HOMEWARD BOUND - DAY 2
12 Apr 17.
I awoke to the faint glow of dawn in one direction and the setting of the Moon in the other - how sweet!
A perfectly reasonable cold breakfast was served.
And here we are, back in Ireland again. We staggered our way to the Border, where there was absolutely no delay for the EU passports queue, and were at Reclaim by 0830. Our cases duly arrived, and we passed through Customs to find ourselves on the upper level of T2. At which point we paused …
where now? What are we supposed to be doing? OLCI had not been completed, as we were travelling, so I wasn’t even sure which Terminal we were supposed to be using!! Oh well, make our way down to Departures, find an EI desk and see what happens. Now EI are very keen on self-processing, including bag-drop, but as we barely existed in the system we needed human intervention … and we duly joined a long queue for a manned desk. Ah, but wait!! An empty Customer Service desk is nearby - I’ll try playing the confused old passenger card [which at this stage of the trip was a valid description]. I explained my puzzlement to the nice lady on the desk, including my uncertainty about whether we were going from T1 or T2. She rattled her keyboard and “Hey, Presto” here are the boarding passes for the next 2 sectors, with the first departing from T2
Having beamed with gratitude, we self-tagged and self-dropped the bags [yes, checked through to JER] and off we pottered to navigate Security and then find the EI Gold Circle Lounge … which turned out to be a long way away, almost to the US Pre-Clearance area and down one level. At the Lounge desk was a notice clearly stating that access was permitted for BAEC Gold and Silver members flying to LHR and LGW only. Which is fair enough, especially as we met those criteria
No photos of the Lounge - I’m sure its covered elsewhere on FT. Not a great deal on offer either, but comfortable and quiet and with again a decent view of the ramp area. Which was just as well, as our flight was showing a delay to 1305.
EI236 [sold as BA5906], DUB-LGW, “1240-1405”, A320, Economy seats 10E/F
Despite the sign at Gate 409 saying they would board by Row numbers, they didn’t
Everyone just joined one long line, so we wearily joined on the back. Oh, so slow - children, babies, buggies, car seats, old people … it took ages. Eventually we pushed back at 1323 [getting later] and finally got airborne at 1348 [getting even later]. At this point I’m looking at our BPs for the next and last sector which say “Gate Closes 1530”, and starting to expect a missed connection.
Arrive at LGW 1445 [Gate 14?], and of course it’s a bus to the South Terminal. Well, 2 buses actually - which to choose? And which side should we stand? I’d forgotten that detail from the ‘guided tour’ by CWS on the outbound. Oh, well, just go with the flow. As it transpired we had picked the wrong bus, as ours came in 2nd,
and we were standing on the wrong side!,
Right, here we go … keep up! Off the bus, enter building, keep on right side of corridor, dive into lift, have fellow pax move back so that the doors will close, up one floor, head for one-way doors at high speed, enter Arrivals, find lift to Departures, head for non-Priority Security [oh, great, I get picked for random secondary pat-down and shoes off for scanning], recover and repack backpack, look for signs for Gate 12, navigate bloody shops, find passageway to
Gate 12, reach gate breathlessly at … 1515. Phew. That's
30 minutes from one gate to the next,
in the same spine of the Terminal - I'm not persuaded by the new setup at LGW(S).
Could we have had time to go to Duty Free? Technically, yes, possibly. Is it best to catch the flight, or save £100+ on Duty Free cigarettes and booze?
BA2774, LGW-JER, 1550-1655, A319, Economy seats 10A/B
Here we go, last sector. Ah, the old familiar route in the old familiar aircraft in the old famil… oh, no, the
novel Economy seats behind the curtain. Oh, look at those lucky/rich people sitting up front - they’re getting free food and drink, while we at the back have to pay! I suppress the envy, and despite faint hunger pangs I firmly resist the vague temptation to sample BA’s luxury M&S buy-on-board food offering. Anyway, we’re off, pushing back at 1548 so at least BA is running on time
And we arrive at JER, tired and somewhat hungry, at 1635 [yes, 20 minutes early!]. Excellent, nearly home.
Now one of the wonders of life is how the Swissport baggage manglers at JER can take so long to move the bags from the aircraft hold on Stand 2 to the baggage belt at Reclaim. It’s at least 25 yards, maybe getting on for 35 yards. Google Earth makes it about 40 yards. Whatever. We were on the chocks at at 1635 - and yet the first bag didn’t emerge until 1655. Twenty minutes??? God, they’re bloody awful. When they’re not destroying bags, do they to stand around hoping they’ll move autonomously?
You can guess what comes next, I suspect. Thanks to EI, and the tight connection, we end up watching an empty belt going round… and round … and round. The sound of inactivity behind the belt tells us we might have made the connection, but the bags didn’t. Great. Over to the Baggage help-desk, where I blearily fill in the form telling ‘the system’ that our bags haven’t arrived. The helpful Laura [she said I may use her name in this TR] says they will be couriered to our house when they arrive, and they should be on the next flight. That’s BA2776, ETA JER 1900, or in a couple of hours in real terms. We live in hope, as we totter through Customs [haha, we ain’t got nothing thanks to EI
], grab a cab and grind home through the rush-hour congestion, which we do actually have here at certain times. At 1800 we’re home. I call Laura to correct a detail about the identifying tags on the cases, and she says “No problem, they’re already on the 2776.”
We potter around the house, opening windows and that sort of thing, and I go to FlightRadar24 to look for ‘BAW2776’ … not showing. eeek. I look at the Airport website, to find that 2776 landed at 1845 [15 minutes early. Please note, EI.]
And, at 1954, the doorbell rings … “Your bags, sir”, says the nice courier man! I phoned Laura with a verbal “Good Show”, and was well impressed with BA’s handling of the situation (our first ever ‘missing bag’ event).
And so to bed … that’s been more than enough excitement for one day. ZZZZZZ…….