When I booked our homeward bound tickets a couple of months before, I joked that this could make or break our relationship. I wouldn’t bat an eye at three connections, including a relatively short connection at Heathrow, an overnight connection, and an airport change. But that would stress the heck out of anyone with a sound mind, including my lovely girlfriend who was feeling under the weather to boot. All of that just to accommodate premium cabin award space.
That said, it did sort of put things in perspective for me and how lucky I’ve been over the years. While my girlfriend traveled a good bit herself over the years, our Aer Lingus flight to Dublin was her first premium cabin experience. Other than a few outliers, I’ve been incredibly fortunate to have flown at least business class for the vast maturity of my long haul flights. I guess it’s a good of a time as any to toast to work travel, my credit card obsession, and FlyerTalk for making that all possible. Anyhow, I suppose my goal for all this is to turn her over to the dark side and maybe convince her to ditch her Southwest credit card for something a little more useful.
Anyhow, let’s see how this goes.
The taxi dropped us off in a designated area a little ways away from the terminal, and we had to navigate through a maze to find British Airways’ check in counters. Soon enough, we were relieved of our bags and had our boarding passes all the way to JFK in hand. Then it was off to the Fast Track for security and immigration. Seems like the Fast Track in Dublin has a sponsor.
Once through, it was off to The Lounge. And yes, it is really called The Lounge, which seemed to serve as the lounge for every airline operating out of Terminal 1.
The Lounge with plenty of comfortable seating and a very good selection of food and drinks.
We left The Lounge 30 minutes before boarding time as it quite the schlep over to our gate.
Naturally, a 30 minute delay was announced right as we sat down at the gate. 30 minutes isn’t too big of a deal, but it did eat into what was already a fairly tight connection in Heathrow.
Boarding finally began nearly an hour late, and the gate was actually a remote gate. Though luckily a bus wasn’t required and we were able to walk right over to our plane.
[b]British Airways 837
Dublin (DUB) – London (LHR)
Depart: 3:50PM
Arrive: 5:20PM
Aircraft: Airbus A320NEO
Seat: 4C (Business Class)]/b]
I assigned us seats 4A and 4C.
The powerports were a huge improvement compared to some BA’s older intra-Europe configured planes.
Boarding actually was pretty quick despite the full flight. The plane was pushed back pretty much the second after the cabin door was buttoned up, and we off. The captain apologized for being a few minutes adrift from our schedule and promised to make up as much time as possible.
Afternoon tea was served a few minutes after take off. The sandwiches were pretty tasty.
We actually landed on time, but another plane was blocking the alleyway and we ended waiting for 20 minutes for it to taxi out of the way.
Fortunately, we arrived at Terminal 5 so at least we didn’t have to transfer terminals. But we still had to clear transit security and immigration. Immigration was actually alright because of the e-gates. Security was an absolute pain. The line was long and moved at a glacial pace. People ignoring the 500 signs leading up to screening exacerbated the problem as bags constantly had to be rescreened as folks would forget to take stuff out. Eventually we made it through.
After we cleared security, our gate was posted and it was in T5B. So it was off to the train, and then up an escalator and then an elevator before we reached the satellite lounge. By this time, my girlfriend was a bit annoyed and understandably so. But our ordeal wasn’t over, despite being the first ones in line for the lounge. You see, there was a young lady (who was on the same flight to JFK as us) bugging the crap out of the lounge dragon asking her every (incredibly obvious) question under the sun. What time does boarding start? Where’s the gate? What seat am I in?
Finally, the lounge dragon politely asked young lady bugger off as there were quite a few folks waiting. And we were finally admitted. She shot me a look that said I don’t know if this business class crap was worth it. But it wasn’t anything that a class of wine couldn’t fix. And I did just that. We did have just enough time to catch our breath and get something to drink before it was time to board.
Gate agents were starting doc checks right as we got to the gate. Boarding started a few minutes later right on time.
British Airways 183
London (LHR) – New York (JFK)
Depart: 6:45PM
Arrive: 9:50PM
Aircraft: Boeing 777-200ER
Seat: 9D (Business Class)
Now the moment of truth arrived as we turned right toward our seats. I selected 9C and 9D, which were the two center bulkhead seats in the larger rear Business Class cabin.
After stowing her backpack and getting settled in, she smiled and said this is very nice. So far, so good!
Flight attendants came around shortly with trays of champagne, orange jioce, and water.
Menus, amenity kits, pillow, and duvets were at the seat already.
I may have patted myself in the back when what was supposed to be a small ten minute cargo loading delay stretched to over an hour as there wasn’t a tractor available. Fortunately, there was plenty of entertainment on-board. Behind us were parents travelling with a fussy infant, and somehow the baby wasn’t the most annoying thing sitting near us. Funny enough, the annoying lounge girl ended up across the aisle from me. She turned out to be an “influencer”, whatever those are, and just so happened to be sitting in front of another “influencer”. They spent most of the time on ground loudly carrying on.
I fired up the entertainment system and started watching Where the Crawdads Sing just as the flight attendants came about taking dinner orders.
Drinks were served about 30 minutes after take off. I went with a Coke Zero, which were served with packaged nuts.
Dinner was served after another round of drinks. As British Airways was still running reduced meal service at the time, dinner was an one tray affair. The appetizer and cheese plate were terrible, but the beef cheeks were very good.
After finishing up the movie, I closed the suite door and got some sleep. I’ve always thought suite doors were a gimmick, especially after my door was stuck on my Tel Aviv to London flight. However, I did find it useful this flight. it’s definitely not to the level of privacy like Singapore Suites or Etihad First Class. It blocked out just enough ambient light and aisle movements for me to nap a little more comfortably. The seat was again solid both in the upright and lie flat positions.
I woke up just in time for the second meal service, which was pretty terrible.
We ended up parking at JFK a little over an hour late. Immigration was quick, but it took nearly another hour for our checked bags to arrive. Afterward we hopped a cab to the surprisingly nice Four Points Flushing.