I'll always remember my first flight on BA. I was going to school in France near Marseille back in 1986 and was returning back to San Francisco. I had a friend in SF buy me a one way ticket from Paris-London-San Francisco (I still have the receipt and it was about $550-ish one way). He bought it at the old BA ticket office on Powell and Post St. and it was to picked up by me at CDG airport. The choice at the time was either BA or Pan Am as Pan Am had the nonstop LHR-SFO on the day I was to fly whereas BA's made a stop in LAX (only on certain days/half the week it went nonstop) and continued onward to SFO (with a crew change and all). So I can say I flew BA from LAX to SFO (which I did lol). I had to find my own ticket from Marseille to Paris and bought it on Air Inter.

Anyway, I arrived at CDG in the evening and went to a ticket desk to pick up my CDG-LHR-SFO ticket that was waiting for me, had a last Cafe Creme and bought a farewell magazine from France and went to wait for my flight to London. I got up there and saw a tiny little BAC 111 and thought, oh no, I am not getting on this tiny thing across the English Channel (I just never liked small aircraft over bodies of water). So I was mentally psyching myself up for the BAC 111 and when we started to board, much to my surprise we headed to the BA L1011-500 Tristar. THAT was our plane, not the BAC 111. The plane left at around 8 pm Paris and I remember how the crew were just so playful and joking around with the pax. I enjoyed that flight.

Now being a poor student in 1986 returning home to SF, I really just didn't have the money for a hotel so I decided to camp out at Heathrow. Plus it was late at night and the flight left in the AM. I was not the only one who had that in mind also. The terminal was so quiet at night and there was some 24 hr place to eat where I had some food (I had converted my last French Francs to Pounds and really had no idea what I was spending after living in France for a year). I really wish I remembered which terminal it was in. It was not Terminal 4, as I remember that was just being built (as I still have a magazine from the airport mentioning the 'new' terminal). I remember the check in boxes all on the ground level and the for the flights going to the Middle East, the BA agents wore some type of red veil wrapping under their faces (this was awhile ago so bear with me and I've no idea if they still do that). I checked into my flight to SFO and went to get something to eat.

As I was heading up to the security area, I noticed that I had lost my boarding pass. I have no idea how I did that since I had just obtained it 30 mins earlier, so I immediately was directed to some desk back downstairs and after some checking etc. I was given a duplicate BP. On my way back to clear security I heard my name being paged and was told to come back to that desk. They had found my original BP. ( I still wonder why they just didn't discard it since I had a duplicate.. then again this was 20 years ago so my memory of the events may be cloudy).

I boarded the BA 747-200 for my flight to San Francisco with a stop in Los Angeles (like I mentioned earlier, BA did have a daily flight to SFO, but they only did it nonstop 4 times per week, the other 3 went via LAX and it was the same plane that contined on to SFO). While taxiing, the FA's introduced themselves over the PA and what I remembered was that they had several FA's who introduced themselves in the foreign language they spoke. Was a nice 'international' touch. I sat by the window towards the rear, the middle seat was empty and the aisle seat was taken by a man on his first flight ever. He was heading to Auckland, connecting to ANZ I assume.

I dont quite remember what we ate, but I do remember in economy a "tea' service where they had clotted cream and jams and scones and of course tea (or coffee). This was the late 80's so I'm not sure if they still do this. The movies playing were "American Flyers" (which I think was Kevin Costners first role-not sure though) and "Jagged Edge". We had horrible turbulence over the Atlantic somewhere which lasted quite a long time. Apparently it was so bad that a week later, I was reading in the SF Chronicle where somebody did a piece on their flight on Peoples Express from London to "somewhere on the west coast" which I guess left an hour before ours about the horrible turbuelence and how it affected the pax.

Anyway, we landed in LAX, and us SFO bound pax were not allowed to leave the plane. There was a crew change (and I'm curious if that crew continued on to London or stayed in SF another night). We were not on the ground very long anyway and took off on our hour flight to San Francisco.

So that was my first flight with British Airways, way back in 1986. Just a guy coming back to San Francisco after spending a year in France. Anxious to see his friends, but sad to leave the ones he made in France.

Sorry if I wrote too much, I have a habit of remembering details about flights I've taken.