I am writing up todays little jaunt partly because it acts as my personal travel diary, and partly because I’m sure you’ve all missed me This was a simple NCL-LHR-NCL and really not worth of a live trip report. It was quite odd not chronicling as I went along, but also much more relaxing.

The main reason (supposedly) for this trip was to meet up with a couple of friends and colleagues who were heading off to New York, and guest them into the First lounge or CCR. In the interest of full disclosure I admit there was an ulterior motive, this would be my only opportunity for a Turkey dinner in the Concorde Room.

The day started way, way too early. For some reason I awoke at exactly 4am and I mean fully awake, ready and raring to go! With absolutely no hope of rolling over and going back to sleep I rolled out of bed and spent the next three hours playing around with itamatrix and google flights to see if I could leverage any of the BA sale fares. That is still a work in progress!

A little after 7 o’clock I ordered my standard Uber to the airport and a couple of minutes later I was on my way. It was a gray and miserable morning in Newcastle, but the traffic was light and we made good time to the airport. The first thing that greeted me in the check-in hall Was Newcastle airport Christmas tree. The marketing department clearly had a hand in decorating the tree as it was festooned with a long bragging band calling out their recent award as best airport in the world.



The airport was really quiet this morning and security was a breeze, there was nobody at fast track, and for the first time that I can remember, my backpack went straight through without secondary screening.

first stop of the day was Aster and Thyme for the now traditional glass of champagne courtesy of priority pass.



Having lingered over the glass of champagne for 20 minutes it was time to wander off down to the Aspire lounge, and, of course, the traditional start to any travel day.



And a nice sausage bap with poor man’s barbecue sauce.



With around 40 minutes to scheduled departure I took a walk to Gate 3 thinking that I would be front of the queue.



Much to my surprise not only was the gate already open but the plane was ready for boarding and I was first on board by at least 10 minutes! The gate 3 jet Bridge is still broken so it was boarding by stairs this morning.





I was back in the cheap seats, 11 C in the exit row. Everybody was on board in good time and there was only around 60 people on the plane. The stairs were removed and the door was closed and all seemed well, except, the door to the fight deck was still open…. This did not bode well! A couple of minutes later the pilots announcement started with the standard ‘thank you for boarding so quickly’ and then went on to give us the good news that we had an ATC delay of one hour and 20 minutes and are scheduled departure of 11 am for our 9:30 am flight!!

A few minutes later, the door to the flight deck was shut and pilots announcement that we were going to push back and get out of the way of the gate. I’m assuming that they wanted to clear the gate in preparation for the 10:15 departure to LHR. Once we were parked up out of the way the seatbelt light was off and the crew decided to do the drink and a snack run in economy. The snack of the day was the gingerbread cakes.



No sooner had the bottle and a bite run completed than there was another announcement from the captain with the good news that we’ve been given a much earlier departure slot and going to be on our way pretty much immediately. In the end we were off the ground at 10:18 am, 48 minutes late. As you might expect, being all back of the bus, it was a fairly uneventful trip although this drink did mysteriously appear at some point



In the end we landed 11:10 am and it was a fairly short taxi and a quick disembarkation. Given that I had tons of time to play with, I went out landside and came back in via the first wing. I was in departures by 11:30 and straight through the first wing and into the Concord room by 11:40.

No great surprise that the Christmas decorations were absolutely everywhere.