The week that followed was again very tough and despite the progress being made and the friendless of my colleagues I was very much looking forward to going home.

As I’ve mentioned earlier in the report, the flight times to and from London are probably the worst I’ve ever experienced. My flight to London had a scheduled departure time of 02.45am. Hmmm. Unlike most other flights for work, this meant that I had no excuse to leave the office early to travel to the airport. Bad planning by me.

So, on the last day of my working week, I tried to work out how long I’d have to stay in the office for before I could make my way to the airport. As this was a Friday night, I thought that the traffic would be bad, and considering that I had lounge access I knew that even if was very early for my flight, I’d be sitting around in comfort. I settled on 9pm as this was about as late as I wanted to stay at the office.

Flight: BA138
Carrier: British Airways
Aircraft: Boeing 747-400
Scheduled Departure time: 02:45 am
Duration: 9h 40m
Scheduled Arrival time: 06:55 am (local)
Routing: Mumbai (BOM) T2 - Heathrow (LHR) T5
Class: Economy
Seat: 34A

My driver arrived at 9pm and I said my goodbyes and left the office, excited about going home but not looking forward to the 9 hours stuck in economy that lay ahead of me. Yes, it’s fair to say that I’ve become a travel snob. Having experienced business class on a number of airlines I now hate economy (my experience on the Qantas A380 was a real exception).

Would you believe it, traffic was light and I arrived in only an hour (I’d planned for 2 in my head). There were chicane style barriers and police checks at the entrance to the drop of point and my taxi was stopped by the police for a random check. I had to show my passport and flight details before being waved on.

The drop off area was pretty busy. There various doors, depending on where each airline’s check in desks are located. BA’s were near door D. After paying the driver (including a reasonable tip) I made my way towards the door. The entrance was blocked by armed police and I had to show my passport and flight details again before being allowed to enter. I must stress that none of these security measures were at all intimidating.

I arrived at what looked like check in, however, it was closed. Damn. BA doesn’t open their check in desks until 4 hours prior to departure. As it was barely after 10pm, this meant a 45 minute wait. I spotted that there was a small seating area near check in where people had gathered.

At about 10.30, there was some activity and a swarm of agents appeared and started logging in to their computers. I expected a mad rush, but it didn’t happen.

Separate queues were arranged for First, Business, and Premium and Economy passengers. I approached the business class desk and was dealt with by a very nice lady. She attached a ‘Club World’ baggage tag to my hand baggage and then I was introduced to my ‘handler’. He personally escorted me along to immigration, telling me about the lounge along the way. This is service that I’m not used to, but it made me feel rather special. I can only assume that all business class or first class passengers receive this treatment (although I was in economy). He helped me fill in the relevant form and then left me just outside immigration.

Immigration was relatively quick, with my boarding pass and passport checked and stamped. Next was security. This was a bit of an affair with very stringent checks and long queues. There did not appear to be a fast track queue. Men and women were divided into separate areas and everyone was frisked by hand. You had to stand on a box while the security official waved the metal detector over you. I then got a stamp on my baggage tag and on my boarding pass (stamp number two). I then my made way to the BA Galleries lounge which is situated near gate 11. No dragons here, I was welcomed by name and invited to enjoy to lounge by two ladies in BA uniform.

The lounge was a bit like a mini T3 lounge at Heathrow. The décor was the same although the carpets looked a little bit worse for wear. The lounge is in a large ‘L’ shape with the one side containing the work and dining areas and the other side containing mostly seats and the bar. The lounge serves both business and first class passengers although I noticed that first class passengers had waiter service.


Initial seating area – reception is to the right of this photo


Computers, work area and newspaper stand


Coffee area


Coffee and dining area – hot and cold food options served in the left hand area


Around the corner is the main bar area


Long seating area with the bar – showers to the right


Cosy seating area – this is where I positioned myself (for 4 long hours!)

Unsurprisingly, as I was one of the first to check in, the lounge was empty except for one guy. I was the second person in the lounge, so got to choose a good spot.

The staff were still laying out the bar and the hot and cold food. On offer was a reasonable selection of international spirits including vodka, gin, whiskey as well as a selection of beers and soft drinks. Two wines were offered, one white and one red. Sadly, no Baileys was on offer so I settled for a rather large vodka and lemonade (didn’t need the coke as I wanted to try to catch some sleep on the flight).

The food on offer wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t exactly a feast. In typical Indian fashion, the food was separated into vegetation (‘veg’) and non-vegetarian (‘non-veg’) sections. There was a selection of sandwiches to choose from plus two hot curry style dishes with rice. In the bar area cheese and biscuits were available as well as a selection of biscuits and cakes in the coffee area.

I helped myself to a good portion of cheese and biscuits and some cookies. This wasn’t going to be enough to hold back my hunger for the rest of the evening, but it would take the edge off.

Now, what was I to do with myself for the next four hours? Well, free, password protected wifi was available so I spent a little while surfing the internet and catching up on things back home. The speed wasn’t lightning fast, but it wasn’t too slow either. I’d pre-loaded a couple of films onto my iPhone so finished off one that I’d been watching earlier in the trip.

After this I decided to try out the shower facilities. These were located just off to the right of the bar area along with the toilets. There are three unisex showers which are fully attended by a friendly staff member. I was provided with a plastic wrapped towel and an amenity pack (Crabtree and Evelyn). The shower room was fresh and clean. It was great to try and refresh after a long day at work, however, while the temperature of the shower was ok, the pressure wasn’t great.

After the shower I headed back into the lounge and decided that it was time for some food. The hot food on offer didn’t look tempting so I decided to head out of the lounge. There were two reasons for this, one to get something substantial to eat and the second to inspect the gate area to see if there was any additional security that might slow down boarding.

There wasn’t anything particularly exciting on offer within the terminal departure area so I opted for KFC. Bad for me I know but at least it did fill me up. I returned to the lounge and was greeted again by the two friendly ladies on reception. No need to show my credentials this time as they remembered me.

At this point it was still only about 12.30am, still a good one and a half hours to go before boarding. Sigh. I really did arrive too early. Next time I’ll go out for dinner and a few drinks first.

I returned to my original spot in the lounge and noticed that it had got a bit busier, but hardly full. An English couple were being tended to by a waiter in a white tunic. I noticed that their baggage tags read ‘First’. It seems as though first class passengers get special service, since there is no first class BA lounge at Mumbai.

In front of me were a couple of American business men and behind me was a young Spanish chap who was talking reasonably loudly on his mobile phone. Next thing I know, one of the American blokes starts up on his phone too although he really topped the Spanish chap for noise levels. I had mobile phone surround sound now. How irritating. In my notes (I make notes on my iPhone as the trip progresses) I’ve put: “Why do people need to shout into their phones? Is it that they think the person on the other end cannot hear them or are they actually just obnoxious, inconsiderate, self-important idiots?”. Good question. I don’t know the answer but it was certainly annoying, especially the American chap. I seriously doubt that anyone in the lounge cared what “deals” this bloke had arranged for the following week including “Jack” on the end of the phone. Insert derogatory expletive here.

Still ages to go. Anyone considering or recommending a deliberate extended stay in this lounge should reconsider.

The flight was eventually called at 2.15am and people started to make their way to the gate. As I was going to be sitting in economy I was eager to get onboard early to stow my bag.

The gate area was relatively quiet, which was surprising. I’d expected a mass surging crowd, but thankfully this was not present. Boarding was very orderly with First, Club and Gold and Silver card holders (and equivalent Oneworld card holders) invited to board first using the priority lane.

I boarded at this point and made the long trek past the Club World and Premium Economy cabins to my seat in the forward mini Economy cabin on this 747. I was seated in 34A which is the 2nd row of economy. In front of me I spotted a lady with a young baby. Great, not only was it bordering on 3 in the morning with a 9 hour flight ahead of me I’d get to sit right behind a potentially screaming baby. You can tell I was pretty tired and ratty at this point. As it turns out, the baby didn’t make a single sound the entire flight. What a star.

I stowed my bag in the overhead locker, moved the blanket and headphones from my seat and sat down and tried to make myself comfortable. As more people boarded as I was soon joined by my seat mates, an elderly-ish American couple, the grumpy ‘does nothing work outside of America’ kind. The lady was nice enough but the man was complaining from the start. He sat on his blanket which was met with “what the hell is this crap” and then proceeded to moan and complain about many things in his vicinity and also his journey through immigration and security. Why can’t people be considerate and quiet? I also noticed at this point that both of them seemed to be obsessed with the their cheap Casio digital watches and spent quite a few minutes playing around with them. Every finger press emitted a high pitched beep, so this got rather annoying. Luckily, I’d packed my ear plugs and I hoped that these would block this annoyance out during the flight.

The BA economy seat is reasonably standard as far as economy seats go but it was easy enough to get comfortable. At this point I realised what a step up Premium Economy really is. The amount of space compared to Economy is significant and the comfort levels and overall quality of the seat is very noticeable.

The captain came on over the PA and announced our flight time of just over 9 hours and that we expected to be pushing back on time. The safety video was shown and we started our push back. Take off was smooth and soon we were on our way to London.

At this point my memory gets a little hazy and I didn’t make any notes. I don’t remember the meal service, or the drinks service, or frankly much about the service at all. This is probably due to my general tired state and the fact that it was very late at night / early in the morning. I do remember the watches of the couple next to me going off ever hour which interrupted my snoozing. All I remember is being unable to sleep fully and that I vowed that I would not be travelling in economy long haul for work ever again.

We landed slightly early and on the way to immigration I got a call from my taxi driver saying that he was about 20 minutes from Heathrow which worked out quite well.
Immigration was quick and my bag arrived reasonably quickly. I went through customs and into the duty free shop, collecting a couple of bottles of champagne along the way. The bright orange box actually doubled as a ‘identification’ aid and I was soon in the back of the taxi and on my home.

Verdict

I can’t really comment on the flight itself other than to say that economy wasn’t great, the people next to me were annoying and the flight left too late. I can’t remember the rest!

With regards to the lounge, it was pretty good. Some areas were slightly tatty and the food selection could be improved, however, as somewhere to spend a few hours it wasn’t too bad really.

I found the overall check in experience first class, with the friendly agents and personal escort to immigration, something that I have not experienced before.

I’d fly with BA to Mumbai again but it would be nice to try out an India carrier such as Jet as an alternative.

Overall

My trip to India was most unforgettable. The work was tough, the people were great and the surrounds were something that I’d never experienced. Mumbai has an amazing vibrancy that will surely charm most visitors that get the chance to experience it.

I’m already pushing my boss for a repeat visit.
Fingers crossed. ^