Originally Posted by
WHBM
Having communicated with JL and learned of the trip, on the day of their crossing the Atlantic I was myself in rural Ireland west of Dublin, overseeing aspects of a civil engineering project. For some reason awaking early, before sunrise, I had a look, thanks to the hotel wireless, at FlightRadar for the flight in question, given that various transatlantic flights pass that way, only to find that they were just passing overhead Knock airport, and seemed to be headed absolutely straight for me. A few minutes later I was outside in the morning cold, scanning the western sky, with the stars out in places, clouds elsewhere, and although I might like to think I could ID the actual aircraft, there was it's growing jet trail, just picking up whatever light was around as it spread south-eastwards right behind, absolutely directly above me, with an accuracy that Mr WHBM Senior, one-time WW2 RAF bomber crew navigator ^ , might surely have expected. FR at maximum zoom showed their track less than a mile to the south, at a height of 7 miles. And then they was gone, and it was just an early morning tractor coming along the main road as a farmer headed off to his morning milking. A wave was returned, but he must have wondered what on earth I was doing standing there in the dark in my jogging kit. The jet trail gradually spread out, diluted, and disappeared, as they do. 30 minutes later the aircraft was passing abeam my house in London, which I returned to myself that evening. It took me more than 30 minutes to get there ...
I hope the cabin crew were just putting together a pleasant breakfast as you passed by, JL ! Isn't air travel fascinating.
Indeed, that was us, sir! We were flying on Austrian Airlines (OS) 94 in the front cabin on board a B777-200ER (perhaps formerly operated by Lauda Air?) nonstop from IAD to VIE. I had been attempting to sleep in a very comfortable lie flat window seat but was having difficulty doing so as the cabin was quite warm (I had earlier mentioned this situation to the flight service manager but to no avail). And permit me to add this was the only discrepancy concerning OS 94 as the cabin service to include the food was simply outstanding - there was even a "Flying Chef" on board to prepare our dinner and breakfast. Hats off to Austrian! ^ And the red wine from Austria served with dinner wasn't bad, either!
Anyway, I decided to open the window shade for a view of the predawn world over the North Atlantic - and there was the west coast of Ireland just ahead of us with the sky beginning to lighten. We then made landfall on the Irish coast and proceeded over Dublin - I could see the lights of the city through the broken clouds. So while you were looking up, I was looking down!
And, yes, we subsequently had a lovely breakfast prepared fresh by our "Flying Chef". :-:
OS 94 then arrived ahead of schedule at VIE - which was a very good thing as we only had a 30 minute connecting interval. After a very long walk that included customs clearance followed by a security checkpoint, we arrived at our connecting gate just in the nick of time in order to board our Austrian Q400 flight to Venice. And upon arrival at VCE, we then took a water taxi direct from the airport to the elegant Bauer Palladino Hotel on the Grand Canal across the waterway from Piazza San Marco. Venice was a magical place!
Three days in Venice were followed by a first class rail trip to Innsbruck on Austrian Railways via the Brenner Pass. We stayed at the wonderful Adlers Hotel with a panoramic view of the Austrian Alps from our corner high rise room and took the cable cars up to the high peaks where we went hiking in the snow. Several days later we traveled first class on the Austrian Railways "Railjet" express train to Vienna with even better service. A top speed of of 230 kph was reached in a very smooth and quiet fashion by the train.
And then we checked into the outstanding Ritz Carlton Hotel in Vienna for the primary reason for our trip: a celebration of our birthdays! Lady K and yours truly share the same birthday, being April 23, although I am just a bit older than her by seven years. We had a lovely time in Vienna which was made very special by the Ritz Carlton staff as I had previously spilled the beans, as it were, concerning the significance of April 23 before we arrived. Our celebration was capped by dinner last Thursday evening at the superb Distrikt steakhouse located in the Ritz Carlton.
This leads us to yesterday and our journey home. We arose at 4:00am and made our way via car service to VIE for an on time 6:30am departure to MUC on board an Austrian A320 in business class. This quick 40 minute flight featured a full, hot breakfast service in the front cabin. When was the last time you experienced that in the U.S on a short flight?? We then visited the very nice Lufthansa Business Class lounge before boarding United 105 featuring nonstop B767-400ER service from Munich to Houston. We were up in the BusinessFirst cabin and it quickly became apparent that all of the cabin crew were formerly with Continental (as was the airplane, of course). We had a great time discussing the good old days of CO with them including my very first flight on a Boeing 720B. Lady K also let slip the fact that our birthdays had occurred just a day before and then all the stops were pulled - we could not have experienced better service on this flight, I think. So hats off once again, this time to the front cabin United crew! ^
One more flight yesterday: United Excuse....er, excuse me....United Distress....ah, not quite right.....a rather beat up United Express ERJ-145 operating from IAH to LFT. Very disorganized boarding in Houston followed by further delays on the ground for a various reasons. We finally took off an hour late (and probably should be thankful it was not later than that) and following no cabin service whatsoever en route landed at LFT only to discover that both UAEx gates were occupied. The Captain reported over the PA that he could not even get anyone at UAEx ops in LFT to answer his radio calls for an update concerning when a gate might be available. So we sat on the taxiway for quite some time and when we did finally get to the gate, the person attempting to operate the jetway was apparently experiencing difficulties which led to a further delay.
Oh well, we did get home safely with our checked bags and for that I am very thankful although a bit jet lagged. Perhaps a Cajun Bloody Mary might be helpful in that regard......
And yes, air travel
is fascinating! And somewhere out there on the event horizon will be our next trip to Europe, this time to London and Paris.
So there you have it: my mini trip report! Meantime, interesting spring weather at the present time here with a tornado watch in effect and severe thunderstorm warnings all over the place. Never a dull moment in south Louisiana and it's good to be back home with Bella, our intrepid little pup.