First BA (and LHR) experience for me was to Jersey (JER) in late March 1999, (I think it must have been the earliest flight on the first Sunday of the school holidays). I remember the domestic gate area at Terminal 1 (about ten years later I'd be boarding BMI flights to Edinburgh (EDI) from the same spot) and our aircraft had one of the ethnic liveries. (At that point in my life, I wasn't interested in whether it was a 737 or an A32x - anyone know which it would have been?)
I say our aircraft, but in fact, the first plane we tried had a problem with its thrust reversers, so after waiting about an hour on board (whilst much head scratching took place under the wing), we were moved to the one on the adjacent stand. I think we were maybe ninety minutes late into JER, which suited my family fine as we couldn't check into the hotel until the afternoon. Of course, at that age, an engineering delay was all part of the fun!
Incidentally, before our trip to Jersey, I had only taken eight flights in total (i.e. four round trips):
- LGW <-> Rhodes (RHO) - Dan Air
- LGW <-> Crete (CHQ) - Dan Air
- LGW <-> Tenerife (TFS) - Airtours
- STN <-> Gran Canaria (LPA) - Monarch
So if BA go belly up now...