Originally Posted by
hammers2958
Reporting back after overnight in Budapest en route to Maui.
Couldn’t do OLCI for BUD-LHR-JFK-LAX-OGG, despite getting an email confirming my uploaded documents were in order. However on the way out to BUD a very helpful agent in the First Wing sorted me out, with boarding passes all the way through to OGG, plus passport swipe. (It was less than 24 hours to my first flight on the TPR.)
Amusingly, 3 of the 4 of us sitting in row 1 LHR-BUD were either going to or returning from Hawaii.
The traveller in 1A was doing a back to back at BUD. If he reads this he can no doubt elaborate but it seems you have to do security but not passports. As you get off the plane you have to go down some stairs and within a few yards there’s a transfer line and a security scanner. The crew on my return this morning (who I had last night) told me the passenger was back at the gate before they disembarked.
I stayed overnight at the Ibis at the airport. It’s a 5 minute walk along a covered walkway from the terminal so very easy. The hotel itself is perfectly functional and comfortable for an overnight stay. The crew apparently were at the IC in town which they thought was very nice and well located.
I suspect I may have been sat next to you on the LHR-BUD flight yesterday (BA0866)? You were in 01D and I was in 01F looking very dopey after a long trip back from HNL.
I spoke to the guy sat in 01A (that you referred to) since we both did the B2B and we watched everyone deplane as we waited to re-board. That's the benefit of glass walls!
In the end we counted at least 5 passengers doing a B2B (including the two of us).
The security/transfer desk was an odd experience yesterday. The area you can see with the scanners (on the right hand side), I did see a desk of sorts in that area, but there was no one there, so I just walked through the barriers directly to the 3 people sat chatting around the scanners. They were a bit disappointed that I had interrupted their discussion and I had suggested they might need to actually do some work! After initial confusion, they were really nice and were happy to scan my rucksack. From there, I popped around the corner and up some stairs to get back into the departures area.
The guy from 1A (I didn't catch his name) but he had stopped off in Kansas on the way back as I recall, attempted to go direct to the same 3 individuals at the scanners, but because he had a roll-on case, they wouldn't accept him and he was directed to a transfer desk somewhere else.
All sounds very confusing doesn't it? Well it was fairly confusing for me too, so it would be good to hear from others who know how all of this is supposed to work at BUD. I suspect I may have shortcut the process somewhere... Would be good to know for sure what I am supposed to do the next time I head out on a BUD-HNL TP run in Dec!