Day 9 – Flying Back to Sydney

Most of photos in this section were taken using my iPhone 4 so the quality varies from good to not so good (unfortunately).

I woke up at 5.30 to the sound of my alarm. Despite my flight scheduled to leave at 11am I had a lot to do before boarding. I was also worried about the Monday morning traffic around the M25 and didn’t want to risk missing the flight.

At 6am I packed up the Jag and said goodbye to Dad who had got up to see me off.

The drive to LHR was pretty straightforward. I resisted the temptation to take the scenic route to give the car one last go and stuck with the dual carriageways and motorways.

I arrived at the Avis drop off point, which is located near the Renaissance Hotel, along the A4 at about 8am, having made very good time from Dad’s place. All that was needed was to hand the guys the keys and then make my way to the courtesy bus. I was the only one of the bus so the driver was able to take me straight to Terminal 3. We arrived at 8.15, about 3 hours before the scheduled departure of QF32, so a bit early.


Terminal 3 Departures

The check in area, and outside weren’t particularly busy, I had expected it them to be, given that it was a Monday morning.

I looked on the board outside the terminal to find out where to check in and made my way around to the Qantas Business Desks. There was a separate desk for Premium Economy and Qantas Club members. The First class desks were behind the wooden partition. The agent at the Business desk was very uninterested and quite unfriendly. These guys should learn a thing or two from their Sydney colleagues. My bag was stuffed with clothes and chocolate but luckily I didn’t tip the scales.


Qantas Check In

I made my way upstairs to security and being unclear about whether I was able to use the Fastrack (because of my BA status) I stuck with the normal queue. Lucky that I did, otherwise I would have missed the scene.

The queue wasn’t very big at all and the agents working the X-ray machine today seemed polite and friendly, but not overly so. Anyway, about 10 people in front of me was a man. He was unpacking his stuff, laptop, wallet, and was asked whether he was carrying any liquids to which he replied yes. He was then asked to take them out of his bag. He produced a metal camping flask and started to say that the man at the entrance to security had said it was ok to bring it through and when the lady said that it wasn’t he started to properly kick off! I’d hadn’t seen anyone act like this before in a public place, let alone over a flask of tea. It went something like this:

Female security agent: “Sir, you can’t bring that through security.”
Man: “You are joking, this is a joke! Your colleague over there (pointing) said I could, do you not know your job or something??”
Agent: “Sir, you cannot bring that through, you must have been told the wrong information”.
Man: “What do you mean?? You are all the same company are you not?? Do you not talk to each other?? (pointing at all of the staff) Do you not work with each other?? This is ridiculous, crazy, you guys are a joke!”
Agent: “It doesn’t matter what you have been told before, you CANNOT take that through. I cannot let you go through.”
Man: (frantically grabs all of this stuff from the conveyer in a huge, child like tantrum). “So what am I supposed to do then ay?? Your guy told me I could bring this through, so it’s your fault if he got it wrong, not mine (aggressively pointing at her)”.
Agent: “Sir, I’ve already told you, you been mis-informed (beckons colleague over). (To colleague) “Go and find out who told him he could bring it through!”

Man walks off with the other agent and the female agent mutters something like “who’s having a bad morning then?”. Several passengers tell her that the guy is an idiot, and congratulate her for dealing with him. She was clearly a bit flustered. All this fuss over a flask of tea.

All praise to her, she dealt with it very professionally. Whenever something like this happens I know that I could never work with members of the public.

Anyway, security was quick, after the drama. iPad out by the way, but no shoes and no passport check.

After navigating through the duty free maze I made my way into the main terminal area.


LHR T3 Main Departures Area

I had at this point been unsuccessful in my search for two British favourites, Cadbury’s Creme Eggs and Cadbury’s Mini-Eggs. Well, I thought that I would have one last attempt so made my way over to WHSmiths. Sure enough, they had loads of them. I took as many as I thought that I could get into my bag, 2 bags of Mini-Eggs and six Creme Eggs! Yum.

So after that venture, I made my way towards the BA lounge and down the corridor which makes you think that you are going to the back offices.


Useless Directions to the Lounge

I didn’t have the courage to grab a shot of the lounge entrance, bathed in beautiful blue light as I probably would have been scolded by the lounge dragons. My boarding pass was scanned and I was in. I walked past the dining area to the main room at the back of the lounge and put my stuff down on one of the sofas.

I have really liked this lounge. Don’t get me wrong, it’s okay but it’s simply dull as dishwater. It lacks any spark or wow factor, unlike the T5 lounges. The plain white walls remind me of a Doctor’s waiting room. The lounge feels very much ‘dressed’, like it could be re-branded overnight by just replacing the furniture, it is missing that ‘exclusive’ feel, perhaps it is the low ceilings. Still, it was a better place to spend the next hour or so than outside in the cave that is T3.

The lounge wasn’t very busy at all so I decided that now would be a good time to get some snaps. I’ve become increasingly self-conscious when it comes to taking lounge photos. My camera is just too conspicuous and I hate getting stopped by the staff.


My view – main seating area at the back of the lounge


A view of the wine/water bar and main bar in the background


The wine/water bar


The main bar


The large work/computer area


Coffee area

After this I decided that it was time for some breakfast, it wasn’t even 9 am yet and I’d been up over three hours.

What did I choose? Well like most BA lounges the breakfast offering is pretty good, with cereal, juices, pastries etc. The king has to be the bacon rolls though, so I grabbed a couple of those and a glass of apple juice.


Hot breakfast selection


My choice

I sat back down and noticed that ‘Wanted Down Under’ was playing on the TV. Ironic really since I was about to return ‘Down Under’ because I am one of the ‘Wanted’.

It was about this time that I started doing a bit of people watching. I generally find that strange people are all around, you just need to look. For example, the man next to me seemed to be putting away loads of pills. I don’t know why. Then another, rather scruffily dressed man spent an inordinate amount of time selecting the most appropriate can of coke from the large selection in the fridge. Another man then started to prepare himself a drink but he clearly wasn’t sure what he wanted. 10 bottles of spirits sniffed later and he chose the Tia Maria. I was careful to notice that his nose did not make contact with any of the bottles so anyone passing through the BA lounge in T3 is safe from his germs at least.

I browsed the internet and watched a bit of BBC iPlayer using the very fast free wifi. It was about 10am now and the lounge was starting to fill up although it never got busy.

Gate 1 appeared against QF32 on the board. Boarding started at 10.30 at which point I left the lounge and made my way towards the gate. This is quite a long trek and takes you past the SQ and EK lounges although you can’t really see anything. I visited the EK lounge in this report from May last year.

As I arrived at the gate a lot of people were still sitting down so I guessed that boarding for economy hadn’t really started yet.

Flight: QF032
Carrier: Qantas
Aircraft: Airbus A380
Scheduled Departure time: 11.10
Duration: 20h 35m (flying time)
Scheduled Arrival time: 20:15 (local)
Routing: London Heathrow (LHR) T3 - Sydney T1
Class: Economy
Seat: 51K – Bulkhead (seat plan)

An SQ A380 was on the gate next to us so I was able to get a snap before heading to Door A where my boarding pass was scanned and I was invited to board.


SQ A380 – see you in Singapore!


Hello Mr Fysh

Our bird today was going to be VH-OQB, Qantas’ oldest flying A380 since Nancy Bird had a flap over Singapore in November last year and wasn’t serviceable.

I was greeted at the door by the London based crew and then made my way right into the first economy cabin. I’d already spent some 22+ hours in this seat previously so I knew what to expect. The plane was pretty empty though, perhaps there was going to be a limited load this time around.

I got everything that I need out of my carry on and then stored it in the overhead locker and waited for everyone else to board.


51K – pillow, blanket and headphones


Leg room


Empty cabin – it didn’t stay that way

On this rather grey day there wasn’t much to see out of the window. Sadly, gate 1 at T3 doesn’t put the aircraft in a great position to see the airfield. I did of course have a good view of the A380’s massive curved wing and it’s giant engines that had caused so much trouble for Qantas and Rolls Royce (who the Australia media are keen to point out are a British company).


Massive curved wing