26th July
IB8999
VLC-MAD
0610-0715 0720-0818
Bombardier CRJ-1000
Seat 5A 3F
The morning started fairly uneventfully if a little early. I was soon in a taxi and then checked in
I headed to the AENA lounge, which I'm not sure if it was a time of day thing or is that lounge generally, but the offering was complete crap- even down to there not being appropriate utensils for what little breakfast food was supplied (I attempted to have toast but there were no knives to spread anything onto it, so I ended up using a spoon?! In something that calls itself a VIP lounge?!
I shouldn't grumble too much though as at 0522 I received an email saying I had been "assigned a place in a higher cabin" on the 1 hour flight from VLC-MAD (thanks!!)
I headed off to the gate as soon as boarding was announced as there really was no benefit to be gained from staying in the lounge
This gave me another opportunity to spy the giant model CRJ and plot how I might be able to acquire it
One day you will be mine...
There was very clearly absolutely zero boarding happening. Then an announcement was made that I did not really understand- I joined the mass of confused people at the gate to ask what was going on- apparently some maintenance issue that would only take 5 minutes to fix
I was working on my back up plan for getting to Barcelona some other way when one of the flight crew came out to chat to the GA. Clearly there was some kind of commotion as all of a sudden "our plane" was being towed away and "a different plane" was towed into the same spot. Bags were obviously being transferred and all of a sudden everyone was boarding all at once
Seat 3F was the last row of business class, just before the curtain (just)
My seat
I'm kind of surprised they bother selling J on these routes- I imagine it's some kind of requirement by ministers or government officials in a similar vein to the whole "need business class Canberra to Sydney" thing. The seat next to me was occupied by a bored looking teenager who slept for the entire flight
We were given moist towelettes before pushback and pre departure orange juice was served
This beauty was visible as we taxied
There were 2 crew in business class and they worked like absolute Stakhanovites to get everyone fed and watered in the literally 20 minutes available to them (I assume there was a 3rd CC looking after economy but concede it is possible there was not)
The meal was served thus:
There was barely even enough time to eat all this, and there was especially not enough time for the crew to dick around with my terrible spanish asking for tea instead of coffee, so I was appreciative of the caffeine boost regardless
Luckily for the crew, we made up virtually no time in flight; my connecting flight was long gone. Interestingly, Iberia seem to have a decent system for automatic rebooking in IRROPS and I had an email with new flight details and boarding pass as soon as I got off the plane
I headed off to the Velazquez lounge where they were able to print out my new boarding pass. I asked if my bags had made it to Madrid- they said yes but on reflection I'm not sure if they had that information or just reading off the screen that checked bags were attached to the PNR
26th July 2019
IB800 IB930
MAD-BCN
0800-0915 0930-1045 (actual: 0929-1112)
Iberia Airbus A321 A320
*a carefully selected exit row window seat* *a random middle seat down the back*
There was some kind of additional delay between boarding being complete and us actually taking off- I'm not sure what that was down to but my nerves were becoming somewhat frazzled!
It was yet more standard IB shorthaul Y service
We eventually arrived 27 minutes behind schedule
I paused extremely briefly to sneak a look at TAROM's take on a retrojet
At this stage I was very very happy I had left a buffer between the separately booked VLC-MAD-BCN and my onward BCN-LHR-JNB!!! However the delays were steadily eating into that time and I was really in need of my bags arriving reasonably quickly so I could go get checked in. For whatever reason, bags were not delivered to the usual MAD-BCN shuttle belt, but to the main baggage hall instead
Specifically, carousel 15, which I'm now convinced is cursed
I was initially optimistic when the first bag off was actually mine (this would have travelled as a cabin bag if I hadn't been on a CRJ)
check out that priority baggage handling!!
And then I waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. For my main checked in bag
I had already done OLCI for the onward BA flight but, conscious that bag drop would be closing at around 1230, I was becoming less and less amused when the clock was striking 12 and there was still no bag (that's 48 minutes after arrival for those of you with CWS's stopwatch
)
I decided it was time to cut the losses and head to baggage services. Here there was an alleged "priority service for OWS/E" desk and also a general desk, but it basically appeared to be a free for all
When I eventually got to the desk, the gentleman proceeded to type war and peace into his computer. The system cannot handle vagaries such as random Zambian hotels that don't have a proper street address etc so there was a lot of back and forth required. In the end the PIR was produced at 12.17pm, so I suppose it's a bloody good job my bag had disappeared as I wouldn't have had time to check it in anyway. I made a final lap of the baggage hall on the off chance and then headed for the check in desk to collect a proper boarding pass
26th July 2019
BA485
BCN-LHR
British Airways Airbus A320
Seat 2F
I'm not sure if baggage man had told them to expect me but I was pulled from the queue and rushed through security. I find the BCN lounge not sufficiently diverting and so, conscious of time, headed directly for the gate instead.
I had planned to exchange my euros into something more useful but there were queues absolutely everywhere so that ended up not happening. There were also long queues for passport control. Eventually I made it to the gate at the proposed boarding time. It was an absolute zoo
There was an American couple behind me who were bickering at each other about there seat assignments. It seems that they were AA EXP and thus had had selected seats around row 6, which presumably would have been one of the first rows in economy at the time; unfortunately, as I had discovered when checking the loads for various BCN-LHR flights that day, the Club Europe cabin was near enough back to the exit rows and thus they had (presumably) been bumped backwards to row 26 or some such. Ordinarily I don't get involved in domestic disputes but it seemed they were not aware of the vagueries of curtain roulette and the assumption was that *someone* had stuffed up and forgotten to select seats; I couldn't let the injustice of a marital dispute over this go unchallenged so broke my usual social rules to explain curtain roulette to them. Luckily they reacted by being happy with the explanation and tip rather than biffing me. Marital harmony restored, we were finally boarding
Once we were all on board and the door closed it became apparent there was some kind of shenanigans at Heathrow- storms over Europe or perhaps high winds but essentially we had been pushed back to a later ATC slot. The captain had done the sensible thing and had everyone loaded for original departure time in hope of an earlier slot. In J we got a pre-departure beverage (it was time for me to start on the champagne); various people asked if they could use the bathrooms, visit the cockpit etc, which was all obliged, but broadly we just sat there for an hour
I filled the time with a bit of plane spotting (of course)
Ultimately we were unsuccessful in getting an earlier slot and we departed at 1427, 52 minutes late
Meals were served- I went for the cold option
I'm not entirely sure what it was but it was not that great. The stuff in the left hand pot at the back was I think hummus but there was nothing to eat it with- the bloke next to me had a red hot go by just eating it with a spoon but I wasn't really feeling like that! The dessert was tiramisu which has never been a favourite of mine but it was really the best part of this meal.
I was still fairly starving and noticed the crew handing out caramel shortbreads to some other people in the cabin- I asked if I could have one of those as I was still hungry but they said they were only for gluten free people. I wasn't given the opportunity to pay for anything from BoB but was too tired to argue so just left it.
The team here was somewhat more successful at making up some time, landing as we did only 33 minutes delayed, at 1528