From New York to London (via New Zealand): AA, QF, CX, BA (F/J)
Oct 15, 2011, 2:39 pm
#76
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
Transit in Delhi
The Senior Purser handed me off to the CX agent meeting the plane with a brief explanation that I was flying straight back. The guy didn’t blink an eyelid, so either he had already had his meltdown during the duty briefing or he was a really good poker player. Mr Sour Swiss in 1A also turned out to be connecting. To Zurich. Who flies from Hong Kong to Zurich via Bangkok and Delhi? I would have guessed him to be a FTer had it not been for his clearly irritable non-interest in our FT conversation on the ground in Bangkok.
We were both passed off to one of the handling agents to be escorted to the transit facility, which was a long walk away. Made all the more longer by Mr Sour Swiss taking an inordinately long time to put one foot in front of the other. When we got there we were invited to take a seat while someone figured out who we were and what documentation we needed.
Now, like any good FlyerTalker, I had researched Delhi transit security before embarking on this mileage run. However, all of my preparation went completely out of my head when the agent came back with my boarding pass and lounge invitations. Instead of having alarm bells ring in my head at what she hadn’t given me, and what I should have known was needed, I blithely thanked her and marched on towards transit security.
Hiccup 1. Approaching the queue for the checkpoint there was a sign which reminded everyone to have a new, blank baggage tag. Ah! I had forgotten about the penchant of Indian security officials to stamp everything in sight. I did a quick u-turn and sought out the agent and asked her for a bag tag. She rather hurriedly shoved a Jet Airways one at me, which I tied on to my backpack and retraced my steps towards security.
This time I got all the way to the front before I hit hiccup 2. I handed over my boarding pass to the man with the gun who looked at it, frowned at it, looked at it again, turned it over, frowned at it some more and then shouted in Hindi to another man with a gun who was presumably more capable at divining what was needed to go through the checkpoint. Man with a gun number 2 said quite a bit of stuff to my man with the gun, but my guy decided he could gist it quite succinctly.
"No."
Now, my motto when travelling is never argue with a man with a gun, but I sensed that this was going to require a little explanation if I was wanting to make it back out to departures to catch my flight. I asked him politely what was wrong with it.
"Needs ditty!"
This is where sites like FT are worth their number of bytes in gold. After a moment of serious confusion the light went on in my slightly tired brain. I remembered the thread where someone had been trying to transit from JAL to CX, and they were sent back because the boarding pass hadn’t been stamped Direct Transit. Or, in other words, D/T. Of course, you may be wondering why the boarding pass, issued fresh off the press in Delhi only moments ago, even needed this notation, but mine was not to reason why, but simply comply with every instruction by Indian security so I could get back to Hong Kong.
Cue trek back to transit desk, where the agent was like, you again? I told her that security wanted D/T on the boarding pass. She gave me a look that managed to convey confusion, pity and disbelief all at the same time – "they sent you back for this?" – scribbled D/T with a ballpoint pen on both parts of the boarding pass and apologised for the idiocy of Indian bureaucracy.
Security was nothing if not well staffed. One to check boarding passes. A couple to hover around the top of the x-ray belt, a few more to look at the screens, a couple to check and stamp boarding passes and bag tags and then some to do a manual wanding of every passenger whether they set off the metal detector or not.
Brand gleaming new, Delhi T3 looked very much like a lot of other gleaming new airports that have been springing up in the region. Most notably you came up from transit security to find yourself deposited in the middle of a shopping mall. The people who manage Delhi Airport are not fools.
Pepsi may or may not refresh India, but they certainly refresh Delhi Airport, possibly helped by an exclusive catering contract. Every outlet sold only Pepsi products.
I did a few circuits of the shopping area partially out of curiosity and partially out of a desire to stretch my legs before heading up to the Premium lounge. I had been hoping that CX had switched lounge providers to its OW-partner-to-be Kingfisher but it was not to be. Then again, I shouldn’t have been too disappointed because TG’s idea of a lounge was to carve out a bit of the seating area in the sports bar/restaurant and to whack a great big free-standing banner outside notifying such. Classy.
The Clipper lounge was fine for what it was, which for me was basically a place to sink into an armchair and try not to fall asleep. It had free wifi, clean bathrooms, a food buffet and a manned bar. It also had some really good air conditioning and ventilation thanks to its position on the mezzanine level. However, a lot of airlines use this lounge, so it really started to fill up as the night wore on.
And Pepsi may refresh India but I think this guy was being more refreshed by whatever beer he was slugging down.
Airports have long held a fond place in my heart. To many they are simply one step of a journey, and quite often a journey that is only just barely tolerated for what is waiting at the end. But I always find it fascinating no matter where the airport, the same categories of people form. There are the sleepy, the tired, who are stretched out trying to catch a few winks before their next flight. The mad shoppers, trying to find a duty free bargain before their flight is called. The relaxed traveller, who finds a corner away from it all and hides away from the world as the clock ticks on. And of course, the people who work at the airport, who flutter around like busy bees making sure everything is operating to scheme.
To me, however, the thing which most says airport is when you have a collection of crew striding through the concourse with their bags, heading to the gate. I guess the classic image is the Pan Am sweep; stewardesses all perfectly turned out, glamorously gliding through the airport. Even though much has changed in aviation since the heyday of the 1960s, the crew walk through is one of the things that has remained constant; well turned out individuals looking sharp in the uniforms which their airline has decided makes a statement about what the brand stands for, whether it be Lufthansa’s crisp efficiency, SQ’s appeal to the exotic tropics of Asia or Air New Zealand’s homage to its New Zealand origins.
CX has recently launched a new uniform. It basically looks like its old one, though I understand from the crew that the fit of the new uniform is much better. But among the changes from the last batch was a dulling of the previous sharp yellow piping on the female crew’s jackets to a softer turnip colour (well, the designer calls it champagne, but it looks turnip to me), and changing the senior purser’s jacket from purple to a crimson virtually indistinguishable from the junior crew’s rose red jackets. Unfortunately, a result of this uniform change is that the crew were also virtually indistinguishable from the carpet. I have never seen a uniform which blends in better with the floor.
Delhi has also learnt well from other airports in that every gate seems to be a bloody long walk from anywhere.
It was quite fun watching the well choreographed sequence that leads up to a departure – the gate agent’s attempts at a localised announcement being thwarted by the central PA cutting her off every time she tried, it took her 12 goes; the anxious passengers wanting a seat change/connection check/other query and the other staff trying to look busy by rearranging the tensa lines every now and again. All under the watchful eye of two security guards whose primary purpose seemed to be to look Important and Supervisory. But I unfairly maligned them. It turned out they would play an important role during boarding.
Next: back to Hong Kong.
We were both passed off to one of the handling agents to be escorted to the transit facility, which was a long walk away. Made all the more longer by Mr Sour Swiss taking an inordinately long time to put one foot in front of the other. When we got there we were invited to take a seat while someone figured out who we were and what documentation we needed.
Now, like any good FlyerTalker, I had researched Delhi transit security before embarking on this mileage run. However, all of my preparation went completely out of my head when the agent came back with my boarding pass and lounge invitations. Instead of having alarm bells ring in my head at what she hadn’t given me, and what I should have known was needed, I blithely thanked her and marched on towards transit security.
Hiccup 1. Approaching the queue for the checkpoint there was a sign which reminded everyone to have a new, blank baggage tag. Ah! I had forgotten about the penchant of Indian security officials to stamp everything in sight. I did a quick u-turn and sought out the agent and asked her for a bag tag. She rather hurriedly shoved a Jet Airways one at me, which I tied on to my backpack and retraced my steps towards security.
This time I got all the way to the front before I hit hiccup 2. I handed over my boarding pass to the man with the gun who looked at it, frowned at it, looked at it again, turned it over, frowned at it some more and then shouted in Hindi to another man with a gun who was presumably more capable at divining what was needed to go through the checkpoint. Man with a gun number 2 said quite a bit of stuff to my man with the gun, but my guy decided he could gist it quite succinctly.
"No."
Now, my motto when travelling is never argue with a man with a gun, but I sensed that this was going to require a little explanation if I was wanting to make it back out to departures to catch my flight. I asked him politely what was wrong with it.
"Needs ditty!"
This is where sites like FT are worth their number of bytes in gold. After a moment of serious confusion the light went on in my slightly tired brain. I remembered the thread where someone had been trying to transit from JAL to CX, and they were sent back because the boarding pass hadn’t been stamped Direct Transit. Or, in other words, D/T. Of course, you may be wondering why the boarding pass, issued fresh off the press in Delhi only moments ago, even needed this notation, but mine was not to reason why, but simply comply with every instruction by Indian security so I could get back to Hong Kong.
Cue trek back to transit desk, where the agent was like, you again? I told her that security wanted D/T on the boarding pass. She gave me a look that managed to convey confusion, pity and disbelief all at the same time – "they sent you back for this?" – scribbled D/T with a ballpoint pen on both parts of the boarding pass and apologised for the idiocy of Indian bureaucracy.
Security was nothing if not well staffed. One to check boarding passes. A couple to hover around the top of the x-ray belt, a few more to look at the screens, a couple to check and stamp boarding passes and bag tags and then some to do a manual wanding of every passenger whether they set off the metal detector or not.
Brand gleaming new, Delhi T3 looked very much like a lot of other gleaming new airports that have been springing up in the region. Most notably you came up from transit security to find yourself deposited in the middle of a shopping mall. The people who manage Delhi Airport are not fools.
Pepsi may or may not refresh India, but they certainly refresh Delhi Airport, possibly helped by an exclusive catering contract. Every outlet sold only Pepsi products.
I did a few circuits of the shopping area partially out of curiosity and partially out of a desire to stretch my legs before heading up to the Premium lounge. I had been hoping that CX had switched lounge providers to its OW-partner-to-be Kingfisher but it was not to be. Then again, I shouldn’t have been too disappointed because TG’s idea of a lounge was to carve out a bit of the seating area in the sports bar/restaurant and to whack a great big free-standing banner outside notifying such. Classy.
The Clipper lounge was fine for what it was, which for me was basically a place to sink into an armchair and try not to fall asleep. It had free wifi, clean bathrooms, a food buffet and a manned bar. It also had some really good air conditioning and ventilation thanks to its position on the mezzanine level. However, a lot of airlines use this lounge, so it really started to fill up as the night wore on.
And Pepsi may refresh India but I think this guy was being more refreshed by whatever beer he was slugging down.
Airports have long held a fond place in my heart. To many they are simply one step of a journey, and quite often a journey that is only just barely tolerated for what is waiting at the end. But I always find it fascinating no matter where the airport, the same categories of people form. There are the sleepy, the tired, who are stretched out trying to catch a few winks before their next flight. The mad shoppers, trying to find a duty free bargain before their flight is called. The relaxed traveller, who finds a corner away from it all and hides away from the world as the clock ticks on. And of course, the people who work at the airport, who flutter around like busy bees making sure everything is operating to scheme.
To me, however, the thing which most says airport is when you have a collection of crew striding through the concourse with their bags, heading to the gate. I guess the classic image is the Pan Am sweep; stewardesses all perfectly turned out, glamorously gliding through the airport. Even though much has changed in aviation since the heyday of the 1960s, the crew walk through is one of the things that has remained constant; well turned out individuals looking sharp in the uniforms which their airline has decided makes a statement about what the brand stands for, whether it be Lufthansa’s crisp efficiency, SQ’s appeal to the exotic tropics of Asia or Air New Zealand’s homage to its New Zealand origins.
CX has recently launched a new uniform. It basically looks like its old one, though I understand from the crew that the fit of the new uniform is much better. But among the changes from the last batch was a dulling of the previous sharp yellow piping on the female crew’s jackets to a softer turnip colour (well, the designer calls it champagne, but it looks turnip to me), and changing the senior purser’s jacket from purple to a crimson virtually indistinguishable from the junior crew’s rose red jackets. Unfortunately, a result of this uniform change is that the crew were also virtually indistinguishable from the carpet. I have never seen a uniform which blends in better with the floor.
Delhi has also learnt well from other airports in that every gate seems to be a bloody long walk from anywhere.
It was quite fun watching the well choreographed sequence that leads up to a departure – the gate agent’s attempts at a localised announcement being thwarted by the central PA cutting her off every time she tried, it took her 12 goes; the anxious passengers wanting a seat change/connection check/other query and the other staff trying to look busy by rearranging the tensa lines every now and again. All under the watchful eye of two security guards whose primary purpose seemed to be to look Important and Supervisory. But I unfairly maligned them. It turned out they would play an important role during boarding.
Next: back to Hong Kong.
Oct 19, 2011, 2:34 pm
#78
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
9/16: Cx f (5)
CX694 DEL-HKG B744 (74A) B-HOS
Keeping with the theme encountered thus far at Indian airports, boarding was a process well seasoned with pointless stop-and-do-stuff checks. The security guard inspected the stamped bag tag of the first person in the line. He then lazily started walking down the ramp towards the aircraft, with everyone else trailing behind. Once at the bottom of the ramp, by the actual airbridge, he started checking the bag tags of everyone else behind. Each airbridge also had, posted just before the door, another security guard whose job it was to inspect the stamped boarding pass stub. One person, one job.
Here’s a photo of the ramp downwards to the plane. Pictured in front is the rude man who barged in front of me in the queue because he was travelling in Business Class. I hope he had a miserable flight in his herringbone seat, that he couldn’t manage to get his desired window seat for his connection to Bali AND he was stuck on a crappy regional 773 for his continuation.
About an hour before reboarding, I had started to question the sanity of doing this run. It was nearing middle-of-night o’clock Hong Kong time and I was pretty close to being dead on my feet. 2A had never looked so good. And trust me, the first time I was seated in it, it looked pretty damn good. But this time round, on sector number five of this run? I just wanted the damn plane to take off so I could get some sleep. First, however, I was treated to a truly excruciating attempt to communicate with the ISM in Cantonese by the (non-native speaker) passenger seated behind me. Props for speaking a second language and all that – and from what I hear Cantonese is a pretty difficult language to pick up – but for the love of all that is holy, please at least do it after I put my noise-cancelling headphones on.
I had been warned by ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER on the previous leg that the meal was pretty slim pickings out of Delhi. I believe the exact word he used was "crap", before clarifying, in the tone of utmost derision, that it was something like a spaghetti bolognaise. He went so far as to recommend that I pick up some chicken fingers from the Delhi Airport food court, which is a pretty sad indictment on the quality of F catering out of Delhi.
It might not have been spag bol on the menu, but it was close enough that it had me laughing when I opened it up.
SUPPER
Starters
Asparagus cream soup
Mixed paneer tikka with chick peas and cashewnut salad
Main Courses
Peshawari murgh, kesari chilgoza pulao, dal palak
Peshawiri chicken curry with saffron pinenut basmati rice and lentils with spinach
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Paneer makhani, matar pulao, rajma masala
Cottage cheese in creamy tomato sauce, pea basmati rice and red kindey bean masala
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Fettucine with thyme white wine cream sauce and pan-seared prawns
Cheese and Dessert
Emmental, English Cheddar, Camembert, Danish Blue
Fresh seasonal fruit
Tiramisu with coffee sauce
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
REFRESHMENT
Grilled chicken with mixed pepper salad on whole meal roll
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, having been fed and fed well on the previous two legs. Nor did EGT’s description of the food make it sound like it was a meal worth staying up for. Frankly, all I wanted to do was put my seat in full flat and crash for the five hour flight to Hong Kong.
This is a strange flight in the Cathay Pacific network. Most of their regional flights which sell First Class are daytime flights. Hence, the airline doesn’t cater the aircraft for sleep. They load blankets, and pillows, but the usual long haul trimmings – pyjamas, the bed kit and amenity bags – aren’t loaded. However, this was a night time departure on which you’d expect most passengers to sleep. Surely – surely – they would load something?
ung1 would have been disappointed. No pyjamas. No slippers. In fact, the only thing we got was an amenity kit. The purser called it a comfort kit when she handed it out. For a moment I thought that CX might actually have been cheap enough to load a special regional amenity kit with even less stuff than the long haul kits. For those of you who have ever received a CX long haul kit you are probably thinking that a scaled down version would contain a comb. And a shoehorn.
Turns out that it was the bog standard long haul kit, though as you might by now have suspected, the contents of which are not something really worth writing home about. If in fact anyone does write home about amenity kits. Let’s just say the most useful thing in it was the toothbrush. The comb might have been vaguely useful too, but for the fact that when I tried to use it to tame the tufts that had sprung up during the night it proved singularly useless. (Though to be fair, that might be more due to my uncooperative hair than the comb itself).
It looked like the other passengers, in 2K and 3A, were in for the long haul when it came to the meal service. From my pre take off observations, Mr 3A seemed like the chatty type. I really didn’t want to be woken up by him directly behind me trying to butcher the Cantonese language again. I made for 1A. With 1K vacant it was the perfect spot away from the rest of the seats and the galley to get as much sleep as possible.
Remember, no duvet. This was my bed for the next four hours. Still, it beat the hell out of 43E. And we all have to suffer for the causes in which we believe.
Exhaustion is a great sleep aid. Alcohol, too, but I didn’t have time to drink the plane dry. Pillow, meet head, and I was out for pretty much the whole flight to Hong Kong. 2K and 3A could have re-enacted a Cantonese serial drama in the cabin and I would have slept right through it. For all I know, they did, seeing as when I woke up they were still in their seats looking like they had not gotten any shut eye for the past five hours at all.
Because of the state of sleep, this is the only photo I have of anything remotely resembling catering:
Gate 66! I was probably the only person on board happy about this. The captain announced it in tones of the greatest apology, but I was really happy. If I couldn’t get a new registration at least I could pick up a new gate.
The crew knew I was mad, because they had asked at the beginning of the flight whether I had spent time in Delhi or picking up the flight back to Hong Kong from somewhere else. They clearly didn’t get the memo. My catatonic state for much of the flight precluded too many questions about my insane routing but while we were waiting for the airbridge to come in the purser asked me with a sly smile, "so when is your next trip to Delhi Airport, Mr Top of climb?"
She was teasing me.
Just to be different – which by now you may have surmised is a quirk of my character – I decided to see how long it would take me to walk from 66 to immigration. Normal people take the little automated shuttle train for the length of the central concourse. But I am not normal. Plus, the idea of being packed into a small confined space with other people wasn’t how I wanted to spend a portion of my day. If I liked that sort of stuff I would have done this mileage run in Economy.
Here is some information I learnt over the next 15 minutes, for anyone who cares:
I just missed an Airport Express train. However, this provided an excellent opportunity to check out CX’s arrival lounge, aptly named The Arrival. It is secreted away in a corridor connecting T1 and T2, very conveniently accessible by escalator right underneath the Airport Express platform.
The lounge is narrow, cramped and crowded. Not really somewhere you’d want to spend a lot of time if you had someplace better to do. It also promised Chinese and Western breakfast options, though the Western option seemed to be limited to cereal and pastries and a single lonesome dish of baked beans. I settled for some dim sum and a watermelon juice, and was back on the platform waiting for the train with 5 minutes to spare. Yes, the lounge was that bad.
Next up: a flight which I’m actually taking to go somewhere, rather than for the sake of miles. Yes, truly.
Keeping with the theme encountered thus far at Indian airports, boarding was a process well seasoned with pointless stop-and-do-stuff checks. The security guard inspected the stamped bag tag of the first person in the line. He then lazily started walking down the ramp towards the aircraft, with everyone else trailing behind. Once at the bottom of the ramp, by the actual airbridge, he started checking the bag tags of everyone else behind. Each airbridge also had, posted just before the door, another security guard whose job it was to inspect the stamped boarding pass stub. One person, one job.
Here’s a photo of the ramp downwards to the plane. Pictured in front is the rude man who barged in front of me in the queue because he was travelling in Business Class. I hope he had a miserable flight in his herringbone seat, that he couldn’t manage to get his desired window seat for his connection to Bali AND he was stuck on a crappy regional 773 for his continuation.
About an hour before reboarding, I had started to question the sanity of doing this run. It was nearing middle-of-night o’clock Hong Kong time and I was pretty close to being dead on my feet. 2A had never looked so good. And trust me, the first time I was seated in it, it looked pretty damn good. But this time round, on sector number five of this run? I just wanted the damn plane to take off so I could get some sleep. First, however, I was treated to a truly excruciating attempt to communicate with the ISM in Cantonese by the (non-native speaker) passenger seated behind me. Props for speaking a second language and all that – and from what I hear Cantonese is a pretty difficult language to pick up – but for the love of all that is holy, please at least do it after I put my noise-cancelling headphones on.
I had been warned by ELITEGOLDTRAVELLER on the previous leg that the meal was pretty slim pickings out of Delhi. I believe the exact word he used was "crap", before clarifying, in the tone of utmost derision, that it was something like a spaghetti bolognaise. He went so far as to recommend that I pick up some chicken fingers from the Delhi Airport food court, which is a pretty sad indictment on the quality of F catering out of Delhi.
It might not have been spag bol on the menu, but it was close enough that it had me laughing when I opened it up.
SUPPER
Starters
Asparagus cream soup
Mixed paneer tikka with chick peas and cashewnut salad
Main Courses
Peshawari murgh, kesari chilgoza pulao, dal palak
Peshawiri chicken curry with saffron pinenut basmati rice and lentils with spinach
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Paneer makhani, matar pulao, rajma masala
Cottage cheese in creamy tomato sauce, pea basmati rice and red kindey bean masala
served with Indian style spicy pickles and yoghurt
Fettucine with thyme white wine cream sauce and pan-seared prawns
Cheese and Dessert
Emmental, English Cheddar, Camembert, Danish Blue
Fresh seasonal fruit
Tiramisu with coffee sauce
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
REFRESHMENT
Grilled chicken with mixed pepper salad on whole meal roll
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
I wasn’t hungry in the slightest, having been fed and fed well on the previous two legs. Nor did EGT’s description of the food make it sound like it was a meal worth staying up for. Frankly, all I wanted to do was put my seat in full flat and crash for the five hour flight to Hong Kong.
This is a strange flight in the Cathay Pacific network. Most of their regional flights which sell First Class are daytime flights. Hence, the airline doesn’t cater the aircraft for sleep. They load blankets, and pillows, but the usual long haul trimmings – pyjamas, the bed kit and amenity bags – aren’t loaded. However, this was a night time departure on which you’d expect most passengers to sleep. Surely – surely – they would load something?
ung1 would have been disappointed. No pyjamas. No slippers. In fact, the only thing we got was an amenity kit. The purser called it a comfort kit when she handed it out. For a moment I thought that CX might actually have been cheap enough to load a special regional amenity kit with even less stuff than the long haul kits. For those of you who have ever received a CX long haul kit you are probably thinking that a scaled down version would contain a comb. And a shoehorn.
Turns out that it was the bog standard long haul kit, though as you might by now have suspected, the contents of which are not something really worth writing home about. If in fact anyone does write home about amenity kits. Let’s just say the most useful thing in it was the toothbrush. The comb might have been vaguely useful too, but for the fact that when I tried to use it to tame the tufts that had sprung up during the night it proved singularly useless. (Though to be fair, that might be more due to my uncooperative hair than the comb itself).
It looked like the other passengers, in 2K and 3A, were in for the long haul when it came to the meal service. From my pre take off observations, Mr 3A seemed like the chatty type. I really didn’t want to be woken up by him directly behind me trying to butcher the Cantonese language again. I made for 1A. With 1K vacant it was the perfect spot away from the rest of the seats and the galley to get as much sleep as possible.
Remember, no duvet. This was my bed for the next four hours. Still, it beat the hell out of 43E. And we all have to suffer for the causes in which we believe.
Exhaustion is a great sleep aid. Alcohol, too, but I didn’t have time to drink the plane dry. Pillow, meet head, and I was out for pretty much the whole flight to Hong Kong. 2K and 3A could have re-enacted a Cantonese serial drama in the cabin and I would have slept right through it. For all I know, they did, seeing as when I woke up they were still in their seats looking like they had not gotten any shut eye for the past five hours at all.
Because of the state of sleep, this is the only photo I have of anything remotely resembling catering:
Gate 66! I was probably the only person on board happy about this. The captain announced it in tones of the greatest apology, but I was really happy. If I couldn’t get a new registration at least I could pick up a new gate.
The crew knew I was mad, because they had asked at the beginning of the flight whether I had spent time in Delhi or picking up the flight back to Hong Kong from somewhere else. They clearly didn’t get the memo. My catatonic state for much of the flight precluded too many questions about my insane routing but while we were waiting for the airbridge to come in the purser asked me with a sly smile, "so when is your next trip to Delhi Airport, Mr Top of climb?"
She was teasing me.
Just to be different – which by now you may have surmised is a quirk of my character – I decided to see how long it would take me to walk from 66 to immigration. Normal people take the little automated shuttle train for the length of the central concourse. But I am not normal. Plus, the idea of being packed into a small confined space with other people wasn’t how I wanted to spend a portion of my day. If I liked that sort of stuff I would have done this mileage run in Economy.
Here is some information I learnt over the next 15 minutes, for anyone who cares:
- It takes 10 minutes to walk from gate 66, which is right at one end of the terminal, to passport control. Since it’s about a three minute walk from 66 to the train platform, a one minute train ride, a two minute ascent back to immigration and a one to two minute wait for the train to arrive, I didn’t think that was too bad going.
- If you are arriving off a flight at HKG in the early hours of the morning and connecting, you do so together with what looked like half the population of China. The queue for the transit point between gates 35 and 41 stretched all the way out of the queueing area and right back to beyond gate 33. On my walk from 66 I passed no less than three other security clearance points, all of which were completely empty. I cannot recommend enough, if you intend to be one of the above statistics, that you walk right past any queues at W1 and clear at either the point between gates 27 and 29 or head in the other direction and clear between gates 62 and 64. You will thank me for it.
- Life is wacky. One of my oldest friends (that’s in length of time I’ve known her, not how old she is), and who I hadn’t seen for a good year and a half since she moved to Hong Kong, was arriving from FCO that morning. Her flight got in a good 50 minutes before mine, so I wouldn’t have bet on us managing to meet up, but I stormed through the frosted automatic doors after immigration only to pretty much trip right over her. Turns out that CX had lost her luggage so she’d spent the last hour fruitlessly waiting for her bag and then filing a PIR. How’s that for coincidence? If my flight hadn’t parked at gate 66; if I hadn’t walked instead of taking the train; if I’d chosen a different bank of machines to clear immigration with; if CX hadn’t lost her bag; if any single factor had been different we would have slid right past each other. (Well, yes, we did have phones, but that takes the mystique out of what makes this vignette worth retelling, doesn’t it?)
I just missed an Airport Express train. However, this provided an excellent opportunity to check out CX’s arrival lounge, aptly named The Arrival. It is secreted away in a corridor connecting T1 and T2, very conveniently accessible by escalator right underneath the Airport Express platform.
The lounge is narrow, cramped and crowded. Not really somewhere you’d want to spend a lot of time if you had someplace better to do. It also promised Chinese and Western breakfast options, though the Western option seemed to be limited to cereal and pastries and a single lonesome dish of baked beans. I settled for some dim sum and a watermelon juice, and was back on the platform waiting for the train with 5 minutes to spare. Yes, the lounge was that bad.
Next up: a flight which I’m actually taking to go somewhere, rather than for the sake of miles. Yes, truly.
Last edited by Top of climb; Oct 19, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Oct 25, 2011, 2:00 pm
#79
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: LONDON
Programs: CX DM, BA G4L, QR PLT, EK PLT, Hyatt CourtesyC, HH DM, SQ PPS, BonvoyTit, UK, VS, UA, DL, AA
Posts: 1,715
Great TR - and if it's any consolation you are not alone in your insanity.
Reaching bliss at 36000 feet or doing turn arounds merely for the love of CX are guilty pleasures I have been indulging in since my late teenage years.
I once did a CX 889 JFK-YVR-HKG to connect to a HKG-CGK-HKG turnaround and then catch the late flight to DEL.
Reaching bliss at 36000 feet or doing turn arounds merely for the love of CX are guilty pleasures I have been indulging in since my late teenage years.
I once did a CX 889 JFK-YVR-HKG to connect to a HKG-CGK-HKG turnaround and then catch the late flight to DEL.
Oct 31, 2011, 9:49 am
#82
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
10/16: Cx f (6)
CX251 HKG-LHR B744 (74A) B-HUB
It used to be that you had to turn up at the airport to find out what plane was operating your flight. Heck, it used to be that you had to turn up at the airport to find out if your flight was even operating. But nowadays with the advent of the Internet, and things like ACARS and decoders and websites where you can stalk aircraft movements, you can actually manage to eliminate a few possible registrations before you get to the airport. Of course, this presumes that you have nothing better to do. Like pack. Or see friends. Or gaze blankly out the window.
So was the case that before I headed to the airport for my last CX journey on this AONE4 that I had a shortlist of 8 possible planes that could be taking me to Heathrow. I should add here that I was not pleased so far at the way the aircraft registrations had fallen. Before this journey I’d been on roughly half of the CX 744 fleet, on which four had been on the 74A up front (the so-called spit list). HOS and HUG were spit listed, and they showed up on Osaka and Delhi. On the shortlist of 8 tonight there was one plane also on the spit list. There was no way I was going to be unlucky enough to draw that 12.5% chance... surely?
I don’t know if anyone has ever asked at check-in what the callsign of their plane is. And I’m pretty certain that no one, having asked that question, and having received the answer, starts laughing hysterically. Zero for three. Statistically the odds of this happening are 0.26%. Or, as I put it, proof that Murphy’s Law trumps the laws of probability.
I consoled myself with some light dinner in the Wing.
However, it wasn’t long after being in the main lounge that the incredibly slow internet got my goat and I decamped to the Cabin. The gate posted while I was there so I also got a fresh new boarding pass with the gate number printed on it. Not that I’m not capable of finding gate 1 by myself, but I do like boarding passes which are complete for the collection.
The Cabin began to fill up as the night wore on so I headed back to The Wing. It may be dated, it may have internet that seems to be looped twenty times round the circumference of Brazil before being diverted via the Central African Republic but it does have the best views. One of my all time favourite spots is to prop my arms up on the railing and gaze out at the south side of the apron or at the boarding gates underneath. Plane watching and people watching. It doesn’t get much better than this for while-away pastimes.
CX251 (and the return, CX250) is unique in the Cathay Pacific network in that it is cabined entirely by London based crew. CX255 is mixed crew, but CX251 is all London based. There are dark tales here on FT, and elsewhere, that I could expect service standards to be lower than on mainline flights. My Osaka crew hadn’t exactly knocked that one out of the ballpark by telling me "oh, they’re fine, just a bit more Western... which is ok if you don’t mind Western standards". It was time to put them to the test.
Champagne, pyjamas and the amenity kit were passed out, not necessarily in that order. I stuck to my Qantas pyjamas. Mostly this was to make a fashion statement – as fetching as everyone looked in their black kit with the hot pink piping – but it did also mean a fresh set for my collection. One day when my bank balance is poorer for the number of flights I take I can auction these off on ebay. They ought to fetch at least a fraction of however much is bid for the Virgin Mary’s face on toast.
You guys probably know the CX post-takeoff service flow as well as I do by now. Nuts to start.
Followed by what is called supper on this late night departure, but is really a full dinner.
Supper
Caviar and Balik
Caviar and Balik salmon "Tsar Nicolaj"
International Favourites
Tomato, orange and basil soup
Romaine lettuce with pan-fried Halloumi cheese with red pepper and chives, lemon olive dressing
Pan-fried king prawn with lemon parsley butter, tomato tapenade risotto and broccoli
or
Fettucine with roasted red pepper thyme sauce, chanterelle mushrooms and sautéed spinach
Chinese Favourites
Papaya with pork, almond and peanut soup
Cold plate – marinated sliced abalone served with chilli soya sauce
Sesame salt-baked chicken with sesame sauce, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried pak choy
Cheese and Dessert
Fourme d’Ambert, Manchego, Arenberger, French Brie
Fresh berries with ginger syrup
Black forest pudding with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis
Pumpkin and coconut sweet soup
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
Snacks
Braised beef shank in clear noodle soup
Leek and bacon calzone with salad, peach and plum chutney
Assorted sandwiches ~ cherry cream cheese with toasted pecan, smoked turkey with Earl Grey honey butter, smoked salmon with lemon cream cheese
Haagen-Dazs Ice cream
Most people it seemed went for either a light meal or straight to sleep, but there was a reason why I had eaten a light dinner on the ground, and this menu was it.
The meal kicked off with the usual CX tradition of caviar and salmon.
Caviar and salmon is of course not offered on the shorter CX F legs but I have to admit that I was slightly worried going into these six CX sectors that I would get a few repeated items on the menu. However, my hat goes off to the creative chefs at CPCS; the only repeat was the soup and everything else quite different, from starters all the way through to dessert. To be fair, the cheese might have been repeated, but that always fills me up and so is usually the last thing I feel like eating at the end of a big meal.
The bread basket came with a lovely basil, garlic and cheese olive oil dip, which I was told upon asking that it had been trialled for the past three or four months. It certainly passed the Top of climb taste test, which is generally run along the lines of "is this yummy enough that I would want to recreate it at home?"
I skipped the cat piss soup (purser: "you don’t like papaya?") and the abalone and chicken and rice were served up together by the senior purser. She also asked me whether I’d mind if they switched the lighting over to night, which of course I didn’t, but enquired whether I was the only pax still eating. She laughed and said yes but told me to take my time. So far I have to say that the dark forecasts were proving unfounded; the London crew were doing a great job.
I’m a sucker for black forest anything, so dessert was a no brainer, although what came up was more chocolate than black forest and a bit on the dry side. A little disappointing.
Sleep time. I asked if I could have the bed made up with just the duvet and no mattress underlay.
I managed a decent kip during the night and woke up to find 2K across the aisle having the Chinese soup for her breakfast, such is the joy of the whatever, whenever approach to meal service in CX F. Me, on the other hand, wanted eggs.
Breakfast
Starters
Orange, apple or grapefruit juice
Pink guava smoothie
Fresh seasonal fruit
Natural or low fat fruit yoghurt
Assorted cereals
Main Courses
Organic free range eggs ~ freshly scrambled, fried or boiled
served with your choice of boiled rasher of bacon, Lincolnshire sausage,
pan-fried potato cake with cheese and spring onion or vine ripened tomato
Dim sum with chilli sauce
Asparagus dumpling, seafood and kung choi dumpling, beef meatball, mini
vegetable glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf
Scottish kippers with butter
Bread Basket
Assorted breakfast bread and fresh toast
served with preserves, honey and butter
Tea and Coffee
I do like trying out new smoothies, even though I thought I wasn’t a huge fan of guava. I don’t quite know where I got that impression once I’d taken my first sip. However, I am still steadfast in my hatred of the tomato.
The fruit was uninspiring, by which I meant that it tasted perfectly fine but was nothing special.
Next up was the yoghurt. Cathay have changed yoghurt suppliers since I last flew them, and instead of a Nestle plastic tub was something that resembled a fancy marmalade jar.
I like having toast with my scrambled eggs so I’d asked for the bread basket to be delivered with the main. The toast was better than Qantas’ attempt, even if I regrettably forgot to ask the crew how much their toaster cost. The croissant despite looking not so inspiring was a beaut – hot, flaky and with the just right amount of crisp.
The eggs and trimmings, sans tomato of course, was also very nicely done. The potato cake was divine.
It was still dark outside but it was nice to have the window shades up and have the twinkling lights of various European cities slide by as I breakfasted.
The crew were very good at slipping in and out of the cabin and picking up as passengers awoke. Certainly I was never kept waiting and dishes cleared very promptly. The fluidity of the service and the ease with which they made it look was certainly a credit to this crew. So it was with genuine pleasure that when I was pitched on to fill out the survey (a hit rate of 5 from 7 of the CX flights I might add, and of the two that I missed out on it was the return from Osaka with the same crew and the night flight from Delhi which I slept right through) I also asked for and filled out a comment card. So much more meaningful than ticking silly little boxes. Though with the number of surveys I filled out I expect to win that free ticket in the monthly draw, though I suspect I am doomed as always to disappointment.
All too soon we were slipping into London and then touching down at a very quiet Heathrow. We parked on to one of the A380 piers which meant multiple airbridges and door 1 disembarkation. It was however a bit of a hike to the UK Border, where they were just clearing the last vestiges of the Virgin Atlantic flight in from Hong Kong – which by the looks of baggage claim consisted entirely of Chinese students, their parents and enough baggage to rival check-in for any central African airline. It did mean I could save my pink Fast Track card though.
It used to be that you had to turn up at the airport to find out what plane was operating your flight. Heck, it used to be that you had to turn up at the airport to find out if your flight was even operating. But nowadays with the advent of the Internet, and things like ACARS and decoders and websites where you can stalk aircraft movements, you can actually manage to eliminate a few possible registrations before you get to the airport. Of course, this presumes that you have nothing better to do. Like pack. Or see friends. Or gaze blankly out the window.
So was the case that before I headed to the airport for my last CX journey on this AONE4 that I had a shortlist of 8 possible planes that could be taking me to Heathrow. I should add here that I was not pleased so far at the way the aircraft registrations had fallen. Before this journey I’d been on roughly half of the CX 744 fleet, on which four had been on the 74A up front (the so-called spit list). HOS and HUG were spit listed, and they showed up on Osaka and Delhi. On the shortlist of 8 tonight there was one plane also on the spit list. There was no way I was going to be unlucky enough to draw that 12.5% chance... surely?
I don’t know if anyone has ever asked at check-in what the callsign of their plane is. And I’m pretty certain that no one, having asked that question, and having received the answer, starts laughing hysterically. Zero for three. Statistically the odds of this happening are 0.26%. Or, as I put it, proof that Murphy’s Law trumps the laws of probability.
I consoled myself with some light dinner in the Wing.
However, it wasn’t long after being in the main lounge that the incredibly slow internet got my goat and I decamped to the Cabin. The gate posted while I was there so I also got a fresh new boarding pass with the gate number printed on it. Not that I’m not capable of finding gate 1 by myself, but I do like boarding passes which are complete for the collection.
The Cabin began to fill up as the night wore on so I headed back to The Wing. It may be dated, it may have internet that seems to be looped twenty times round the circumference of Brazil before being diverted via the Central African Republic but it does have the best views. One of my all time favourite spots is to prop my arms up on the railing and gaze out at the south side of the apron or at the boarding gates underneath. Plane watching and people watching. It doesn’t get much better than this for while-away pastimes.
CX251 (and the return, CX250) is unique in the Cathay Pacific network in that it is cabined entirely by London based crew. CX255 is mixed crew, but CX251 is all London based. There are dark tales here on FT, and elsewhere, that I could expect service standards to be lower than on mainline flights. My Osaka crew hadn’t exactly knocked that one out of the ballpark by telling me "oh, they’re fine, just a bit more Western... which is ok if you don’t mind Western standards". It was time to put them to the test.
Champagne, pyjamas and the amenity kit were passed out, not necessarily in that order. I stuck to my Qantas pyjamas. Mostly this was to make a fashion statement – as fetching as everyone looked in their black kit with the hot pink piping – but it did also mean a fresh set for my collection. One day when my bank balance is poorer for the number of flights I take I can auction these off on ebay. They ought to fetch at least a fraction of however much is bid for the Virgin Mary’s face on toast.
You guys probably know the CX post-takeoff service flow as well as I do by now. Nuts to start.
Followed by what is called supper on this late night departure, but is really a full dinner.
Supper
Caviar and Balik
Caviar and Balik salmon "Tsar Nicolaj"
International Favourites
Tomato, orange and basil soup
Romaine lettuce with pan-fried Halloumi cheese with red pepper and chives, lemon olive dressing
Pan-fried king prawn with lemon parsley butter, tomato tapenade risotto and broccoli
or
Fettucine with roasted red pepper thyme sauce, chanterelle mushrooms and sautéed spinach
Chinese Favourites
Papaya with pork, almond and peanut soup
Cold plate – marinated sliced abalone served with chilli soya sauce
Sesame salt-baked chicken with sesame sauce, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried pak choy
Cheese and Dessert
Fourme d’Ambert, Manchego, Arenberger, French Brie
Fresh berries with ginger syrup
Black forest pudding with vanilla ice cream and raspberry coulis
Pumpkin and coconut sweet soup
Tea and Coffee
Pralines
Snacks
Braised beef shank in clear noodle soup
Leek and bacon calzone with salad, peach and plum chutney
Assorted sandwiches ~ cherry cream cheese with toasted pecan, smoked turkey with Earl Grey honey butter, smoked salmon with lemon cream cheese
Haagen-Dazs Ice cream
Most people it seemed went for either a light meal or straight to sleep, but there was a reason why I had eaten a light dinner on the ground, and this menu was it.
The meal kicked off with the usual CX tradition of caviar and salmon.
Caviar and salmon is of course not offered on the shorter CX F legs but I have to admit that I was slightly worried going into these six CX sectors that I would get a few repeated items on the menu. However, my hat goes off to the creative chefs at CPCS; the only repeat was the soup and everything else quite different, from starters all the way through to dessert. To be fair, the cheese might have been repeated, but that always fills me up and so is usually the last thing I feel like eating at the end of a big meal.
The bread basket came with a lovely basil, garlic and cheese olive oil dip, which I was told upon asking that it had been trialled for the past three or four months. It certainly passed the Top of climb taste test, which is generally run along the lines of "is this yummy enough that I would want to recreate it at home?"
I skipped the cat piss soup (purser: "you don’t like papaya?") and the abalone and chicken and rice were served up together by the senior purser. She also asked me whether I’d mind if they switched the lighting over to night, which of course I didn’t, but enquired whether I was the only pax still eating. She laughed and said yes but told me to take my time. So far I have to say that the dark forecasts were proving unfounded; the London crew were doing a great job.
I’m a sucker for black forest anything, so dessert was a no brainer, although what came up was more chocolate than black forest and a bit on the dry side. A little disappointing.
Sleep time. I asked if I could have the bed made up with just the duvet and no mattress underlay.
I managed a decent kip during the night and woke up to find 2K across the aisle having the Chinese soup for her breakfast, such is the joy of the whatever, whenever approach to meal service in CX F. Me, on the other hand, wanted eggs.
Breakfast
Starters
Orange, apple or grapefruit juice
Pink guava smoothie
Fresh seasonal fruit
Natural or low fat fruit yoghurt
Assorted cereals
Main Courses
Organic free range eggs ~ freshly scrambled, fried or boiled
served with your choice of boiled rasher of bacon, Lincolnshire sausage,
pan-fried potato cake with cheese and spring onion or vine ripened tomato
Dim sum with chilli sauce
Asparagus dumpling, seafood and kung choi dumpling, beef meatball, mini
vegetable glutinous rice wrapped in lotus leaf
Scottish kippers with butter
Bread Basket
Assorted breakfast bread and fresh toast
served with preserves, honey and butter
Tea and Coffee
I do like trying out new smoothies, even though I thought I wasn’t a huge fan of guava. I don’t quite know where I got that impression once I’d taken my first sip. However, I am still steadfast in my hatred of the tomato.
The fruit was uninspiring, by which I meant that it tasted perfectly fine but was nothing special.
Next up was the yoghurt. Cathay have changed yoghurt suppliers since I last flew them, and instead of a Nestle plastic tub was something that resembled a fancy marmalade jar.
I like having toast with my scrambled eggs so I’d asked for the bread basket to be delivered with the main. The toast was better than Qantas’ attempt, even if I regrettably forgot to ask the crew how much their toaster cost. The croissant despite looking not so inspiring was a beaut – hot, flaky and with the just right amount of crisp.
The eggs and trimmings, sans tomato of course, was also very nicely done. The potato cake was divine.
It was still dark outside but it was nice to have the window shades up and have the twinkling lights of various European cities slide by as I breakfasted.
The crew were very good at slipping in and out of the cabin and picking up as passengers awoke. Certainly I was never kept waiting and dishes cleared very promptly. The fluidity of the service and the ease with which they made it look was certainly a credit to this crew. So it was with genuine pleasure that when I was pitched on to fill out the survey (a hit rate of 5 from 7 of the CX flights I might add, and of the two that I missed out on it was the return from Osaka with the same crew and the night flight from Delhi which I slept right through) I also asked for and filled out a comment card. So much more meaningful than ticking silly little boxes. Though with the number of surveys I filled out I expect to win that free ticket in the monthly draw, though I suspect I am doomed as always to disappointment.
All too soon we were slipping into London and then touching down at a very quiet Heathrow. We parked on to one of the A380 piers which meant multiple airbridges and door 1 disembarkation. It was however a bit of a hike to the UK Border, where they were just clearing the last vestiges of the Virgin Atlantic flight in from Hong Kong – which by the looks of baggage claim consisted entirely of Chinese students, their parents and enough baggage to rival check-in for any central African airline. It did mean I could save my pink Fast Track card though.
Oct 31, 2011, 9:51 am
#83
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
LHR Arrival (I ran foul of the 20 image cap)
I took a quick gander at the AA Arrivals Lounge. Arriving CX passengers have access, though FT told me to ask for an invitation card at HKG check-in – not only are they not automatically given, AA can be a bit funny if you show up without one. It said to make a hard right after exiting the secure area. It should have said to make a u-turn and take the lifts marked prayer room. Of course, maybe AA could just try and get their lounge signposted a little better. FYI, following the signs for the VS and AC lounges will get you nowhere.
It seemed like a decent facility. Bigger than CX’s Arrival Lounge in HKG for a start. At that hour most of the passengers looked like they were trickling in from either the Australian BA/QF arrivals or CX. There was a hot breakfast available, plenty of soft drinks and juices and pastries as well.
It seemed like a decent facility. Bigger than CX’s Arrival Lounge in HKG for a start. At that hour most of the passengers looked like they were trickling in from either the Australian BA/QF arrivals or CX. There was a hot breakfast available, plenty of soft drinks and juices and pastries as well.
Oct 31, 2011, 9:52 am
#84
Original Poster
Join Date: May 2010
Posts: 1,498
That's it!
the end.
Well, not quite. Which is why I didn’t capitalise it, which I always thinks lends so much solemnity and finality. The more astute among you will notice that London is not stateside, that I haven’t used all 16 sectors and that I promised trips on BA in the title. But while the AONE4 isn’t complete, the journey for now is. The aim was to get to London from New York. And then do all those pesky things like find a job. And a place to live. That isn’t seat 2A on a Cathay Pacific 747-400, as much as I’d love it to be.
It’s been a month and a half since I landed in the UK. Yes, I know, I’m terrible at keeping up to date with this report. I've spent most of that time wondering how Barclays keeps any customers. And who is in charge of placing the products in the shelves at Sainsbury’s. Like, why is the soup stock in the gravy aisle? Which is not next to the soups? Any enlightenment on these points by UK-based readers would be most welcome. I’ve even booked a couple of BA weekend trips, outside the AONE4, where I plan to make use of the shiny new Qantas Platinum oneworld emerald card which arrived a few weeks ago. This of course assumes that Qantas will still exist by then.
So, this trip report has come to a natural end. I promised New York to London, and in London I now am. (Yes, I know I also promised BA, but I’m going to have to renege on one of the aspects of the title either way. This will teach me to think before I write titles in the future). The rest of the AONE4 I might set up as a new trip report when I fly it, if only because I understand from the Ding Dong Sticky thread that people are reluctant to read old threads suddenly resurrected. But I will try and remember to post a link here so those of you subscribed will get a ping.
All that remains to say, then, is, thank you for coming along on the journey. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And that when next you fly, and you see someone scowling and moving tomato off their dish on to the bread plate, come over and say hello. It’ll probably be me.
Well, not quite. Which is why I didn’t capitalise it, which I always thinks lends so much solemnity and finality. The more astute among you will notice that London is not stateside, that I haven’t used all 16 sectors and that I promised trips on BA in the title. But while the AONE4 isn’t complete, the journey for now is. The aim was to get to London from New York. And then do all those pesky things like find a job. And a place to live. That isn’t seat 2A on a Cathay Pacific 747-400, as much as I’d love it to be.
It’s been a month and a half since I landed in the UK. Yes, I know, I’m terrible at keeping up to date with this report. I've spent most of that time wondering how Barclays keeps any customers. And who is in charge of placing the products in the shelves at Sainsbury’s. Like, why is the soup stock in the gravy aisle? Which is not next to the soups? Any enlightenment on these points by UK-based readers would be most welcome. I’ve even booked a couple of BA weekend trips, outside the AONE4, where I plan to make use of the shiny new Qantas Platinum oneworld emerald card which arrived a few weeks ago. This of course assumes that Qantas will still exist by then.
So, this trip report has come to a natural end. I promised New York to London, and in London I now am. (Yes, I know I also promised BA, but I’m going to have to renege on one of the aspects of the title either way. This will teach me to think before I write titles in the future). The rest of the AONE4 I might set up as a new trip report when I fly it, if only because I understand from the Ding Dong Sticky thread that people are reluctant to read old threads suddenly resurrected. But I will try and remember to post a link here so those of you subscribed will get a ping.
All that remains to say, then, is, thank you for coming along on the journey. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. And that when next you fly, and you see someone scowling and moving tomato off their dish on to the bread plate, come over and say hello. It’ll probably be me.
Last edited by Top of climb; Oct 31, 2011 at 3:02 pm
Oct 31, 2011, 2:56 pm
#87
In Memoriam, FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Durham, NC (RDU/GSO/CLT)
Programs: AA EXP/MM, DL GM, UA Platinum, HH DIA, Hyatt Explorist, IHG Platinum, Marriott Titanium, Hertz PC
Posts: 33,857
Aw sad you're finished! Thanks for following through though and the great ride. Incidentally, I used the AA LHR Arrivals Lounge about 5 years ago and they didn't have hot food back then, it's good to see they've added it.
Oct 31, 2011, 4:16 pm
#89
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: UK
Posts: 10,709
How Barclays keeps going or have any customers is a wonder for everyone who lives in the UK. A simple fact we dont know, maybe some form of accounting secret that they do. But everyone I know just hates them. I would suggest either Natwest or HSBC. Maybe having a chat with them.