We were invited to do some ice racing in Andorra by some business partners, more precisely, take part in a round of the GSeries ice racing which takes place at the Pas de la Casa Circuit.
To get to Andorra from Canada, one needs to fly either to TLS or BCN and then drive approximately 2 hours. Our host being based in Spain and having organized our rental car, we flew to/from BCN.
With no direct flight from YUL at this time of the year, our selected itinerary was the following:
YUL-LHR: AC864 Business Class on a A333
LHR-BCN: BA474 Club Europe on a A320
BCN-FRA: LH1133 Business Class on a A321
FRA-YUL: AC875 Business Class on a B777
YUL-LHR
AC recently opened a new MLL at YUL, featuring a buffet section with various hot and cold food, as well as a cooked to order station featuring asian noodles and warm paninis.
Blurry picture of AC new color scheme 787 as seen from the lounge
This flight is on Air Canada A330 aircraft are still featuring the old business class product, even though the planes just underwent retrofitting of PE Class products.
Same meal found on every AirCanada TATL flight
Smoked duck breast
Beef Tenderloin (bit overcooked for me, as it was served medium and i prefer rare, but still good and not chewy
Cheese course
Connection in LHR was easy and fast, going from T2 to T3 where the BA flight was scheduled to depart. In the mean time, a visit to the BA Galleries lounge was in order, Lounge is vast, small selection of breakfast food (only one I was interested in were the bacon sandwiches) – sorry no pictures
Once we landed in BCN, I go to get mu luggage from the carousel, to find it missing. Filed a claim at the Iberia desk, and hoping for them to find my luggage, which were at this point not located, but most probably lost somewhere in Heathrow.
A drive through the Pyrenees to get to Andorra
Our rental car
We were staying at the wonderful Sporthotel Hermitage in Soldeu.
*photo credit hotel website
View from the room
The racing circuit and view from the circuit
Ski slopes as seen from circuit
Fast forward to Sunday, BA finally found my luggage, they were effectively lost in Heathrow, and since I’m departing the next day, they will get sent back home directly.
LH1133 BCN-FRA
This started as an uneventful flight, leaving with a slight delay, but no worries. When we arrived in FRA, on final approach the weather was not that great, lots of windshear, and the pilot decided to abort landing and get back to flight and wait for weather to clear up. During our ascent, the plane got struck by lightning, and lots of turbulence. My german not being good enough, couldn’t understand all the pilot said, and his English translation was with much less details.
Turns out the plane got diverted to Nurnberg. Upon landing, we were instructed to stay seated a bit so that they could perform an inspection of the plane to see if we would take off to get to FRA or unload in Nurnberg. After maybe 15minutes of waiting, we were told that we would get off here and that some kind of transportation/accommodation would be offered.
Upon entering the terminal, we were then told Taxis would take us to FRA airport (Can't imagine the costs to LH for this). We were seated quite promptly by groups of 3 or 4 in cabs (Our van was a Mercedes Viano) quite comfortable) for the 2 hours ride, which makes it my longest cab ride ever, especially when considering the driver was going around 150kmh on the autobahn.
After a night at the Hilton Frankfurt Airport, which was already part of the plan, we hopped on AC flight back to YUL, a 777 featuring their current business class pods. Other than being moved back one row due to malfunctioning AVOD on my assigned seat, this was an easy flight and again similar to any TATL flight operated by AC.
2 days after arriving home, finally got a call from BA telling me my suitcase had arrived on the BA flight, and that it would be delivered home the next day.