TheFlyingDoctor

We rejoin the action a couple of weeks later, for my birthday jaunt. I'm going to break from chronological ordering of events now, and instead run through the flights, accommodations, and some of the attractions that lured me to Geneva in the first place. Partly because taking four economy flights with the same carrier in four days causes them to blur together, but mostly because unlike my earlier trip, they were almost entirely untroubled, so there's not so much to say! It's easy to get a distorted opinion of an airline – or travel in general – for it's the disaster stories that stick in the mind or generate angry FT posts. So it's nice to be able to take note of a time when everything behaved as it should.

Here, then, is what I had scheduled:

Flights

Thursday, November 7th
19:35 British Airways BA1463 EDI-LHR (due 21:00) Single class Airbus A320-200 (flown on G-EUUZ) . Seat 10F (Domestic, Exit-row window).

Friday, November 8th
08:20 British Airways BA0726 LHR-GVA (due 11:00) Two-class Airbus A321-200 (flown on G-EUXC) . Seat 22A (EuroTraveller, Exit-row window).

Sunday, November 10th
17:25 British Airways BA0733 GVA-LHR (due 18:05) Two-class Airbus A320-200 (flown on G-TTOB) . Seat 10A (Domestic, Exit-row window).
21:00 British Airways BA1464 LHR-EDI (due 22:25) Single class Boeing 767-300ER (flown on G-BZHC) . Seat 8B (Domestic, Front-cabin aisle).

All four were part of a single reward booking, again using RFS for an entirely-agreeable 9000 avios and £35 as the domestic legs don't add anything to the price. Once again, my silver status allowed me to mostly grab exit row seats, with the exception of the final domestic, where they'd all been claimed (so I placed myself into the smaller front cabin). I wouldn't actually pay to select a seat if I didn't have this as a perk, so I don't consider it a direct saving: but it does rather improve the experience. Particularly on the A321, where the 22A and F seats (but, beware, not B-E!) offer an outrageous amount of leg room:





Award availability didn't have too much of an effect on the scheduling – there was no good way to do all of EDI-LHR-GVA on the Friday, but I find overnighting at an airport then taking an early morning flight less stressful than a tight connection. Some might feel that 3 hours between flights on the inbound is a bit long to hang around, but despite making status in February (and some club tickets before that), I'd never actually tried out the big BA Galleries at Heathrow.

So that I could thoroughly geek out on camera equipment as carry-on, I did have a case to check for this short trip. There was no problem asking for it to be tagged to London so that I could have it overnight and re-drop; whilst on the return it merrily made its way from Geneva to Edinburgh without any further effort on my part.

Security was a mixed experience: at Edinburgh I had the delight of joining the fast-track queue just as a group of four chancers were turned away (I should not enjoy that, but always do). That made me the only person in the queue, so total time from entering security to perusing the lounge biscuits was under three minutes. Heathrow outbound managed to be yet quicker, somehow negotiating fast track in 2 minutes, 20 seconds, and moving equally briskly from the terminal to the sanctuary of a lounge. Geneva took the shine off, as - presumably thanks to all the finance types passing-through - fast track for BA customers requires gold status. The regular line turned out to be a 25 minute affair, not helped by queue-jumpers brandishing tickets for soon-to-depart flights grinding to a halt when presented with the surprise of needing to put their stuff into trays.

Such baffling unfamiliarity with airport protocol was most in evidence at Heathrow flight connections, though – by definition, everyone there has already done the security dance in (most charitably) the last day. How they can thus be so shocked to learn that, no, you can't take metal items through a metal detector is beyond me. In the interests of feminist advocacy, I feel compelled to point out it was mostly men who were screwing this up. This is relevant because Heathrow security seemingly only allows same-gender checks of those who trip the alarm. So if one man is getting a pat-down, no others can even try to run the gauntlet. You'd think the backlog of guys thus waiting and watching as the first negotiates surrender of a belt, phone, keys, and other random bits of metalwork might think to take the time to pre-emptively do the same, but you'd be wrong.

Lounges still haven't become entirely routine for me – and I do enough LCC travel that I appreciate them when I don't have access! - and Edinburgh, Heathrow T5 and Geneva were all new to me. EDI is the smallest and least well-stocked in terms of food, but as I wasn't attempting to put together a meal the snacks were fine.



At Galleries North, however, I ate more than my fair share between my two visits: given airport prices for food, this is a status perk I very much do assign a cash value to! At least I don't drink any of the hard stuff, so hopefully my semi-cheating status (attained through tier point chasing on AA domestic first) doesn't do too much damage to BA's bottom line. Saturday morning I'd arrived unfed, so I went for a balanced breakfast of one hot option in each hand (bacon roll, egg/cheese/tomato muffin) before later snaffling some crisps, water and a newspaper for the flight. On Saturday evening I couldn't decide between the jacket potato and beans or chilli con carne with rice, so created a dubious combination of both. I actually failed to appreciate the size of the lounge at first, mistaking the food area and immediate seating for the whole thing – it was only as I sought out the bathrooms - that I realised how much more space there was. I gather that Galleries South is larger still, but concerns have been raised about the food there. Despite its size, North was still rather busy on both of my visits, though.






The same certainly couldn't be said of Geneva: I arrived just as the previous London flight was boarding, so was for a while the only lounge occupant, trying my utmost to put a serious dent into their buffet offerings (I am genetically incapable of walking past a stack of chocolate brownies without taking one, it seems).







As mentioned, not much to report from the flights themselves. The flight in to Heathrow from Edinburgh saw us doing a lazy lap of London, with amazing city-at-night views: I almost always love these, although it's hard to pin down why. The GVA approach is also a visual treat, although in an entirely different way, thanks to Swiss mountain ranges then a last-minute glimpse of the lake, Jet d'Eau and the city. Looping around Edinburgh can be remarkable too, but my foolish aisle-seat choice meant I have no idea how the view was for this one. In-flight experience was fine, although lounge fuelling is definitely the approach to take to EuroTraveller: a bacon, cheese and tomato croissant sounds ok until you realise it's served cold. Still, plenty of space, smooth flying, everything pretty much on time (nothing to disrupt my plans, at any rate) and less than a tenner per flight, so no complaints here!