Tim_T

Yes. Sat on the plane but not going anywhere. We have a 3hr connection at t5, which was supposed to be CCR time.

Both runways now re opening , plenty of planes waiting to go.

LondonElite

Good luck, hope you still get a martini!

Gold77

What a pain in the backside. They always overdo it with their security. To justify buying the latest gizmos and inconveniencing all of us even more.

But am confident you will still have time for the CCR. You would have been bored of it after an hour anyway!

By the way, the reference to 'Original' was tongue-in-cheek. It's great to read your TP!

Tim_T

BA 1393. Seats 1 DEF.

Well that will teach me for describing the Manchester leg as dull! Lucky not too much delay, about 25 mins, which given the schedule padding resulted amazingly in a near on time arrival. I suspect delays for other will be worse as some inbound flights will have been diverted.

The 320 was newer than the normal planes I get on this leg. The seats are pretty comfortable with good leg room in row 1! CC had not blocked out the overhead bin space either so no problem with two small rollaways, laptop bag and lowepro camera bag. Crew did not enable flight map which is a shame.

BA have some odd timings from Manchester. The 1395 to Heathrow goes 1/2hr before ours. It looks like the 1395 is an "extra" as all the others are about every 2hrs during the day.

50.5 hours left

exitcontrol

Loving the live trip report. Hopefully you're on your way on the a380. Looking forward to the next leg of the trip!

Tim_T

45 min delay posted. Lucky we've not left GF. We moved from the Concorde lounge as TBH we found it too sterile and preferred the more relaxed GF and the buffet found.

We will head off soon to get a stock of coffee from Starbucks with our £15 x 3.

Tim_T

BA 25. Seats 2 AEF

Left about 45mins late as the original scheduled plane developed a fault and they subbed G-XLEF for it. Delivered in May 14 this was in pretty good nick.

Boarding was a bit of a scrum as they call half of the plane with first, CW, gold, silver, bronze, and children as the first call. Mind you someone was in the line checking BP and redirecting those few that did not qualify.

Crew were very pleasant and friendly but not the most slick. Little things like no hot towels, delays in taking food order, no sugar, red sauce or chocolates offered. btw when were slippers enhanced away? I do like the new amenity kit. The bag is nice and very useable for other things. Better than the old hard Anna case. Sleep suits offered and socks, ear plugs and masks already on the seat.

Routing was up over Scandinavia, Northern Russia, then across Central china (chengdu). A bit bumpy over Sweden - almost lost my 2nd glass of LP GS, and jitters most of the way but no seat belt lights.

E and F are great seats for couples. We were able to talk easily but also had loads of personal space when needed. My daughter was very happy on her own in A watching films.

Menu was nice for me, but I did find the select a little poor for others. No vegetarian option as standard and nothing very kid friendly. We did not order a kids meal as these are more for younger kids rather than Secondary school aged. A "safe" pasta would have been good to include on the menu. Mind you we did anticipate this and ate well in GF.

To start my wife had scallops, daughter had cauliflower soup, and I had a salad. Mains it was sea bass for wife and daughter and I had the steak. All were good. I was given chop sticks for some reason. Not very practical for steak?! Again CC little things. Wines were very yummy - "we need to buy wines like this" by the wife. That's gonna cost me!

First was full. Assortment of couples and singles, even some seat swapping going on. On boarding the captain was showing small groups and families from first and CW the cockpit which I thought was good. Having just been to farnborough and seen the 380 do a display I tried to convince my daughter to go up but no luck.

I managed to get some sleep, probably about 4 hrs in a couple of goes. My daughter slept most of the flight. She is in for a shock when she finally has to take an economy overnight flight!

Arrived a little late into a hot and sticky Hong Kong, taxi to the stand too ages (15mins). Immigration a breeze. Prebooked hotel transport waiting.

Question. How is ground speed actually measured or is it interpreted from other data?

SherlockHerbert

These days, probably straight from GPS.

When I was flying, we'd get it from Doppler readings or from calculating windage and subtracting it from true airspeed readings (after adjusting for altitude and temperature).

Tim_T

Quick update. Next flight is tomorrow with an overnight cathay pacific to Sydney and then LAN to auckland. I've not posted details of our hotel in this TR, if interested I've posted details in the IHG intercontinental Hong Kong hotel thread.

If this post puts my live TR on the radar of the mods and it gets moved, I hope you will follow over to the TR forum!

Tim_T

CX111 seats 15ADG business

We arrived at HKG airport in good time. We are not ones to cut things fine and wanted to eat before boarding. With BA gold we used the cathay pacific first checkin area which is very relax. No traditional check in desk, rather pedestals with baggage taken around the back for tagging.

We are connecting in Sydney onto a LAN flight to auckland. This is a separate booking to our HKG to syd flight. No problem with this. Bags tagged thru to auckland and boarding passes issued for the 2nd flight. Coupons issued for the CX lounges.

Security took about 1 min. I'll just leave that comment hanging!

Thru to the qantas lounge. Very empty at this time. A nice selection of hot and cold food available along with deserts. A like the feel of the lounge. Plenty of natural light with various seating and eating zones. Certainly being quiet helps! Just watching the BA 777 flight arriving and can see the 380 at the end if the terminal.

Now to decide, stay here and sample the wines or go and try the CX lounges?

Tim_T

Decided to give the CX lounge a whirl. Over to the wing. I tried to access the first class section but could not guest in two people. Rather than being sent downstairs to the business class entrance and then back upstairs to the lounge, we were escorted thru to the business class lounge. That would not happen at the "millionaires door"!

Lounge is a similar layout to the qantas ie long and narrow. It uses the same space just at the other side of the terminal so not surprising. More busy than qantas but still not a problem to sit. Food selection not as good for our tastes, apart from Haagen Dazs ice cream. Newspapers (English) were a day newer.

So far I prefer the qantas lounge.

Tim_T

3 lounges in an hour! As we are leaving from gate 48, decide to head over to the bridge lounge. I like this better than the wing. Food selection appears wider and more western. Air con is also stronger! 20mins here before boarding.

LondonElite

Probably not more than GBP25 per bottle based on recent experience, but do elaborate if you still have the menu.

Enjoying your TR!

Tim_T

Airbus 330 in a 3 class (business, premium and economy) config. Boarded on time but due to a quicker flight time and 6am curfew at Sydney, closed doors 30mins late. Btw there was an extra security bag check in the jetway during boarding. I lost my bottle of water that I had been drinking in the lounge. No warning about this check and I would have been annoyed if I had just purchased it.

IFE Screen allowed open during take off. Hot towels provided on the ground along with his n hers amenity kits. Men's had slightly different toiletries (scent), a shoe horn (does anyone still use one, and if they do would they not have one already?) and a different style of bag.

Same style seating layout as our BA FIRST flight out, 1 2 1, with the middle pair again being suitable for couples. Our row 15 was actually near the front as the rows started with 11 and had no row 13. I did not like the fabric much, preferring the leather on BA. I don't know but it just feels cleaner and also keeps cooler whilst seated. Other than that, the seat was very similar in style to BA first but quite a lot narrower. I like the little storage cupboard with the headphones in. Handy for putting in glasses. At first I liked the seat better than BA CW. It's not quite as private as the window seats like 64A, but the avoidance of stepping over legs is a big plus, along with the greater sense of space, accessible storage, fixed small table area for drinks etc, and an IFE screen that doesn't get in the way of anything on your table. Oh, and a fresh orchid in a vase between each seat pair! A couple of negatives, the main table did not slide back and forth. Also my IFE was faulty and I could not adjust the volume.

However it's when I came to sleep that it hit me. The seat and especially the foot area is just too narrow. I'm not large at all, 5'8" and 11.5 stone. Maybe I sleep funny on my side but I just could not get comfortable. My feet did not have room to spread within the foot area which tapered down to little more than 8" wide by 10" tall and the heavy airbag on the seatbelt kept digging into my side. It did not help that the cabin temperature fluctuated between tropical and arctic every 10 mins. Lying on my back and the design of the seat appeared to ignore that I had elbows as there was nowhere to rest them comfortably. Also it was near constant turbulence "jitter" all the way - not a fault of the seat off course.

Used the moving map a bit but got annoyed with adverts every couple of mins. IFE had similar / same range of western movies and tv as on BA so I had already seen what I was interested in. With the lack of volume control I ended up listening to some rodrigo y gabriela on my iphone instead.

Menu was dinner and breakfast. Dinner had 4 options: wok fried prawns, pan fried lamb, chicken teriyaki, and a vegetarian ravioli. Breakfast had 3 options: omelette, dim sum, and dry scallop congee. Mains were served from a trolley rather than orders taken so you got to see everything before choosing. However I did not find my choice of the chicken particularly to my taste (I'm a fussy eater if I'm honest). The chicken was not a cut of chicken I normally eat (thigh I think), it was served on the bone and lacked much meat other than fat and skin. Breakfast was served 1:45 before landing which was too early. I did not have any.

Overall. I have read so many great things about the cathay pacific business class product, but left the flight feeling disappointed. It was not better than either BA or VS business products either in comfort or service and not a patch on our previous FIRST flight. The crew were polite and efficient but cold and functional. The food was not to my taste however the wine was nice. On leaving the plane I was surprised to see the old woman in the seat behind had made it given the strange noises she had been making during the flight.

Now to find the lounge and shower before our next flight to auckland.

makin'miles

Really enjoying this trip report - different style from many, but great to read.