My flight back to LHR started with a mystery.



The night before (so on Saturday evening), I got a notification from flighty that the inbound flight had been cancelled. I was thinking that would almost certainly mean my flight would be cancelled as they would need to reposition an aircraft to KRK which would not be likely. Looking at other sites - flightradar24, flight aware and even the AA app all confirmed the flight was cancelled. But peculiarly BA said both the inbound and outbound flight was still planned and expected to be on time. And they were selling tickets for both.



So I went to bed puzzled by the Schrödinger's flight.

The next morning I bolt[ed] to the airport. I arrived 2.5 hours before my flight, but stood in a queue at checkin for half an hour. BA seemed to only open check in two hours before the flight! And no self service bag drop either… Once I did make it through checkin, BA872 was well on its way to KRK. So all signs were I would indeed fly to LHR today!



The lounge was unmemorable but I got a seat and some mineral water, which sometimes par for the course in a contracted lounge.



We had a bus gate again to the plane. And then had to wait for sometime to board the plane. They had to let a VIP who had been chauffeured to the plane board first!



9 rows of Club Europe on the flight, and I could only get a seat in row 6! (I was originally on the Saturday flight, but that was cancelled a few months prior).

FAs distributed free bottles of water, so no impact from the bottle free trial.

We had three choices of meal a beef salad, chicken teriyaki or pasta. Felt like the classic experience in Y of being asked “beef or chicken”?



By the time the cabin crew got to my row there were just two teriyaki trays left, and I got the second last one. I overheard in row 9 they were down to just the pasta as the only “choice”. The wifi did not work for any of the flight (I’d be more surprised if it did work!).




We had a nice view of London along the Thames while landing, and a brief glimpse of LCY again.



And yes, at T3 we once again had a bus gate! (And we had to queue for sometime before there was even a vacant bus gate!) So that meant the flight was bookended by bus gates.

Arrival was smooth, with the e-gate being fast and my luggage waiting for me when I arrived at the carousel.

I took the Heathrow express to Paddington and then the tube to my hotel.

I was staying at the Hyde Park Hilton. At checkin I was told I was upgraded to a “deluxe” room but it felt like a standard queen. (And the smallest on my trip so far!).

I had a steak from the hotel adjacent restaurant. Was told there was a (I think 25%) discount for hotel guests. But they added a 12.5% service charge that wasn’t mentioned on menu so that offset most of the discount. The steak was terrible. I asked for medium rare and it seemed well done and grey. The meat was also very dry and full of chunks of fat. The restaurant manager when I paid never asked how my meal was (none of the wait staff ever did), and I told him about the poor steak. He laughed and dismissed me “it’s a sirloin”. It’s a cheap cut of meat is what it is.

Then I went to bed, excited for another day of rollercoasters.