FlyerTalk Forums - View Single Post - The The BA Y+ and Y class Long Haul Experience (LHR-BKK/SIN-SYD and back)
Old Sep 6, 2009, 12:02 pm
  #2  
Kevincm
 
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Birmingham, West Midlands, UK
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Posts: 3,972
Part I - T-24, London and Heathrow.

The day before - T minus 24 hours and a few minutes before.

Clickers at the ready as I have no status - I needed to get to the seats pretty much as soon as possible. Looking at the WTP seat map – it’s a very small cabin in comparison to Club Europe or even First (and in the Mid-J configuration, it’s infront of Club World, it was going to be a guess to which would be the best seat as most of the seats had already been secured.

For the outbound part of the journey, my original fear of 3 x 4 x 3 had vanished to a lovely 2 x 4 x 2. In other words - Window Seat in a good configuration - This i could handle being used to being "Brought up" on the A330's in their 2-4-2 arrangement. OLCI Opened on scheduled, and 13K was picked as the window seat

At that point - I got on with the packing


Part 1 - Get a Move on!!!


After shutting down the flat again, it was time to head onto the 87, and off to London. As I'm in no rush to get to Heathrow (unlike normal), I took the 13:30 train to London

Virgin Trains, Class 221 "Super Voyager" DMU
Birmingham New Street - London Euston

By another amazing coincidence, I secured a £5 cheapie fare from Birmingham to London, which would allow me to stop by a few places before I headed off to LHR. So as oppose to heading to the light that is Moor Street, it was off to home of Birmingham's own black hole - Mordor Haputbahnhoff (Birmingham New Street).

After negotiating the barriers and the platform, soon enough the 13:30 to Euston pulled in.

Originally booked for a Pendolino, instead Virgin Trains in their wisdom decided to send out a Super Voyager instead. The Voyager and Super Voyage designs – whilst brand new had a lot of reliability problems – and other problems mainly related to the toilet retention systems – whilst not as “fast” as the Pendolinos, they do make line speed of 125mph – enough for them to operate at speed on the West Coast Main line. However, things have improved, and whilst not. And this super Voyager had a tiny problem.. as no one had uploaded the seat reservation data onto the train – with my window/table seat gone and relegated to a backwards airlines seat style.


Can you tell I got bored on the train?

Sigh. The joy of train travel. However, the at seat power was enabled, and after jettisoning people at BHX and Coventry, it settled down into a nice, if unremarkable journey - but that’s train travel these days. None of these sentimental journeys you used to have of old.


I was on the one on the left - I should have had one like on the right. Thank you very much Branson/Stagecoach trains....

After topping up my Oyster card (and cursing Mayor Johnson – the prices are starting get expensive to travel on the buses and tubes again) it was quick trip to the camera shop down Tottenham Court Road to pick up some film (yes - I do use the stuff still) a discussion at the apple shop why no Empower adaptors were in stock and getting soaked by Eros, it was time to wave goodbye to London's fair city and go underneath Piccadilly Circus, and catch a Piccadilly line to Heathrow T4.

A different place to the normal place - Terminal 4

Terminal 4 - A changing place these days as it changes from BA's old home to the SkyTeam London Hub (as well as the league of non-aligned airlines), and since I haven't had a reason to travel beyond Terminal 1 recently, so a new experience for me.

Originally designed as the Short Haul Terminal, BA had a paddy and got T4 to itself initially - with all the problems that come with it being away from the T1/2/3 complex - in fact within a couple of months of me taking off, the Joint Services will be switched back to the OneWorld Hub in T3, and the rest of BA in T5.



After making my way to check in and confirmed I OLCI’d the previous day, my bag was tagged, I was checked in and it was off to outside baggage, and then security. The staff were friendly and not shouty at all – and I was through in about 5 minutes flat.



After quickly remembering I was “sans status”, I found the Starbucks, and found a window to watch planes take off from. Well it beats looking at northing…



Eventually night fell, and I wandered off to a bit of light retail therapy. Well it happens


BA Fans may swoon.. now.

Time rolled around again soon enough – and the gate 12 was called. After finding the singular working plug in T4 and charging the devices a bit more, BA009 was called.


The only working plug in T4... and my 747 of the day

I took my time to see how it was going to load, and after packing all the junk away, I joined the main queue, and then directed to fast track (as most of the fast track passengers had been dealt with), and after a queue, I boarded the 747 to Bangkok.

Last edited by Kevincm; May 7, 2010 at 6:35 pm
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