subject2load

Another great read bisonrav !

As good as anything I’ve seen from you in recent weeks - in fact probably one of the most entertaining reports amongst those posted by any FT-er.

peck

Urgh... the Pharma industry. I suffered that for a few years you have my sympathy ;-)

Great write up again! I still think you’re mad but it’s quite the adventure!

squawk

bisonrav

Need to know basis only that on the lounge password. But anyone who's seen it will understand.

I hasten to add I don't work directly in Pharma - from what I can see if I did I wouldn't be flying around in WT+

Anyway, close of day report. I like ex JER trips, nice little day out and back at home rather than kicking my heels in the Ibis Styles or similar. Good return flight, a very hard working CSM, Helen, was in solo perpetual motion mode and kept everyone fed and watered. The meal was interesting and quite good - no choices - it was three FULL WIDTH prawns (not the bi-sected type), with a sort of quinoa/cheese/horseradish salad that was really tasty. I was very happy with it. I had to remember I was driving home and not hit the champagne,

The exit from the plane was also notable. Last time I did Jersey, we went onto buses, and I was expecting the same again because of the need to dispense us into the domestic arrivals room. But wonder of wonders, this time there was an air bridge! I was really pleased about this until led down the stairs onto the tarmac and back onto the buses hiding under the air bridge.

Lazy morning tomorrow, then off to Gatwick again (train this time) for Catania. The only thing about this trip is it doesn't quite have the epic sense you get bouncing around the Nordics and across the continents. But 320 TP is 320 TP.

madfish

bisonrav

Final final postscript - I liked Jersey so much on this trip, we're all booked for a return weekend in early July on a BA weekend break. In Y though. The destination is the thing when you're travelling with the family.

bisonrav

I have decidedly fallen on my feet in Catania.

But of that, more later.

I had the novelty this morning of waking up mid ticket in my own bed, the ex-Jer route is definitely a great way of bulking up a trip with some extra TPs and with my proximity to Gatwick it's very easy to do. So breakfast, a few errands, discussing with the toddler his earnest wish to go to Malta and why it wouldn't be possible for a while, and it was lunchtime and time to buy the train ticket.

Minor fly in the ointment there was that the trains had been replaced with buses today, so I had to go cap in hand to the very same wife I had just booked into economy to Jersey to ask her if she would mind driving me to Gatwick. After a little light discussion, she agreed, and off we went.

It's actually the first time I've been in Gatwick GF in the afternoon - the other visits have all been for early flights. I must say I found the sandwiches better than LHR - same varieties but fresher, I guess because of the smaller numbers and quick turnover. Didn't try any of the other options. I'm warming to the lounge after a lukewarm initial impression. It is compact, and the eating area is horrible, but a very pleasant place to sit and cogitate while the planes do there thing on the concrete beneath.

And then boarding and the Gatwick delay imbroglio, where the captain announced in very serious tones that he had to be completely honest with us, he expected we'd been too busy to follow the news but there were ATC problems in France and Eurocontrol restrictions and there was to be a delay of... [pause for effect]... at least two hours but he was working on it and wanted to keep optimistic. Shortly afterwards, while the crew were passing through the cabin to keep the passengers quiet, the delay was downgraded to one hour but with immediate pushback, and then we were off. In the event, we arrived on time.

The power of optimism really. It's amazing.

Good flight, excellent crew in CE, and the food was mostly OK with the main being Thai Green Chicken Curry which was pretty good, not had it before. The starter was a peculiar arrangement of blue and goats cheese, tomato paste, lettuce and walnuts (walnuts are not the most practical thing to eat with plane cutlery, as you can't stab them and they fall off the fork). It was all arranged in a faux-Michelin arrangement, but somehow failed on all levels except that the cheese was nice. Good try, but you're not going to win Masterchef with a starter like that.

And then off the plane and onto my feet - nice quick immigration line, and up to departures to meet my AirBNB hostess, Pina. Dimunitive, maternal, and in a shoe sized Fiat 600, she drove me to the palatial apartment I'm in now. Basically I have the whole place, kitchen, living room, one bedroom and the bathroom, for forty quid a night - there are three or four other bedrooms locked off. The kitchen is stuffed with food which is essentially breakfast and available to me, there is wifi and coffee and it's the most amazing bargain. I simply cannot recommend this place highly enough to anyone considering a TP run to Catania. It's advertised as an Apparamento zone aeroporto Catania.

And now to figure out what to do in Catania on Sunday - Pina has helpfully supplied a couple of bus tickets - the stop is just outside the appartment building.

rbAA

Same with going for AA EXP, having to fly AA to use the SWU's, though last year when I was planning the travels, I could have made GGL fairly easily rather than AA EXP. Then I reminded myself that I'd have to fly BA this year. Living in BKK, the BA options are bad (oldest dirtiest 777,) or worse (bedbugs.) Actually, AA EXP was easier and cheaper and while I don't mind taking the long way to the US, it makes more sense to do it the short way. Especially with stops in HKG or Japan.

As with all things, it depends on what you like.

GinFizz

Sounds great - but surely more like catatonia given all the flying hours you've been putting in 😁

Just fitting back home to Beijing from a long weekend break in Penang - with the flights ticking me over the GGL requalification mark. I might be inspired by your efforts later this year to get my new earning year off to a flying start!

bisonrav

Many a true word, actually, I passed out on the very comfy sofa, woke up and went to bed, and the net result was about 12 hours sleep. But I don't think that was travel fatigue, it's just that it's a very quiet spot, despite the fact that I can see the CTA runway across a field of wild flowers from my al fresco breakfast balcony.

When I can be bothered, I'm off to town for some lunch and a wander around. Not close to the point of bother yet though.

alexwuk

Y -> J upgrade on AA is a *big* upgrade, which is what a SWU can do for some very longhaul travel. J -> F by contrast is pretty pointless.

bisonrav

So, Catania. What can I say about Catania?

The AirBNB was an entirely positive experience. I'd certainly do that again, and I'll be giving the host, Pina, a tremendous review.

I disliked almost everything else about Catania. I spent most of my time comparing how things ran with Malta, and it wasn't favourable. Scruffy, run down (in common with parts of Malta), but you always have the feeling someone's trying to rip you off.

Buses. In Malta, the buses are radio tracked with information on line in real time. They're a bit rickety, but you can pay the driver and it's a simple system. In Catania, as far as I could tell, you can't pay the driver directly, you need a ticket. And unless your AirBNB host has given you a couple of tickets, the only place you can buy them is to find a tobacco shop. Which are all closed on Sunday. As is most of Catania itself.

I went to Syracuse today on the train, which in principle was much better - Lambrina Express bus to the central station, buy a ticket in the machine, get your train. Except of course being Italy you have to validate your ticket. And the only validation machines (2) are on the way into the station, rather than on each platform. And the messsage says "align with qr code to left" or some such, and if you follow that you slide your ticket slideways where it disappears forever into the bowels of the machine and you have to go and buy another.

Train ride fine, we arrive in Syracuse. A simpler and more tourism orientated city might have something like a sign saying "this way to the shuttle bus". Syracuse just glares at you sullenly and dares you to find it. Or even to find the bus station (round the corner, to the left). I thought it would be wise to check where the bus to the airport left from, and wandered round a bit, thinking that a bloody great big "AIRPORT BUS" sign would be handy. Glare grew more sullen. The ticket hut was (of course) closed. After about 25 minutes, it opened, and in response to my polite enquiry I had a ticket and timetable thrust into my face.

I never did find the shuttle bus, though I saw it disappearing into the distance on the way out and the way back. It's a pleasant 20 minute walk to Ortigia. And in truth I enjoyed pottering around the streets. All it would take would be a flash of a grin from Sicily and I might well agree to go back there. But not much of a sight of that. Sullen sullen sullen.

And Catania airport is everything people here have described. More modern than I was expecting, but basically a big and noisy shed with very few redeeming features. It does support phone boarding passes though which was more than I was expecting.

So it's a TP bargain, granted, Catania, especially ex-Jer, but next time I'm paying the extra fifty quid and heading back to Malta. Home on the late flight, an evening B2B to Malta, and then back to Italy for work at the tail end of the week.

bisonrav

Three flights later and it's the end of the sequence. The return flight from Catania wasn't a great one. The male CSM seemed to want to spend the entire trip chatting to the young female FA, and he had an oddly inflected way of saying "yesssss" which started to grate about 5 minutes into the flight and didn't really stop grating for nearly three hours. It wasn't a bad flight, it wasn't bad service really, but it was just all a bit irritating, delivered with the sort of obsequious manner one's valet sometimes affects when he feels he knows best about the wine you refused but is too polite to say so.

So passing swiftly past that to the coda, this evening, in which I popped my B2B cherry in Jersey. And it was a truly great mini-sequence, I strode out of the house with nothing more than a pair of boarding passes and a telephone, stepped straight onto the train to Gatwick, up the elevator to the left, through the empty fast track, down the lounge tunnel, across the 1st floor shopping bit, up in the lift to the lounge, imperious wave of the boarding pass to the gate guardian, into the First lounge, and a fortifying Chicken Jalfrezi ordered, washed down with some fizz, all in one fluid movement.

I'm becoming a bit enamoured with the idea of flying with Vueling. You can see their natty yellow paint jobs from the lounge, and something about them draws the eye. I may need to be talked out of this. Or I might just take the toddler to Barcelona for a day.

Perfectly pleasant flight out - I was amazed by the quantity of food on the tray given there's barely time to get it out to the passengers. I was expecting a panini, but we actually got a very nice cold chicken breast and very tasty quinoa (I think) salad with little red spicy berries in. On the way off the plane I mentioned to the CSM that I'd be back shortly, and she laughed and said she'd get a cuppa ready.

I was a little nervous in case a band of Jersey immigration protocol officers were waiting to lead me through the labyrinthine tunnels that lead landside, detaining me just long enough to miss the return (I have quite an active imagination after a couple of spoonfuls of quinoa and some magic berries), but in the event it was really just a question of heading to the gents and coming back against the flow of Y passengers into the lounge. No more than ten minutes later we were asked to the boarding area.

It was at this point I checked the expert flyer seating map, and realised that I was the only passenger in the business class cabin.

This didn't quite end up the case, as the crew unilaterally upgraded an elderly couple who had needed help boarding. However the CSM was as good as her word and thrust a cup of tea through the arriving throng of about 20 Y passengers - it wasn't a very full flight. This advance tea helped me meet the C-W-S standard of three cups on a short flight (he must have a bladder like a steel basketball though).

Now I've been blessed on recent trips not to have had the safety video. It's been manual all the way from Gatwick. But when there's only three people in the cabin, a manual demo is a bit of a curse, because you sort of have to watch it from politeness, and then you can't help but not know where to rest your eyes. It's surprisingly difficult to endure, but I survived by muttering "no wizard pipes, no wizard pipes" under my breath. Incidentally you do get the impression everyone wants to add "AND I MEAN NOTHING" after the "take absolutely nothing with you" section. Our consciousness has been subtly changed by that sodding video. Muppets.

Dawn - the CSM - was extremely proactive in offering more tea and trying to induce me to take the prawn salad - she had a genuine look of sorrow in her eyes as I said I couldn't possibly eat it, and then a flash of inspiration and she went off burrowing in the backs of the food box things and came out triumphantly with two bags of cashew nuts and some biscuits. I jokingly suggested that because she didn't have all that much to do I should ask her to make some cocktails, and her whole face lit up until she realised I was toying with her and only wanted tea.

And that was about it really - easy train ride home and no flights now until Thursday. Should be nearly Bon Jovi time after that.

madfish

Perhaps we should introduce a new take on the safety demonstration ala Rocky Horror with numerous heckling from the audience/passengers especially if you are one of those people who likes attracting attention.

bisonrav

Nailed on for the party plane

(except that you'll all turn out to be cost accountants called Neville).