GOING HOME
Yes, we have to go home, where the temperature [and indeed general weather] is going to be an unpleasant change. Ho-hum, what can you do? Riaan arrived promptly at 0930 for the run to CPT airport. On arrival we found the QR desks, in the far right corner of departures and presented our 2 cases. “Is there any change of tagging these all the way through to Jersey?” A short conversation followed, explaining where Jersey is and that it’s almost part of the UK and we flying there from Gatwick on BA. Much keyboard rattling by a Supervisor and … BINGO! QR First tags were also added to facilitate the fairly short connection at DOH.
Onward to Security [almost instantaneous] and Immigration [a 3-minute queue] and here we are … Airside, just 1 hour from leaving S’bosch. No complaints here at all! QR passengers are directed to use the Bidvest multi-role Lounge, and are issued an entry ticket at bag-drop. According to their website
https://bidvestlounge.co.za/capetowninternational/ the Lounge looks quite nice, but on trying to enter we were re-directed to the overflow Lounge downstairs at ramp level. Apparently it was overcrowded due to a delayed Lufthansa flight. Oh, well, down we go …
ooh, and our aircraft!
We were no impressed, and didn’t stay long there! Instead, as suits our habit, we reverted to the Smoking Lounge [with a cash Bar] just one level down from the main Departures concourse, where we could also view proceedings in Arrivals. Plenty of power points and USB sockets are available.
2 Dec 19
CPT-DOH, QR1370, 1315-0025,
A350-900, Business seats 7A/8A
And then our Gate was declared … A5, the one seriously NOT designed for boarding large aircraft with different boarding priorities! These pics are from last year’s trip, when it was almost empty. This time the entire passageway was jammed with people, and the notices saying “Group 1” etc. didn’t actually separate anybody: how could they, with just that long in-line layout? And how was “Group1/2/3” supposed to work when the Group wasn’t printed on our BPs? So, it’s British conscience time … do we just queue behind an A350-worth of pax? We went for brave/DYKWIA and with our BPs in hand and on display, we gently manoeuvred through the crowd towards the front. As we neared the desk the throng thinned out, and to our pleasant surprise found the desks manned and processing the few Group 1 pax who had made it thus far! Huzzah … we can now board! A further BP check was conducted on the airbridge (????).
Empty in 2018
And so on board …
AAAARRRGGGH and
@##@€!! It’s a bloody -900 again!! Thank you, QR, for denying us the Q-suite experience on both A350 sectors! That makes 3 out of 4 sectors with airframe changes … we will never fly QR again!
OTOH, I remind myself that there are people packed like sardines somewhere down the back, so perhaps we should be grateful for being able to fly in comfort.
And … I get to play with the cameras again!
Incidentally, I have read that QR have a new safety demo film, featuring assorted football players. I think it's absolutely awful, but football fans may disagree!
I shall miss the iconic lifejacket inflator. Mwah.
Hey, hey, up and away!
How long is it to DOH? Is it 12 hours? Whichever, it’s a long leg … over 4,500 miles, so I shall be sleeping again! My charming and amusing CC asks what I would like for dinner. The choice seems to be “Beef potjiekos” or “Chicken kapsa”. As a seasoned BA passenger I understand the “Beef of Chicken” bit, but the rest has me bemused. I ask the lady if the “potjiekos”, starting with ‘pot’, means a sort of casserole. “Yes, it’s a casserole … but very nicely plated.” Her smile melts my heart! On the basis that the Chicken thing comes with rice, I’m guessing that’s a sort of ‘curry’ with a Middle Eastern twist (my Google search today confirms that …
Kapsa is a traditional middle eastern one pot rice dish). That will make nice change - I go for it!
Push-back at 1307, then drinks and nuts, and eventually at 1445 the meal service started … slowly. Whatever, we have hours to kill.
I started with an amuse bouche of shrimp and [something], probably had the smoked salmon starter, and then dug in to the Chicken thing!
Yum-yum!! I have to say it could have been reheated a bit better … and Lady T sent hers back for reheating to a safer temperature. I finished with the cheese plate, as I usually do, washed down with a delicious glass of Canadian Icewine (Reif Estate Grand Reserve, Vidal Icewine 2017). In fact it was so nice I asked for another!!
All done by 1700, which makes it about 2 hours to serve the 36-pax Business cabin. And so to sleep … with a lot of light ‘chop’ as we progressed up the east coast of Africa.
I was woken at 2230 in whichever time zone I was in, which could have been anything really. Whichever, my notes tell me we actually landed at 0010 … so I’d better move on to the next day of this narrative!
3 Dec 19
DOH-LGW, QR329, 0150-0620,
B777, Business seats 5A/B
With boarding starting at 0105, we only had an hour to get ourselves completely lost in Hamad International, so while a cigarette might have been welcome we really didn’t know where we were and so just headed for the Gate, A4, where we arrived at 0040. The jolly nice QR App assured us that our bags would be joining us, which was a relief!
Having loitered at the Gate for a while, we eventually boarded this
3rd airframe substitution. No, not a plush 787 but an old 777, which provided even less in-seat stowage than BA’s Club World seating. Not very impressed, TBH, but as I shall again be sleeping for most of this leg I really didn’t care that much.
At 0135 the airbridge swung away, and we were off on the last l/h sector. I grabbed a couple of poor snaps of Doha as we departed … I liked the huge motorways connecting ‘not a lot’ to ‘another not a lot’.
And then our QR adventure was over … we were back at LGW again, on a very distant stand and with a very long walk [with no travelators] to the UK Border. On the positive side, this last QR sector renews BAEC Gold for another year … with 5 months to spare. At least, it
would have done if the CPT-DOH had credited!! Harrumph - wait 7 days before claiming missing TPs/Avios for OW Partner airlines.
Anyway, the bags are on their way, so all we have to do is make our way to the Gatwick South Terminal, which we do slowly and with a slight sense of “It’s cold here, Mum!”. A couple of cigarettes kerb-side at South, and then re-enter the system [such as it is for connections] via Premium Gatwick and off to the BA FLounge. It is still almost night, and my body-clock is ringing alarm bells, and we have another 4+ hours to wait before the last leg to JER.
Still, we have fellow pax to amuse us, such as the extended family [6-7 of them?] in the Lounge who spread themselves over ‘their’ territory before going for a nice wander round the shops etc.
And the sun slowly rose over LGW.
And finally …
3 Dec 19
LGW-JER, BA2772, 1300-1400,
A319, CE seats 1A/C
Yup - Gate 5 as usual. A queue to enter the holding pen, as the BP readers were being awkward as usual, with many [including me] being sent to the manual processing desk. Otherwise, nothing much to say, another x-channel hop … apart from the CC. With 8 rows of CE, they managed to serve lunch and drinks to those ~30 pax in about 30 minutes!! They were so organised and efficient it made my eyes water! The ‘runway to runway’ time was 48 minutes, IIRC. And after arrival there was the usual tedious wait for bags, with one coming out early and the 2nd towards the end! Loose-loading in the hold obviously doesn’t help.
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And that was it for 2019’s travels … 28 sectors, 49,794 miles and 116 hours in the air! That involved 7 trips [all for leisure]: PHX, MLA, UVF, LBA, IAD, MLA and of course CPT. And now we will have to sit at home in the cold, wrapped in blankets, until the end of Feb 20, when we start the year with a trip to a new destination in the Caribbean.