Part 2: London to Gibraltar on BA Club Europe

Miraculously, when my collection of alarms dragged me back to the real world at an unfamiliar 5am, I actually felt well-rested. Check-out being as smoothly well-staffed as check-in, I was off-site by 5:40 and thus at Gloucester road tube by quarter to 6.

Where, immediately, I ran into seeming trouble. Although service had been running for less than half an hour by that point, it had somehow reached a state of 'severe delays' on either of the lines I could use direct to Paddington, the Circle and District. Remarkably, there was a member of staff on hand, and he even radioed elsewhere for advice on how best to route myself, but that guidance seemed to amount to "good luck"! The platform departure board reckoned there'd be nothing until 06:02, which gave me just enough time to get my suitcase open as, lurching from drama to crisis, I realised that I'd probably just thrown away the printout of my heathrow express booking confirmation. Naturally, an entirely unexplained circle line train then appears at 05:48, which I manage to board without dumping the contents of my still-open luggage. I confirm that I have indeed managed to rid myself of the HEX ticket whilst getting rid of un-needed paperwork from the hotel; mercifully, my ipad has cached the email so I decide to try my luck with that.

I was aiming for the 06:10 service, so ambled my way to the platform before picking up my pace as I realised there was a train there. Frantic waving of the ipad at the platform staff seemed to get a look of approval, so I lept into the first carriage as the whistle blew; allegedly this was the 05:55 despite it being past six by now. My electronic ticket causes issues at first, until we discover that the resolution on the latest ipad is a bit too keen, and thus you have to resize the QR code for it to register.

I normally dodge the horrors of check-in desks by being hand-luggage only and using OLCI, but I simply hadn't been able to coerce a holiday's worth of stuff into a rollaboard (it doesn't help that I have an entire backpack of camera gear). So my heart sunk as I trundled to the BA check-in area and was confronted by a forward, back, and forward again snaking queue to the desks. Thankfully, salvation lay in

the distance, in the shape of a business class bag drop line with only a few people in it. I had actually attempted OLCI, and my ipod ticket had somehow ended up declaring 'hand luggage only', but I figured I could try my luck with this desk (since, after all, I did want to drop off a bag) before braving the hordes attempting actual check-in. Bag drop guy was happy to print me an actual boarding pass, and explained where priority security and then the lounge could be found.

Oh, what a delight. From joining that queue, to settling down in the lounge, was all of 15 minutes- I'd had my first taste of business class on my previously reported trip, but I had no baseline experience there to compare fast track against. At Heathrow, though, I'm entirely familar with how tedious life as an economy passenger can be, and thus was feeling deeply appreciative of the perks of Club even before I'd reached the sanctuary of the lounge.

Which was huge! Rome had not prepared me for this, either- and this was only at Terminal 3, so I've yet to see what T5 is like. I was fractionally disappointed that the breakfast buffet had a big space where the oft-mentioned bacon rolls should be, but consoled myself with a mushroom one instead and set about trying a variety of chairs around the lounge. Plus, of course, taking photos:

Having also treated myself to the (admittedly overpriced) camera connection kit for the ipad, I was able to immediately load up some shots from my dslr of both The Bentley and the lounge, and made use of the latter's wifi to upload a few for facebook bragging rights. I did attempt to take one photo with the ipad itself first, but it's a frankly ridiculous idea - I felt less conspicuous with the big camera, overcompensatingly-sized telephoto lens and all.

Departure was scheduled for 08:00, and at 07:25 I noticed we were being summoned to the gate. On the way out of the lounge I spotted that the bacon rolls had been restocked, and gleefully treated myself to one to fuel me on the stroll to 25E. That turned out to be a bus gate, with no apparent notion of priority boarding for either the staging area with seats, or the buses themselves. Still, at least I didn't have far to walk once we did reach the plane, having nabbed 2F; and the bus ride included the entertainment of a possibly long-suffering fellow being berated for failing to pick up his wife's handbag after security. Said item had since been safely retrieved, so I don't really see the point of going on about it - sometimes it feels like people actively want to make themselves unhappy when travelling, which I figure is a task best left to the professionals working immigration and customs :-)

British Airways service BA490 from London Heathrow (LHR) Terminal 3 to Gibraltar (GIB); flown by G-EUYC, an airbus A320-200. Scheduled Depature 08:00; flight time 2h40. Seat 2F (Club Europe, window seat).

Flight itself was mostly unremarkable; breakfast was clearly a decent size, as I couldn't finish it - although the early hour, and those two rolls from the lounge may have contributed. The moving map, and the view out the window, revealed deep deficiencies in my knowledge of Spain, such as that Santander is not just a bank, but a place, and that there are snow-capped mountains. I had my ebook for much of the flight, and a dead-tree edition of William Gibson's Distrust that Particular Flavor for the "no electronics, please" sections and during the food service (since I suspect scrambled eggs and ipads don't play nice together, and I am clumsy).

The landing, however, is far from mundane. We overshot Spain to the east of Gibraltar, before banking all the way around the rock to approach the runway from the west, soaring over cargo ships and cruiseliners alike as we lined up for the runway that sticks out improbably from the narrow strip linking Gib to the rest of Europe. My choice of a right-hand window seat paid off, and this proved a handy way to get my bearings before I'd even reached the ground, spotting the marina where I'd be staying in the last seconds before wheels down.

Gibraltar has a shiny new airport terminal, but bafflingly it's only used for arrivals at the moment - I suppose it makes sense to make the best impression on visitors, but as I would later find, the departures terminal is a far less pleasant space, and one that people are more likely to have to spend significant amounts of time in. Baggage collection seemed slow, but it could be that I'm not used to waiting for it - for short trips I've generally nothing to retrieve, and long-haul to the US means clearing the interminable immigration queues first, so it's probably done several dozen laps of the belt by the time I'm there to rescue it.

Those arriving for Gibraltar itself rather than turning right and across the border into Spain are treated to the unusual experience of following the road - straight across the runway. Yes, the same one you were landing on a few minutes previous... with just some traffic lights, a guard hut and a multilingual plea not to litter to keep things safe! A tunnel to replace this madness was planned to open years ago, but doesn't seem to exist yet - so I wanted to try the current setup whilst it still exists.

and with that, I was in Gibraltar! The next post won't be especially flying-related (although there will be some photos for the planespotters!), but after some sightseeing highlights, I'll get on to the subject of my undesired Spanish detour...