck (Terry and Helen) went round the cabin handing out the menus while we were waiting, and at 17:13 we began to push back from the stand. The crew then went round pulling out the AVOD screens and our safety demo video began while we were taxiing. This was to be quite a long taxi and it took us until 17:36 to turn onto the runway, accompanied by the distinctive 3 chimes you hear on the 747. We accelerated down the runway and were in the air a minute later, climbing steeply away from Heathrow.

The seatbelt sign was off a mere 4 minutes later and the crew busied themselves sorting various things. Around 17:50 Helen started to take dinner orders, but I think she might have been taking status pax orders first, as she seemed to be dotting around the cabin before taking my order and my fellow pax in 64B. Again we were all addressed by name (I overheard her speaking to the pax in 63B and 64A) and with the exception of the T5 debacle earlier, this was looking like it was going to be a good trip with a good crew. The menu is listed below:

I didn’t fancy any of the options for the starter so just ordered the fillet of beef for my main. Once all the dinner orders had been taken the crew went round the cabin again taking further drink orders. I opted just for a glass of coke and settled back to start watching the AVOD. Taking the headphones out of their protective wrapping I plugged them in and set about looking through the options available for movies and TV selection. I didn’t spend much time looking through the TV section as there were quite a few movies I fancied the look of from the good choice of new releases. I decided on Enchanted as my first movie – one that Mrs Efin and I had previously seen in the cinema around Christmas time and one that we both really enjoyed and sat back to watch it. I know others on the FT board will have their own views about Noise Cancelling headphones, but I have to say that I found the headphones supplied to be pretty decent in that regard.

I’d only been watching the movie for about 15 minutes when dinner arrived. Not the biggest bit beef fillet I’ve ever had, but not bad for an airline meal. It was cooked just right for my preference, and the potatoes that came with it were very nice indeed, and in no time it was polished off. The only down side was that I still felt a bit peckish after having had it and felt like BA could have done with providing a bigger portion for their passengers, but that could just be because I didn’t have the starter.

As i’m not a fan of custard tarts, I decided to avail myself of the club kitchen and see what there was to answer my unsatisfied stomach. I can’t say I was overly impressed, and I can now see why many on this board slate the selection. Considering it was a high-J config 747, I felt the size and selection of snacks were somewhat lacking, and it already seemed to have taken a fair hit even though we were only two hours into our flight. There were a few different types of filled rolls and I opted for a simple cheese and pickle, accompanied by a pack of salt and pepper crisps and a couple of Twix fingers. I didn’t see any sign of the fresh fruit salads mentioned in the menu, and there were no “luxury cakes” at all (I asked the member of cabin crew who was in the galley at the time). I appreciate that the contents sometimes vary from flight to flight depending on what’s available, but my view is that if you aren’t going to ensure something you mention specifically is always there, then don’t mention it.

I went back up stairs, snacks in hand, and settled back into my seat again to continue watching my choice of movie.

As the flight continued, the crew continued to do a great job of topping up drinks and checking if there was anything we needed. I had been alternating between soft drinks and the odd glass of champagne (not wanting to get tipsy) and had a Kir Royale just to see how it was. Quite pleasant I thought.

As my first movie finished, I made my next selection – I am Legend – staring Will Smith. I got about 30 minutes into the movie and just couldn’t get excited by the story at all, so decided to cut my losses and make another choice. This time I opted for National Treasure: Book of Secrets which hadn’t been released in the UK cinemas yet. Just as I started to watch, I noticed the cabin crew bringing up two unaccompanied minors to sit in the empty seats at 64J/K. I had seen them passing with a member of BA staff in the premium boarding queue at T4 and had assumed they were being taken through that channel for simplicity, but it seems they were actually Club World passengers and I overheard the crew talking when they were brought upstairs and it seems the AVOD wasn’t working in their seats downstairs, hence the move. As it was they both seemed to keep quiet throughout the flight and a couple of times I was up to use the toilet I noticed they were deeply engrossed in watching the AVOD.

By this point I think myself and the two young travellers were the only ones watching the AVOD, as every other pax was sleeping. I didn’t see the logic in this as surely that would throw off your body clock even more when travelling west? Then again, I’m not a Long-Haul traveller and I’m sure these passengers were far more frequent travellers than myself and knew what they were doing.

I noticed that one of our crew, Helen, had disappeared downstairs (I assume either for a break or to help out down there), leaving us in the capable hands of Terry. Made sense to me given that most of the passengers upstairs were sleeping, and this was about the only point in the flight so far where the crew had stopped coming round every 20-30 minutes topping up drinks.

When my movie finished, I decided to put a bit more of my Trip Report into the laptop whilst listening to some of the music selection on the AVOD. It was during this time with about an hour and a half left of the flight, that the captain came on to make an announcement asking for any medical doctors on board to make themselves known to the crew. Obviously never a good thing, as I’m sure the crew can handle most medical situations, so I took it that it must have been someone taking reasonably seriously ill. However, that was the last we heard of it and there was no diversion of the aircraft etc so I assumed it wasn’t immediately life-threatening.

Shortly after this, both crew started going round the cabin taking orders for refreshments from the menu:
I wasn’t feeling too hungry at this point so just let my sweet tooth win out and opted just to go for the Bakewell tart. Orders were followed up by the usual drinks orders and before too long the crew were round again clearing up and dispensing more drinks.

I managed to watch a bit of the AVOD TV during the last portion of the flight – selecting the pilot episode of the comedy “Big Bang Theory” which Mrs Efin and I are both fans of.


Arrival at JFK Terminal 7

We began our decent towards JFK after a very brief spell in a holding pattern and were on the ground pretty much on schedule despite having been in strong headwinds for much of the later part of the journey. It was just after touchdown as we were taxiing to our stand at JFK T7 that the captain came on again informing us that due to the earlier medical emergency onboard that we would be met at the gate by paramedics and instructing all passengers to stay seated once we were on stand until told otherwise, as the paramedics would be coming on board and only after they had tended to the ill passenger would we be permitted to leave the aircraft. I believe he used the phrase “there’s no point in getting up and standing in the aisles as you won’t be going anywhere” obviously to make sure the DYKWIA’s onboard got the message. As it was, there was still some idiot upstairs who was up out his seat, bags in hand and standing next to the top of the stairs as soon as the seatbelt sign was off. He was told very politely but firmly that the crew couldn’t let him downstairs, so rather than go back and sit down he stayed where he was managing to get in the way of the passengers who were trying to use the toilet. Some people!

After about 15 minutes on the ground the captain came back on the PA, thanked us for waiting and said that we were now free to leave the aircraft, which we all promptly started doing. As I got to the bottom of the stairs from the upper deck, one of the cabin crew (not sure if he was the First Purser) asked one of the other crew to hold the Club passengers a moment, while he ushered out the First passengers from the front cabin as we were disembarking via door 2 and they had to come back through the forward Club World section. After they were out we were free to go again, and were out down the airbridge an on our way to customs and immigration.

Unfortunately an Icelandair flight from Reykjavik had arrived just before us, so there was a fair sized queue at border control and it took me about 30 minutes to get to the front of the queue to be called forward. After the usual biometric checks (finger prints and picture) I was past baggage reclaim (as I just had hand luggage) and was then quickly past the Customs checkpoint and out the front of the terminal. The time was not about 8:50pm local time, so about 1hr and 5 mins from our scheduled arrival to getting out. Given the delay with the medical emergency I didn’t think this was too long – the biggest delay was caused by immigration.

As my work had arranged a car to collect me, I just had to make a quick call to the Limo company (Accurate Limousine Services, who I would certainly recommend) to let them know I was ready to collect and they directed me to the pickup zone outside the terminal exit. 3 minutes later my car appeared and without any further ado I was on my way to the Hyatt Regency Greenwich hotel in Connecticut, which was to take about 45 minutes.


Hyatt Regency Greenwich (King Size Regency Club Room)

Upon arriving at the hotel I made my way to the front desk to check in. There was no separate desk for Hyatt Gold Passport members (I’m a Platinum level GP member), but the reception was quiet and I was able to go straight up without waiting. Check-in was quick and I was soon handed the key for my room, which was on the 4th floor of the hotel (this is the highest floor this hotel has). I was directed to the lifts and made my way up to the room.

The room was clearly marked on the outside as a Regency Club room, and was a short distance round the corner to the Club lounge, which was on the same floor. My king room was a typical hotel room size – I suppose I was expecting something a bit bigger, but as it was just myself on this trip it was going to be more than adequate for my needs. The room was clean and had a sofa and chair at one end with a good sized desk against one wall. I opened the curtains and found that my window overlooked the massive atrium court of the hotel. This is a completely covered atrium to the hotel which houses a gazebo bar, as well as the hotels restaurant and has a nice little garden area in the middle with an ornamental pond.

The only real disappointment I had was with the bathroom, which was a bit tired looking for what id expect from a club room. Just little things like a “worn” looking ceiling, and cracks in the marble tiles which had been poorly repaired, and personal bugbear of mine – big clumps of accumulated dust in the extract vent above the end of the bath where the shower head was. In addition, the club rooms are supposed to come with bathrobes and a complimentary bottle of water – neither of which were present, but also neither of which I was particularly bothered with or else I would have called down to reception to have them delivered. As it was, by this time (around 10pm local time), I was just feeling a bit hungry again so ordered up a light bite from the room service menu. I had this and then went to bed (as my body was telling me it was now nearing 4am UK time), and despite not feeling tired I thought I should get some sleep or id pay for it in the morning.

efincomputer

Work! Work! Work! / Hyatt Experience – 05/04/08 to 07/04/08

After a very restless first night where I woke up every 1 1/2 – 2 hours during the night, I woke for the last time about 5:45am and decided just to get up. I had a shower and gave Mrs Efin a call before catching up on the FT board. At about 7am I decided to pay the Club lounge a visit and see what it was like. It was very nicely appointed with plenty of black leather seats, as well as a couple of tables with chairs for eating at. I helped myself to some of the continental breakfast offerings and some fruit juice and sat watching the news on one of the two large LCD screens (one at each end of the lounge). I had a flick through the New York Times and then headed back to my room to get everything ready for the day ahead. I had initially planned to head down to the restaurant to get some breakfast, but had sufficient to eat in the lounge so wasn’t hungry by this point.

I was being collected by one of my colleagues to take me to the office (and give me the keys so I could get access) about 9am and headed off to the office. Having never been in Greenwich before I found it quite a scenic place – lots of big picture postcard houses – and also was very aware by the size of some of these houses that it was obviously quite an affluent area (of course, the Porche, Ferrari, Masserati, and Mercedes car dealerships along the way were also a bit of hint).

It turns out that despite its name, the Hyatt is actually closer to being in Stamford than Greenwich, so it took us about 15 minutes to reach the office, and after a quick run through with the various keys and keycards for access, I was left to my own devices to get on with the days work.


When I was back in the hotel after my days work was completed, I popped into the Club Lounge after first dropping my laptop bag and jacket in my room. The evenings offerings weren’t too bad – there were three big bowls of cold dishes (looked like a Tuna dish, a pasta dish and a dish of what looked like potato salad. In addition there was a selection of cold meats, some cheeses and a decent selection of sliced veg (carrots, celery, peppers etc). I helped myself to some sliced cold meat and some celery and sat down with a pepsi. I was the only one in the lounge apart from the attendant, who was busying herself folding napkins at one of the tables. Before long I had finished my snack and headed back to the room to catch up on the FT board and write a bit more of this report. I ended up getting engrossed watching Lord of the Rings on the in-room TV (on TNT) and ordered up some room service. I personally hate sitting at a table in a restaurant alone and tend to always eat in my room on the rare occasions when I’m staying away from home overnight.

My order arrived within about 25 minutes, and once the waiter had left, I got comfy and ate my dinner while watching the TV. By about 9:30 local time I was starting to feel quite sleepy (the previous nights restless sleep and my body clock objecting to the time difference finally catching up with me) and opted for a bit of an early night.


Because most of my days were filled with work, I’m just going to condense my hotel experiences over the days up to departure, as it’s all much the same.

The following morning (Sunday) I had decided not to bother with a trip to the Club Lounge, but instead to try the breakfast Buffet in the “Winfield’s” restaurant, which is located in the central atrium of the hotel. It has to be said that the setting for this restaurant was really nice – very light and spacious due to the high glass ceiling, and it gave the impression that you were sitting outdoors without having to worry about the elements.

The buffet wasn’t the greatest I’ve ever seen, but it had a reasonable enough selection of hot and cold food on offer. To be honest, the main difference (apart from quantity) in the selection on offer, when compared to the free selection in the Club lounge, was the hot food on offer, and the waiter service. A choice of Bacon, Sausage, Pancakes with maple syrup, Scrambled eggs or sautéed potatoes was about it for the hot choice from the buffet (there were other options on the main menu). I had some fresh fruit, some pastries and then some pancakes and bacon. The bacon was a little too overdone for my liking (but I think this is the US style), and was cooked to the point of being brittle.

After filling up for the day, I took a little time to wander round the ground floor of the hotel. I had a quick look in the fitness centre (which I ended up not using during my trip), and a further wander revealed the extensive conference suites and banqueting halls of the hotel. Judging by the number of events going on during my stay (various birthday/confirmation/coming out parties and several conferences and seminars), its quite a busy hotel, although thankfully it didn’t have the hectic constantly busy feel of many “business” hotels.

I was feeling exhausted in the evening when I returned from the office and opted again just to have room service delivered so I could get comfortable and relax before going to bed. Throughout my stay I had found the room service to be pretty good – better than average – but nothing exceptional. The staff were always very pleasant and I was becoming paranoid at one point when the same waiter delivered my room service on all the nights I had it – he probably thought I never went out!

On Monday (my last full day in Greenwich) I returned to the Club lounge for breakfast and actually noticed a slightly expanded selection of breakfast items – in addition to all the options from Saturday morning, there was a greater range of breads and pastries, as well as yogurts. Not sure if this was because of greater numbers staying in the Club Rooms (I noticed a few other guests using the lounge while I was there that morning), or if it’s a weekend/weekday split, but again it reinforced my personal view that a breakfast in the restaurant would again not be necessary, due to the amount of food available in the lounge.

After my cab ride back to the hotel after work was done for the day, I freshened up in my room and then headed round to the Club lounge to have a quick snack to tide me over until later on. I opted for some of the cold meat selection (including some extremely flavoursome sliced turkey breast which I had to go back for more of) along with some cheese and crackers, and a couple of bottles of Pepsi. After this I headed back downstairs and jumped in a cab to the nearby Stamford Town Centre Mall (http://www.shopstamfordtowncenter.com/) as I had found out there was an apple store where I could pick up a Nano for one of my friends (who’d asked me prior to leaving to get one for him and his wife if I had the time).

I pulled up at the Valet parking end of the Mall, and jumped out the cab. It looked like a decent enough place from the outside – there were a number of restaurants at this end of the complex and I had a quick look at the menus for each to see if anything took my fancy before heading inside the Mall.

It was, in my experience, a typical big American mall inside – lots of well known retailers (Saxs, Crabtree & Evelyn, Swarovski, etc, etc) and I know Mrs Efin would have loved to have a good peruse around the place. However, I’m not a massive fan of solo shopping so after a cursory glance around the place, and a quick check on the store directory, I was off in search of my quarry – the Apple Store.

Due to the exchange rate of dollar to pound at the time of this visit (around $1.994 to the £1 at one point), it was quite cost-effective to buy an iPod over there, and if funds had permitted I would have been tempted to pick one up for Mrs Efin as a replacement for her aging iPod, but it was not to be on this trip. I quickly made the purchase (forgetting the US habit of adding sales tax to your purchase, instead of it appearing as part of the overall cost as it does in the UK) and headed back out the mall again.

It was around 6:10 at this point, and I had a little internal dilemma over whether or not to pick one of the restaurants to go into for dinner, or head back to the hotel ready for 7:01pm when OLCI would open for my flight the following day. I’m a little ashamed to admit the later won out, and I called a cab back to the hotel (although, I’m confident there are many on the FT board who would have made the same choice).

I got back to the hotel in good time, and even managed to fit in a quick visit to the lounge again for a couple of soft drinks and a couple of slices of cold meat (seriously, the turkey was almost addictive!). I made sure I was sitting at my laptop and at the OLCI screen hitting refresh every few seconds until OLCI opened, and then I was straight after my quarry – the Upper Deck. I had pre-assigned seat 13K in the front cabin on the lower deck (bizarrely, this was the same seat I had been pre-assigned on the outbound as well, as I’m guessing there was some automatic BA rationale for this placement). There 5 seats empty on the Upper Deck, but these were all aisle seats, except 64A (which isn’t available for pre-assignment to Golds/Silvers due to being a basinet position) which I was able to successfully grab again for my return flight. Snagging the seat you want at OLCI is great, but its by no means guaranteed, and I still think BA’s current seating policy of not allowing you to pre-select your NCW seat until OLCI if you haven’t paid full fare or aren’t a Silver/Gold is crazy!

As it turned out, the flight was looking pretty empty in J at OLCI. This was a high-J 747 with a total of 70 NCW seats, but it was showing as having a total of 33 empty seats (for those of you sad enough to want to know, these were the 4 empty seats on the UD, 9 empty in the forward J cabin, and 20 empty in the rear J cabin. By the sound of it, the forward J cabin was going to be the quietest place on the plane with only 9 pax in it – potentially less than F, but I was quite happy to stay in my U/D 64A seat!

I opted for dinner in the hotels Gazebo Bar and Grill which, like Winfield’s Restaurant, is also located in the hotels large covered central atrium. The two eateries are at opposite ends of the central area, and the Bar was much more informal, with large screen TVs showing sports channels and seating around the bar itself, as well as sofas and armchairs around the bar area. It was up to the usual good standards of the hotels food I’d had during my trip and after sitting relaxing for a few minutes after my meal, I headed up to the room to pack and get a good nights sleep for the long day ahead.


Last Day In Greenwich / The Journey Home – 08/04/08

I had packed most of my things the previous night, just leaving out what I needed for the day ahead. After a quick shower, I headed round to the Club lounge for one last breakfast in the hotel and made sure I had a large breakfast, as it was likely I wouldn’t be eating again until i got to the Terraces Lounge at JFK.

I went downstairs and checked out the hotel (a very quick and painless process) and then waited for my USA colleague who was giving me a lift (having been out the office for the duration of my trip so far apart from the initial key exchange the previous Friday).

The rest of the morning was spent in the office finishing off a number of things, and going through the work with my colleague. Until now on the trip I hadn’t actually bothered having lunch each day, but with this being the last day and everything being tied up by around 1pm, she suggested going to lunch somewhere in Greenwich before returning to the office for the car to collect me at 3pm. Having pretty simple tastes in food, I opted for the suggestion of “steak” as an option for lunch, and was quite surprised when she mentioned that we would be going to a Japanese restaurant which did great steaks.

I’m sure many on the board have been to such a place before, but my visit to the ABIS restaurant on Greenwich Avenue, was to be my first experience of a Hibatchi restaurant, where they cook the food in front of you. The restaurant wasn’t too busy, and the show the chef put on was a lot of fun to watch (although I was caught off guard when he poured some Bombay sapphire Gin on the hot plate, lit it and the ensuing fireball almost made me leap instinctively backwards out my chair). The rice and accompaniments with the steak were nothing special, but I have to say that the steak itself (which gets cut into little cubes as part of the chefs process) was excellent and cooked to perfection.

After lunch, we headed back to the office where I finished a few last minute items and them headed downstairs to wait for the car service which was taking me back to JFK. The car turned up around 15 minutes late, but I had allowed for plenty of lounge time, so wasn’t overly bothered about the wait – it was a dry day (quite cool and fresh) and it was nice to be outside for a little while, having spend 99% of the trip either in an office, a cab or a hotel.

Traffic was surprisingly light (so much that the driver commented on it) and we were at JFK around 40-45 minutes later. I was dropped off at the Club/First end of Terminal 7 and proceeded inside.


New York (JFK) / Terraces Lounge

I walked inside the “Premium” entrance for T7 and then used one of the SSCI machines to print off my BPs for both legs of my journey, having chosen not to print them in the office. After enquiring at one of the Premium BA check-in/bag drop desks if Fast-Track security was open, I was told that it was and directed to head through the check-in zone and to the left.

Fast track turned out to be a long corridor with two scanners in it (one in operation). There were a few staff around, chatting mostly to each other, and after taking my shoes and belt off, and putting all the usual items through the scanner, I was cleared through. It was only after I collected my things I realised I’d forgotten to take the fluids out my bag (just toiletries in the <100ml containers), and was surprised I hadn’t been queried about them. Not wishing to look a gift-horse in the mouth, I headed up the ramp in search of the BA Terraces Lounge. As I exited the top of the corridor, I passed the entrance to the Concorde room to the left and gave a small sigh that I wasn’t travelling in First that day and so couldn’t avail myself of it. Still, I consoled myself with the fact I was still going to be in J (and on the Upper Deck), so I wasn’t exactly too bothered – It was better than knowing you were going to be in Y all the way back .


Upon arrival at the lounge I was greeted warmly by the lounge staff who did a quick BP check before directing me through to the lounge. I was advised before heading off about pre-flight dining being available for me to use, even though there was also a full meal service on my flight.

The lounge was very quiet when I first entered around 4:15pm and after finding myself a suitable spot to sit I found an attendant and ordered up a couple of glasses of Champagne (more to save me having to track them down again after I finished the first one than having a huge thirst at that point). Taking advantage of the free Wifi in the lounge, I settled down and began chatting online to Mrs Efin for a while. It was around this point that a group of Spaniards waiting on the Iberia flight were being very loud – making more noise than the rest of the lounge combined, and being a bit annoying (and I’m sure this isn’t typical Spanish behaviour – just these 8 being in the minority, as you get with any culture).

I headed through after a while to take advantage of the pre-flight dining (as I’m quite a picky eater and thought it best to see if there was something worth eating in the lounge in case there wasn’t on the flight) but the selection wasn’t exactly inspiring I’m afraid to say. I went for some Turkey with gravy and basil mashed potatoes and a couple of glasses of water before heading back out to my seat. I still had a little time to kill, so I went round to the Elemis spa (having earlier decided that I couldn’t be bothered with a spa treatment) and managed to get a quick shower. I’d already packed everything up before going in to the shower, and as I was coming out from the shower feeling much refreshed the flight was being called (about 6:20pm) and I decided just to head down to the gate.

efincomputer

New York (JFK) to London (LHR) – BA 174 (New Club World)

I made my way down to Gate 4 and was pleased to see there was a separate priority queue in place for First, Club and Silver/Gold BA Executive club members (as well as the corresponding OneWorld partners cards). Unusually, boarding was via door 1 on this 747 (G-BNLO), so I had a wistful glimpse to the left of the First cabin as we boarded, and I also had a first look at the forward CW cabin on the 747, which I actually thought looked quite compact and would be a decent option in the future if I couldn’t get on the Upper Deck for any reason – at least there are no Club World cabins on the 747 that have the same “dorm” feel as many claim the 777 has (although still being a very infrequent premium traveller, I don’t think I’d ever complain as long as I was in CW).

I made my way upstairs to the Upper Deck and got myself ensconced into 64A. When I had been checking at OLCI the flight was still showing as having 33 empty seats in CW – 4 on the Upper Deck, 8 in the forward cabin and 21 in the rear cabin, so it seemed like a light load in Club World for this flight. I wasn’t sure it this was normal for that flight at that time of week, or a sign of recent problems with BA, T5 and flight delays and cancellations due to baggage issues and bad weather over the past couple of weeks, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t too commonplace, especially as we were on the high-j config 747. As it turned out, the seat next to me (64B?) remained empty for the flight .

The 2 male cabin crew seemed a little less pro-active that those on my inbound flight a few days earlier – I had to approach them to have my jacket taken, rather than them coming to me. They also seemed a bit more intent on chatting to each other initially than attending to the passengers filling up the cabin, which I thought was a bit less than ideal.

I settled back and had a quick check of my seat and surroundings. The AVOD seemed to be working ok, although the screen on this seat was a bit slack (but thankfully not to the point of being unusable) and the trim in the cabin was looking pretty tatty with obvious gaps in the panels and some of the floor trim missing. The side and roof panels in this 747 were certainly showing their age and its just a shame that BA didn’t feel it worthwhile to replace these when they were doing the refit of the new Club World seats a few months previous.

The crew came round to take the initial drinks order of OJ, Water or Champers while the remaining passengers boarded and we waited for the doors to close – I of course couldn’t resist a glass of bubbles. Unlike my other flight, I had to press the call button after waiting for what seemed like ages to offered a top up, as the crew weren’t going round asking passengers. Again, I’m not sure if this is just the normal experience of a night flight where perhaps more people just want to settle down and go to sleep, but I managed not to let it spoil my experience .

Eventually the doors were closed and we pushed back. After the safety demo video had been played the First Offices came on the PA and advised us that we might have a taxi time of anything up to 1 hour because the airport was so busy at that time of night (although it turned out not to be as long as that thankfully) and after that the crew handed out the menus for dinner.

DINNER

STARTER
* Mixed green salad with raisin
goat’s cheese, grilled portobello
mushrooms and yellow pepper

MAIN
Grilled fillet steak
with herb butter, green beans,
carrots and crushed red bliss potatoes

Seared halibut with tarragon
beurre blanc sauce, château potatoes
and seasonal vegetables

Artichoke mezzaluna pasta
with chunky tomato sauce
and grated Parmesan cheese

GOODNIGHT EXPRESS
Warm olive oil bread
filled with turkey, roast tomatoes,
mushrooms and Provolone cheese

DESSERT
Belgian chocolate cheese cake
Aged Cheddar and Stilton cheese

DRINKS

Complimentary bar service, including
alcoholic beverages and soft drinks,
is available throughout the flight. See
inserted wine list for today’s selection.
Ground coffee, decaffeinated coffee
or tea
Selection of herbal teas
includes green tea with jasmine,
peppermint, blackcurrant
and camomile with honey

CLUB KITCHEN
Between meals, please help yourself
to a drink or a tasty snack. Please visit
the Club Kitchen and choose from
the selection on display.

Snack salads, sandwiches,
filled rolls and wraps

Fresh fruit salads
and fruit smoothies or juices

Choice of luxury cakes

Crisps and chocolate,
including organic chocolate

If seated in the upper deck, you can
visit the Club Kitchen downstairs.

Much like my inbound flight, I went for the Beef main course with no starter, and it arrived along with my desert on the same tray. Thankfully after the dinner service had commenced, drinks were topped up on a more regular basis than they had been on earlier, so it might just be that was the way this crew operated – just a shame that BA don’t have a more consistent approach to how the service is delivered between different crews, as it can make such an impact when you see the difference like this between two flights.

I quickly finished off my meal and desert and after the tray had been collected I settled back to start watching one of the AVOD movies available – Lions For Lambs. The cabin lights had been dimmed by this point and a number of other passengers were already sleeping, so I decided to try and get some shut-eye as well. I made the chair into an almost flat bed (as I found it more comfortable that way than when it was completely flat) and pinched an extra pillow from the empty seat in 64B and made good use of the earplugs and blindfold. It took me an age to get settled and as it was I think I only managed 1 or 2 hours of fitful sleep, so when I “woke” up I was the first in the cabin to stir. Sadly this is just a problem I have when flying – I find it almost impossible to sleep properly on a plane either sitting straight up or lying down, and the fact the cabin felt incredibly warm didn’t help matters.

I popped downstairs to the club kitchen and helped myself to a couple of cans of coke and some crisps (being that there was no chocolate there other than some bars of green and blacks organic) before heading back up to my seat. I felt like more effort had been made to present the club kitchen on this flight and it looked far more appealing, although in fairness the outbound flight may have started like this as well and may have been messed up by passengers using it.

Around 1hr 20 before our scheduled landing time the crew went round the cabin taking breakfast orders from those who were already awake.

I opted for orange juice with cereal, the breakfast pastries and the bacon roll with a cup of tea and a few minutes after ordering, my tray arrived with everything except the bacon roll, which was delivered shortly after I had finished the cereal and pastries – I’m guessing to give passengers a bit more space, and also to let the crew get the main trays out without waiting for the bacon to heat up.

The trays were cleared away quite quickly and about 40 minutes before arrival the First Officer came on again to let us know we were well into our decent and that the seatbelt signs would be going on in about another 20 minutes, so to use the toilets etc to freshen up now. I thought this was quite a useful announcement as I can imagine there is nothing worse than thinking you’ve still plenty of time before landing to get yourself ready only for the seatbelt sign to come on and then you’re stuck in your seat until you land.

The weather on our approach was very clear and our routing had brought us down over Liverpool and Manchester and as we approached Heathrow we had very good views out over London.

Landing was a little ahead of schedule and we were on a remote stand by 7am. Steps were put up to door 2 and as we waited on the stairs down to the lower deck, the CSD asked the crew to hold everyone back while they allowed the First class passengers off first (good to see this being enforced). However, when we got down the aircraft steps to the awaiting bus, it sort of negated the point of the exercise, as the F and CW passengers (and at least a couple from economy, as I saw one holding their BP stub for a seat in row 43!) all ended up crammed onto the same bus like sardines. This is one area where I know others have commented before, but BA really does need to sort out its F experience on the ground in situations like this – carriers like LH put on a private car to take First passengers to the terminal etc and it would make such a huge difference to the experience I’m sure.

The bus to T4 itself was actually very quick and after a couple of minutes I was taking a long walk through T4 flight connections and back down to the queue for busses to T5. The queue was very long with no separation for premium passengers (again), but to be fair the busses were coming very frequently and the queue was moving quite well, so I ended up on the third bus to appear since my arrival in the queue and had only been there for about 5 minutes. The transfer back to terminal 5 was quicker than my trip from T5 to T4 a few days prior, taking only 14 minutes (against the quoted time of 18 minutes for the journey) and before long we were pulling up to Terminal 5.


Heathrow Terminal 5 – A proper look

I had only managed the most fleeting of glimpses on my last trip through T5 a few days earlier, as I had just been transferring through to Terminal 4 and only saw as far as the flight connections part of the terminal. At this point T5 had only been open for about 12 days and the new was still rife with reports of lost baggage, delayed and cancelled flights, so I was still a bit nervous about what to expect for the final part of my trip.

It seemed to me to be a very long walk from where the transfer bus dropped us off to get along to the border control desks in T5 (but that might just have been my perception) and I don’t recall seeing any moving walkways along the way which would be more of a problem for less mobile passengers. Sadly, I found the security checks to be just a much of a nightmare as I had read about in the media and on FT. My Boarding Pass was first checked by a member of BA staff at the initial check-point, then I was into the first long queue of the day. Waiting in this queue seemed to take a long time, and wasn’t helped when a member of staff came over to “rearrange” the queue but instead of making things better they only managed to merge together the UK and non-UK passport holders who had been separate up until that point. A colleague of hers then had to come over to sort it and had to call out to everyone in the queue with a UK passport to come over to one side so she could separate the queues again, which of course led to a lot of moans, gripes and complaints – especially as people were in a completely different order than they had been. Upon reaching the border control point, my passport and boarding pass was once again checked and then I was into another queue which had another lengthy wait to get to the biometrics station to get my picture taken (and have my passport and boarding pass checked again) - why this was separated from the border control I have no idea – perhaps it was only being done for domestic passengers but it was not made clear to us at the time. I noticed on the biometrics desk that it was fitted with the same fingerprint scanner as the desks in JFK (or at least to my eye they looked the same type of unit), but this was not used as part of the process.

After finally clearing the long queues for the checkpoints, my wait was still not over. Due to what can only be described as an appalling design aspect of the new terminal, there is insufficient space at the top of the escalators to safely allow a long queue to form without it feeding back down the escalators. So, when we got to the bottom, there was a member of staff holding everyone back from going up the escalator until enough of the queue had cleared at the top and another 5-10 people were allowed up. After another long wait I finally got up to the queue for the security scanners. This is where I think some of the BAA regulations and some of the screening is completely pointless. Everyone had to (once again) take out any toiletries over 100ml from their bags and put them on the tray (as well as the usual Laptop out, belt off, shoes off etc). Now, I don’t have an issue with security measures like this for most passengers, but for transferring Long-Haul passengers who have been through all these checks already, have got off a plane and haven’t been to any shops since transferring then it’s not likely they have suddenly smuggled in additional fluids which need checked – why there isn’t a separate check at the FCC which saves the additional scans I don’t know.

Finally, after what seemed like as long as a time as the flight from JFK took to get the Heathrow in the first place, I was through into T5 airside. Ok, I exaggerate about the perception of the time it took, but it did still take 1 Hr and 25 minutes from doors opening on arrival at LHR to me clearing security – a lot of my domestic flights take less time than this! Hopefully things will improve when they move more of the flights from T4 to T5, but at the moment this is a ludicrous amount of time for a transfer to take.

My first impression is that it IS big, but I struggle to see how they can justify the claims that its 4 times the size of Terminal 4! Of course, it may be with the extra levels for the lounges etc that it has a lot more floor space, but apart from the high ceiling and feeling of open space, I would have thought it was about the same size (but what do I know!). Thanks to my transfer taking such a long time, I was left with only 90 minutes until my domestic flight departed, so I headed straight along to the Galleries South to sample its delights. I have to say that from arrival at the lounge complex (which feels like a long trek from security – probably so BAA can entice people to spend money in the shops) I was quite impressed. My Boarding Pass was checked and I was directed through to the Galleries Club lounge and upon entering it I immediately felt that it was far larger than the old lounge at T4. It seemed very quiet at this time of day, but then BA hadn’t yet transferred all of their international flights over to T5 so I imagine it will get busier as these other flights move over. Even then, I found it hard to imagine it ever getting full up or feeling cramped like the T4 Terraces lounge felt a few days earlier.

Unlike T4, I couldn’t seem to find a cloakroom (or perhaps missed it) so I couldn’t securely store my bags while I waited, but there were some large open luggage shelves for that purpose. I found myself a nice spot on one of the couches overlooking the apron and was soon approached by one of the lounge waiting staff to see what if I’d like something to drink. I asked for some Champagne and was then asked if I wanted Pink or White, so I asked for a glass of each (well, its never too early for Champagne, is it?). The views were pretty impressive and I spent a while just watching the comings and goings of the aircraft around the terminal and across at the satellite T5B. I couldn’t help wondering how the new Galleries First and Concorde Room compared – but with any luck I’ll get to sample those someday in the years to come .

I saw on the departure screens that my GLA flight was showing that it would be leaving from gate A5 and after checking with the lounge agent confirmed that this was at the north end of the terminal, so I decided to head along to the other end and have a quick look at the North Galleries lounge before my flight was called. It’s a LONG walk from one end of the terminal to the other, but it gave me a chance to pick up a bottle of bubbles for Mrs Efin along the way.

I didn’t fell the North lounge was as well sign posted as the South complex – whether this was by intention, or just another T5 teething problem, but I eventually found my way up the escalator and into the lounge. It is far smaller than the South lounge complex, and consists of a single zone, with no separate First section. It gave me the impression it was really aimed at just providing access to domestic passengers, and for that purpose it would be fine. The food and drink on offer appeared to be the same as the south lounge and champagne was available upon request (well, I HAD to have a glass to test the theory – it would have been rude not to). I was only in the lounge for 15 minutes before my flight was called for boarding and I made my way back downstairs.


London (LHR) to Glasgow (GLA) – BA 1478 (Domestic Shuttle)

The queue for boarding was already being processed at my gate, and from what I could see the biometric checks were slowing down the boarding process by a fair bit (but maybe this was just teething problems). After a few minutes in the queue, by BP was checked and verified against my picture in the system and I was down the air bridge to the awaiting Airbus 319 (G-EUOD) and settled into my seat in 3F, which I’d snagged at OLCI. The flight turned out to be completely full (or at least I couldn’t see any empty seats).

The flight was fairly uneventful and we were served a hot breakfast shortly after reaching our cruising altitude, although I did note that we weren’t asked if we wanted a drink with it. A drink service did quickly progress after breakfast had been finished and cleared away, but to me I would have thought most people would prefer this to be done at the same time as I for one was in need of a soft drink by this point. The crew made a quick job of clearing up the remaining drinks and rubbish as the seatbelt sign went on and we began our decent towards Glasgow. We arrived on stand about 15 minutes later than the scheduled arrival time and were quickly off the flight via the airbridge and into the main terminal.

Considering this had been my first “work” trip in a premium cabin, I had thoroughly enjoyed the experience despite the best attempts of the Terminal 5 disruption, and was looking forward to hopefully travelling in a BA premium cabin sometime in the not too distant future.

jrehfeldt

Very in depth report...thanks for taking the time and helping the rest of us