The A350 that wasn't.

I went to sleep excited at the prospect of the next day to come. Boarding pass - window seat at the end of the first section of Club, with great views of the engine and the wing - stored in phone's wallet, everything primed and ready to go for an early start. BA162, the one to be operated by the 350, was due to leave at 06.20 AM that following day.

As it always is with TLV, I'm through in too little time. We all know that the party line is to get there early, way earlier than for any other flight, as security is no joke and it might take a while; also, traffic can be bad. Still, when I find myself airside at Ben Gurion, having breezed through the city, gotten ripped off by the cabbie, passed all security checkpoints and immigration, the question is "What to do now?".

BA uses one of the King David lounges. A room with a few seats, a serve-yourself breakfast spread and some views on a plethora of El Al planes. It's a gusty night and, as I down weak do-it-yourself-coffee, the only distraction is the patter of rain on the windows. I might even have done my work emails. Seriously, lounges are depressing places.

I go out for a walk, do the rounds of all the piers, and return to the lounge. As I give my phone so that it can be scanned again, I notice that the seat has changed. It was an "A" seat, now it's 16G. The A350 has no G row, at least not in Club.

I text a friend from BA Engineering who not only is on shift tonight but, too, has in-depth knowledge of what's happening to the operation. There were four A350s in the fleet at that time; the one scheduled for the TLV rotation would've done it after a quick weekly check in the hangar. If only it didn't throw some weird gremlin with one of its ailerons, something got even the Airbus boffins go "Ah, je n'en ai pas la moindre idée". Long story short, out went the 350, in was a 77W.



Still, some plane is better than no plane and, to be fair, I was happy to have a 77W. The UK, right at that time, was being gifted a solemn slapping by Storm Ciara: nothing better than the mighty GE90-115 to see us through it.

The crew were very much on the ball and spent an awful lot of time apologising for the delay (weather meant slot restrictions over in London) and for the lack of doors on today's Club seat. A gentleman next to me was inconsolable and just kept repeating that he wanted the seat with the doors. The do-o-o-ooo-h-rs, he yodelled for a good ten minutes to the CSM. She remained unflappable and kept on explaining what had happened. Honestly, what did he expect her to do? Do a quick run to Homebase in Tel Aviv and fashion a sliding door out of plywood for him?

Eventually we got underway and soon we were up in the air. The pilots, as ever the quintessential stiff-upper-lipped Nigels, described the approach into London as "quite breezy" which meant that everything not riveted down would be flying out into the vacuum of space. Having heard that, and not wishing to subject my seatmate with the distasteful spectacle of me projectile-vomiting the breakfast away I decided to stay light and forego the offer. Not him, though, I saw him order the full works.

Forty minutes to landing and, from the open windows, I see that we are still floating above an ocean of murk. The captain calls for the cabin to be secured and for everyone to be strapped in. We dive in the soup that hangs above London, me expecting a landing echoing of the final scenes of that George Clooney film... the one where he's the world's best groomed fisherman.

The wind is undeniable strong: we jitter, buffet and wave like a leaf caught in a draft. Improvise gusts pitch us up or down apparently at random, engines whining to counter their force. The odd scream echoes through the cabin and, from the back, come the wailing of all the infants onboard. Eventually we make it to the friendly skies of Hounslow, flapping our wings as if we were the Queen saluting a crowd. Then it's Hatton Cross, the grassy knoll where Jerry from BigJet TV is doing a six-hour special in trying to get hypothermia or a heart attack (below is the link to the best-of) and, with a bit of indecision, finally slam the big beast on the runway.


Within moments I'm in the bowels of T5, trotting along the purple walkway that I like so much, amped up after a great trip and looking forward to more. Patagonia, Ladakh, Svalbard were all on the calendar: 2020 was shaping up to be an amazing year for travel.

But then, in that moment, somewhere near a wet market in Wuhan a puny coronavirus said "Hold my beer".