Originally Posted by
crazy8534
This whole thread is interesting but that information is frankly extraordinary. Were there any other examples of BA check ins off-site around that time? I suddenly had a thought that there was something in GLA but I may just be misremembering the functions of the Gordon street office across the road from Central Station?
Also is it an appropriate time to say that if I ever feel like crying I’ll watch them play Auld Lang Syne at the HKG handover- “slow march into a new order”.
Paddington had check-in and luggage facilities on the right side of the station, and there was a large BA sales office in central London office in Lower Regent Street, and another one, almost as big, somewhere in the City, which I don't recall using. At one stage BA had travel agencies all over the UK and some relatively small towns had one (e.g. Douglas and Henley on Thames). The 2 London offices seemed to be mainly BA handling for tickets but they could do check-in (luggage for Concorde perhaps?). The regional offices were usually pushing ski or cruise collaborations with Cunard, so effectively BAH, but could do ticketing.
There was also the West London Air Terminal, for BEA, on what is now Sainsbury's Cromwell Road, nearish Gloucester Road Tube. You could - indeed were encouraged - to check-in there and deposit luggage, so you would just go through a metal detector at LHR and this airside within minutes of the bus pulling into Heathrow.