falconea

I apologise for the inadequacy of the early parts of this TR – I was very busy keeping a diary of our three month journey and didn’t have time to write up the flights, and now I don’t even have the menus any more – they’ve been mailed home! If anyone wishes to read the non-flight parts of my diary (and Mr Falconea’s) you can do so here: http://www.bluering.org.au/leon/world0809.htm

This trip was planned a long time ago, and booked as the flights became available for booking through my excellent local TA in Melbourne, Australia. Fearing rule changes we issued the paper tickets on 30 March 2008, for a DONE 4 starting 1 November 2008 and finishing September 2009.

The original planned routing was:

MEL-xHKG-NRT-SIN-xNRT-HKG-LHR-IST-xLHR-CAI-xLHR-SFO-xDFW-BWI-xDFW-SEA-xORD-JFK-SYD-BNE-MEL

This was changed due to flight changes, concerns about weather in ORD in January, and a realisation that including a 23 hour transit in DRW would be useful, to:

MEL-xHKG-NRT-SIN-xNRT-HKG-LHR-CAI-xLHR-IST-xLHR-SFO-xDFW-BWI//DCA-xDFW-SEA-JFK-SYD-xDRW-BNE-MEL

The ticket was plated on AA to minimise taxes. Total fare was A$10,509 and total taxes was A$537.10. Only one stop in London is the key trick to this

This ticket will allow us to (a) spend Christmas with family in Germany, (b) visit my cousin in Darwin, and (c) attend a wedding in Brisbane. Everything else is just cream on the cake!

This ticket will earn us QF Platinum status (OW Emerald). To maximise the benefits of this we did a quick MEL-SYD-MEL trip to do field testing of our hand luggage and to get the 4 QF sectors we need early on so that we reach Silver and Gold status and get the extra miles. This also ensures that we are Gold frequent flyers before the BA legs, allowing us to pre-allocate seats on the BA flights.

1 November 2008, 23:59
MEL-HKG
QF 29
747-400
Seats 11 AB (Skybed)
Pushback: 12:13
Roll: 37 seconds
Take off: 0:27

We’ve booked the upper deck bulkheads for all the QF flights – this makes it easy for me in the window seat to get past Mr Falconea when I want to. The side cupboard is wonderful for storage – without the side cupboard the QF seat really lacks in storage.

The flight was as per usual for a QF flight – very enjoyable. Amenities kit now comes in a rather large hard sided zippered case which is the ideal size for a small picnic set. Pajamas were also handed out and worn – they’re quite nice.


I will endeavour to post the menu when I get back to them!


Aha! I did write in my diary about the CX lounge, “The Wing”

After landing we headed for The Wing and once inside we headed immediately for a shower. They didn’t turn a hair when we shared a cubicle and after a refreshing shower we headed off to the food area to sample the famous Cathay Pacific lounge dumplings. Which were very nice but I can’t call them special. I did notice that it was very warm and humid in the lounge and we were sweating!

After breakfasting we headed out to the lounge for a bit of TR writing, then decided to walk around the airport a bit before boarding the next flight.

falconea

2 November 2008, 9:05
HKG-NRT
CX 504
747
Seats 81K, 82 K (new herringbone seats)
Pushback: 9:12
Roll: 50 seconds
Take off: 9:33

The seats are horrible! Nowhere to put things, no way to see or talk to Mr Falconea, no way to see out of the window, nowhere to put a bottle of water, narrow, no room to read a newspaper, and taking off sideways was quite unpleasant – we were thrown against the hard side wall. We will never fly in these seats again, no matter what it takes to avoid them.

Service was also not good – only tiny glasses of water handed out when we asked for water, and no water bottles handed out. I had my own which I’d refilled in the lounge, so I used that for supplementary water. I also reclined the seat into a bed to try it out – too narrow to lie on my side, and there was all this space around my head where I could easily lose things.

No amenities kit. I usually don’t worry about the contents but I keep the cases which are often useful. I also keep the socks for packing fragile items. I saw other passengers ask for items and receive them but I didn’t bother to ask if they had a case!

Overall not an enjoyable flight.

5 November 2008, 10:55
NRT-SIN
JL 719
747
Seats booked: 11 AC (upper deck, Shell Flat)
Seats received: 29 AC (main deck, missing window)
Pushback: 10:53
Roll: 35 seconds
Take off: 11:18

I was not happy when told that our seat assignment had been changed, because I remembered that around row 29 there is a missing window (there’s a noisy duct in the wall instead, making this a very undesirable seat). The flight was full so there was nothing the check-in clerk could do, except falsely promise me that all windows were present and correct. Knowing that our flight the next day is the return flight number (but not metal) I asked if the seat had been changed on the return, to be told yes, and that we had the same seats and they couldn’t be changed! Fuming, we got onto the plane and confirmed that the seat did in fact have a missing window.

The flight was busy, with a very large and very full business class section. Food was rather nice.

No amenity kit; a basket of items was passed around and you could take what you wanted.

6 November 2008, 23:20
SIN-NRT
JL 710
747
Seats booked: 11 AC (upper deck bulkhead, Shell Flat seat)
Seats received: 15 AC (upper deck bulkhead, Shell Flat seat)
Pushback: 23:18
Roll: 21 seconds
Take off: 23:33

Contrary to expectations, our seats had been changed! We got the upper deck bulkhead as originally requested A red eye, no dinner service at all so just as well we ate in the lounge beforehand. We both managed a reasonable amount of sleep.

7 November 2008, 9:15
NRT-HKG
CX 509
777
Seats booked: 14 AC (Regional business class)
Pushback: 9:07
Roll: 44 seconds
Take off: 9:26

Regional business class this time, thank goodness! Seat was preferable to the herringbone. I checked the menu, saw that they were serving lunch so prepared to sleep some more but they served the “lunch” at 9:30 Hong Kong time! Most annoying, since I’d just nodded off and was woken for a meal at a stupid time.

falconea

Trip Report – a OneWorld DONE4 on QF, CX, JL, BA and AA.


12 November 2008, 8:00
HKG-LHR
QF 29
Seats: 11 AC
Pushback: 8:06
Roll: 45 seconds
Take off: 8:38

Another Qantas upper deck flight, so a useful side bin, another set of useful amenity kit cases and another set of pajamas. In an attempt to beat jetlag I slept as much as possible in the early part of the flight, waking somewhere off the Himalayas to some wonderful views.

A very pleasant flight.

17 January 2009, 16:55
LHR-CAI
BA 155
Seats: 14 JK (main deck bulkhead – last row of first J cabin.)
Pushback: (not recorded – it was late)
Roll: 37 seconds
Take off: 17:37

Menu:

British Airways Classics **
Many of the best British Airways dishes are greatly loved and have become firm favourites with our passengers. We are delighted to offer some of these for your enjoyment today. Our ingredients are locally sourced wherever possible.

Dinner
Starters
** Smoked salmon with beetroot and horseradish cream
or
Cannellini beans with butternut squash and fennel-scented oil

Salad
Fresh seasonal salad served with vinaigrette

Main
** Fish pie of smoked haddock, cod and prawn

Braised oxtail with vegetable casserole

Liam Tomlin’s pumpkin gnocchi with Fontina cheese

Chilled main course salad of smoked paprika and garlic chicken with roast sweet potato

Dessert
Orange and almond tart with Seville orange cream

Tasty Lancashire cheese with oatcakes and biscuits

A selection of fruit

Chocolates


We arrived at the airport early and spent time in the BA Galleries lounge, working on trip diaries. I also stocked up on water and individually packaged biscuits (cookies) to consume in Egypt – everyone I know promises that we will get sick in Egypt but we plan to avoid this by measures such as this!

We boarded fairly early, since we have not flown New Club World seats before. The seat is excellent and for a couple these are ideal, since we can see each other and also easily hold hands. I like the storage drawer but more storage that’s reachable from the seat with the belt done up would be nice – to keep a notepad and pen to note take off times, for example! Flying backwards did not bother me in the least, but take off was a little disconcerting – I could see just how close the ground still was after take off! Menus, hot towels and amenity kits were handed out after take-off, (the amenity kit in a lovely zippered pouch which will come in handy for holding saucer sized plates. But why is it sealed with a plastic thing (used normally to attach price tags to clothes and soft items) like that? I nearly damaged the zip getting into it.)

The meal was served shortly after the flight began. The salmon was excellent but the cream had only been briefly and politely introduced to a horseradish root and tasted of nothing. The hot rolls were soggy top and bottom, crunchy around the edges and stale and dry inside – a rather remarkable combination of errors. We both opted for the famous BA fish pie and were somewhat disappointed – the topping is insanely rich, seeming to be 90% butter and 10% breadcrumbs. The fish, prawns and sauce were nice, however – I scraped most of the topping off mine (awkwardly; the BA serving dish has no room to scrape unwanted items off). I hope we find more edible food options on future BA flights. (I’m a fussy eater, unfortunately.)

The dessert tart was stodgy but quite nice.

Water bottles were handed out which was nice but there is nowhere in the seat to store it.

After eating I pulled the bed out and tried it out, and napped for a couple of hours! It actually works quite well for me even though I sleep on my side.

Landed somewhat late, then had to wait to be towed to our gate.

An enjoyable flight, and I am looking forward to more BA flights. I just hope for a better range of food.


20 January 2009, 8:50
CAI-LHR
BA 154
Seats: 14 JK
Pushback: 8:47
Roll: 30 seconds
Take off: 9:18

Menu:
Brunch

Starters
Chilled fruit juice

Energising fruit smoothie of skim milk, banana, honey and raspberry

Fresh fruit bowl OR Smoked Salmon

Cereal with fresh milk

Bakery
A selection of warm breads and breakfast pastries

Main
Scrambled egg in a light crepe with veal sausages, mushrooms, roast tomato and rösti potatoes

Flame-grilled Mediterranean fillets of sea bass with tomato sauce and Egyptian rice

Ravioli with mozzarella and a pepper and tomato sauce with Parmesan

Meze plate of tabouleh salad, hummus, fattoush, Feta and grilled marinated chicken breast with lemon

We left our hotel in Cairo at 5:30 so no opportunity to eat breakfast. X-ray security before check-in – we were allowed to keep our water bottles. The lounge had a slim selection which failed the “peel it yourself or eat it freshly cooked and hot” test of safe eating, but fortunately I had picked up a couple of extra packets of biscuits in the BA lounge in LHR so we ate them in the lounge while reading up on Wikipedia about the things we had seen in Egypt. The status of the flight changed to “Boarding” about an hour before departure, which we ignored, leaving the lounge at about 8:15, going through gate security (no water allowed; we drank some and watered a convenient pot plant with the remainder, Mr Falconea putting his bottle back in his bag and I into the open pocket on my bag. I was challenged for mine but was permitted to keep it when I showed that it was empty. Egyptian security certainly treats women differently to men! Mr Falconea clearly would not have been permitted to keep an empty bottle had they noticed that he had it.

Boarding through door 2 again, so we had the pleasure of turning left to our seats.

Take off was delayed – “waiting for figures from London” but we eventually took off.

Brunch was served shortly after take off. I then dug out my laptop and worked on this TR for the remainder of the flight.



Random notes about the seats, after flying in it twice:

The table wobbles horribly especially when trying to type – both Mr Falconea and I had to use a knee underneath to make it stable enough for typing.

The coat locker behind seat 14G was accessed frequently by the FAs during the daytime flight.

The taps in the toilet are the old-fashioned “hold down for water” type. Makes it impossible to wash your hands properly.

faithwins

enjoying it thanks! great tr

kchika

There is a dedicated water bottle holder actually, look below the small extension where you put your drinks.
Did you wear the shoulder belt?
Long-hauls only.
Again, long-hauls only.

Gardyloo

I have to say I agree. I was in them on one of Oneworld's longer n/s routes, HKG-JNB, and was not a happy camper upon exiting. What a shame that the alliance's alleged premier carrier is slipping. (Just MHO of course.)

falconea

20 January 2009, 16:05
LHR-IST
BA 680
Seats: 3 AC
Pushback: 16:07
Roll: 34 seconds
Take off: 16:25

Menu:
APPETISER
Selection of savoury appetisers

MAIN
Chicken Tikka masala with saffron basmati rice
Or
Grilled pollock on cannellini beans with mixed vegetables (We checked and it has tomatoes)

Selection of warm bread rolls

DESSERT
Chocolate mousse
Red Leicester and Camembert cheese

Transit at Heathrow is no fun at all! We arrived into the satellite, took the train to the main terminal, then through security (shoes on) which decided to take my bag apart thoroughly which was annoying. Then stopped at the Travelex desk to change our remaining pounds to US$1 bills, (we used up our supply in Egypt) and met with a clerk who couldn’t understand the request and insisted that it wasn’t worth while paying the 3 pound commission. We had to argue to get them to do it! Mr Falconea was livid. Then off to the lounge, going down then going up again (a silly design) until we reached the haven of the Galleries.

We boarded fairly early. BA only allows their own elites to reserve the bulkhead so we were in row 3, in front of two people who reclined as soon as the meal was over. This is not a good seat anyway, but when reclined it was positively claustrophobic. I would never pay extra for Club Europe in these seats.

Hot towels, then drinks and cashews after take off, then the meal about an hour later. The menu looks shocking – I don’t eat tomatoes or capsicums or chillies so neither was really an option for me – in the end I went for the chicken and ate lots of bread with it. Bread was much better than the previous flight.

Interestingly, the trays had both the cheese and the dessert on them – BA don’t usually give you both!

All in all, not really all that enjoyable a flight. I must mention though that the FAs worked very hard all through the flight, constantly serving drinks.


Coming up next: the clash of the DONE4s - we meet QF009 on the next flight!

Keith009

Was nice to meet you on IST-LHR today. And rather chuffed to be part of this TR.

falconea

23 January 2009, 9:05
IST-LHR
BA 675
Seats: 4 AC
Pushback: 9:06
Roll: 35 seconds
Take off: 9:22

Menu:

Orange juice
Fresh seasonal fruit
Yoghurt and cereals

Main
Traditional English Breakfast
Or
Selection of cold cuts and cheeses
Or
Crepe filled with creamed mushroom, topped with cheese and served with rosti potatoes and grilled tomato

Selection of breakfast pastries and warm bread rolls

Once again OLCI wasn’t available – I assume that the paper tickets are the reason. I’m glad we did a status run before starting the DONE4 so that we were able to pre-allocate our seats on the BA flights!

We arrived at the airport 2 and a half hours before departure, only to find that check in didn’t open until 2 hours before departure. We joined the already longish line for J check in and waited. Were eventually checked in, and headed to the lounge which is basic but serviceable.

When the time came we boarded to be met with a familiar face in seat 3D – QF009, who is also on a DONE4. He seemed to think about what I think of Club Europe, and was unimpressed when he realised that the E seats were sometimes filled (Mr Falconea smugly saying to him, “yes, that’s why we are sitting on this side” didn’t help) and even more unimpressed when the owner of 3E turned up!

The load was heavy – 11 rows of CE, all with 5 seats filled.

The flight was uneventful, the food ordinary. Organisation of the food was ridiculous, however:

Trolley run to drop trays
Trolley run to hand out drinks
Trolley run to collect empty bowls to make room for main course
Run to drop plastic dishes on each tray
Trolley run to drop heated foil trays of main into plastic dish
Trolley run to serve tea and coffee
Trolley run to collect trays

This wasn’t the FA’s fault, it’s how the trays and crockery are designed. It’s astoundingly inefficient! At more than one point there were 3 trolleys in action, all doing different things.

Service was also slow, but given the number of PAX understandable.

IFE was a movie which I didn’t watch – in the LHR-IST leg they only showed the map and no other entertainment.

There was also a constant line for the one loo at the front of the aircraft.

Again, the FAs were working hard the whole flight.

Cheek of the century: a chap and his son; son seated in 1A and father in 5E. The father asked the person in 1B to swap seats! The son never offered to swap his seat that I saw.

And a surprise – we arrived 25 minutes early!

We walked with QF009 and bade each other good journeys as we parted, him for immigration, us for the Connections Centre and thence to the lounge.

falconea

23 January 2009, 14:25
LHR-SFO
BA 287
Seats: 14 AC
Pushback: 14:25
Roll: 45
Take off: 14:50

Menu:

British Airways Classics **
Many of the best British Airways dishes are greatly loved and have become firm favourites with our passengers. We are delighted to offer some of these for your enjoyment today. Our ingredients are locally sourced wherever possible.

Lunch
Starters
** Smoked salmon with beetroot and horseradish cream
or
Cannellini beans with butternut squash and fennel-scented oil

Salad
Fresh seasonal salad served with vinaigrette

Main
** Fish pie of smoked haddock, cod and prawn

Braised oxtail with vegetable casserole

Liam Tomlin’s pumpkin gnocchi with Fontina cheese

Chilled main course salad of smoked paprika and garlic chicken with roast sweet potato

Dessert
Orange and almond tart with Seville orange cream

Tasty Lancashire cheese with oatcakes and biscuits

A selection of fruit

Chocolates

(Yes, exactly the same menu was we had LHR-CAI – quite disappointing, really.)

Afternoon Tea
Snacks
Selection of sandwiches including chicken with tarragon mayonnaise and savoury cheese with red onion
Or
Marinated Feta and chilli-roasted aubergine

Sweets
** Plain or fruit scones served warm with clotted cream and strawberry preserve

Orange Tart

Departure was from a B gate, so we left the lounge early and headed over. We had a quick squiz at the lounge in the satellite terminal, food is identical but it seems to have nicer views.

A northerly flight route was used, flying over Iceland, Greenland then northern Canada before slowly turning down the West coast of the USA. There was some magnificent scenery, especially of the ice sheets off Greenland breaking up. The route was just north of the Arctic Circle – we flew for a couple of hours with the sun below the horizon.

Load was light in J – perhaps 1/3 full on the main deck.

Hot towels, menus and amenity kits were handed out after take off, and then an hour or two later the meal service started. (At breakfast time in SFO.) I had planned to sleep for the early part of the flight to help adjust time zones, and surely other people would also want this too? With a 2:25 departure people should already have eaten lunch. I managed to snooze briefly between Iceland and Greenland but then the views were too good and it was too late in SFO so I stayed awake for the rest of the flight, keeping my blinds up. (The pax across the aisle was pleased that I kept them up.)

We both chose the oxtail for mains this time – it might have been nice if there had been some more meat in it! I had 2 lumps of solid fat and one half fat half meat. I know oxtail is fatty but that’s ridiculous. The sauce was delicious, but runny – I resorted to mashing the potatoes with my fork to thicken it up a bit to minimise drips. All the other options on the menu also looked fatty – I know the fish pie is!

An hour and a half before landing the afternoon tea service started – a sandwich in a plastic sealed bag on cardboard, presented on a plate, followed by 1 warm scone with an unpleasant texture that stuck to the inside of your mouth. For a 10:55 flight I would expect a little more!

Landed a little early to be met by a crash of the immigration computers, which meant it took about 5 minutes to process each pax. We were second in line and concerned when the person in front of us and the person at the next desk were both sent to secondary, but the lovely officer processed us and chatted about world travel while waiting for the system to process us. She seemed pleased that I had a print out of the ESTA but didn’t need them.

When we got through, the bags were already on the carousel. Grabbed them and off through the agricultural inspection where we were waved through even though I declared the cashews we’d collected on the plane.

And why is the take off and landing position of the seat so reclined? It’s not pleasant – I learnt how to hold my own head up as a baby and prefer to hold it up myself. In take off position this is impossible. Mr Falconea also hated it – the seat is too close to the ground so his knees stick up in the air. It doesn’t seem a safe position and it would be hard to take the brace position in forward facing seats.

A final round up of BA: Club World: excellent seat, so-so food, and some peculiarities. Club Europe: avoid at all costs.

RTW4

Really a great and informative TR.. I agree with most of your sentiments

Keith009

I realised that the middle seat is now sold on BA CE, but I'd mistakenly thought that it was AC side rather than the DF side of the plane.

Bundy Bear

Interesting place to catch up with someone, I guess not all that strange it being flyertalk.

The 2nd meal choice seemed a bit small for business, I had something similar for my BA flight LHR-DFW and I was flying economy.

My sandwich came in a box but the extra item was a piece of pineapple which was better than an unappealing scone.

Thanks for the trip report so far, I look forward to reading more of it.

Kiwi Flyer

Nice report so far falconea and a nice trip. ^^^

How did you manage to get 2 transcontinental DRW flights?

Oh dear. There's lots of people you could have asked to double-check. Indeed on my recent DONE4 I was asked at check in if I minded switching seats. The first thing I asked was would I stay on the AC side? No was their answer and it was mine too.

falconea

DRW-BNE isn't on the transcon list. MY TA booked it and AA ticketed without any objections, at any rate!

Audrey