Side trip

Since I had several hours to kill I'd decided on a side trip, preferably somewhere I havent flown to before and with a convenient schedule that wasn't going to be too stressful.

Mindful of the upcoming *A 10th anniversary and the 5th anniversary promo for flying 5 *A airlines get 55555 miles I wanted to fly *A.

So I ended up choosing bmi (BD) to Belfast City (BHD). The fare structure seemed odd to me. The cheapest fare category (tiny fares) were sometimes more than double the cost of the next highest category (on same route and day but different flight number).

We boarded on time and pushed back a metre - no doubt to make on time stats look okay. Then a wait at the gate due to delays on the active departure runway due to nearby light showers (good grief ). Some time later we pushed back the rest of the way and taxiied to a holding pen for further delays for the described heavy showers not at LHR. Hmm as far as I can see the showers would be described as light or even drizzle in most other places. Finally we reach the runway more than an hour after scheduled departure time. Am I glad I had a reasonable connection time for the flight back to NZ - I'd hate to have to pay a walk up fare, especially after getting such a great deal in the first place.

There is no view until close to Belfast. The weather there is much better but still cloudy and surprisingly cool for late spring. By sheer luck during OLCI I managed to grab a "business seat" - ie a seat in a row where the middle seat was collapsed. The load was fairly light. Business class got complimentary food and drink. Everyone else had to pay - even for water (and hardly cheap at one pound fifty pence) - unless had bmi status (even the blue plus at 3000 miles), sorry *G status isnt good enough

On arrival the rear half of a/c deplaned by stairs and the front half used the silly airbridge, which promptly leads to stairs down to ground level. ID check before entering the terminal (landside). The officer started thumbing through my passport but quickly got bored and let me through.

Since I took the turnaround (to minimise my chance of misconnecting) I had a quick look around landside then through security and up to the lounge. There I changed my FFP # for the return flight - thinking if the *A 10th anniversary promo is anything like the 5th anniversary one I may as well credit the short flights to 2 different FFPs

The lounge very similar to the LHR domestic one, except less food and drink options. There is a door directly from the lounge to the airbridge.

The flight in reverse was much the same, and with the usual circling over southern England before being able to land we lost some more time. If I'd taken the next flight back and it had the same delay I'd have misconnected, so lucky I didn't.