Who's Nostalgic? 1997 Timetable Highlights
Jan 30, 2019, 10:07 am
#151
Join Date: Jan 2010
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But I would need to join pprune and that, as far as I can see, is for pilots and others in that profession, which most certainly am not. Also, I reckon they wouldn't be into some dumb timetable question from 27 years ago. Tomorrow, I will compile a very clear and concise list of the six flights whose data I am missing. Surely someone here must have an old timetable in the drawer somewhere!
My sister did the BOAC trip to Hong Kong in exactly that same period, every time at school holidays, coming home to Hong Kong. She said it was a pretty hellish journey which went on forever, nothing glamorous about it, and she truly pitied the people who stayed on the plane in Hong Kong in order to continue to Australia. Have no idea in reality if they deplaned for an hour or so, or not.
When I was little, I was on the RAF flights from Brize Norton (BZZ, right?) which were VC10s. Now, I would like to trace back a couple of those, with my memories on Gan and other weird layovers at that time. Surely someone here has some connection to that world and those flights.
My sister did the BOAC trip to Hong Kong in exactly that same period, every time at school holidays, coming home to Hong Kong. She said it was a pretty hellish journey which went on forever, nothing glamorous about it, and she truly pitied the people who stayed on the plane in Hong Kong in order to continue to Australia. Have no idea in reality if they deplaned for an hour or so, or not.
When I was little, I was on the RAF flights from Brize Norton (BZZ, right?) which were VC10s. Now, I would like to trace back a couple of those, with my memories on Gan and other weird layovers at that time. Surely someone here has some connection to that world and those flights.
Jan 30, 2019, 4:13 pm
#152
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I've been a member of that other PPlace for many years, and I can therefore vouch for there being no need to be anywhere close to being in the profession to be allowed to join. In fact, one of the reasons I stopped participating there was because of the low and decreasing proportion of genuine professionals contributing to the threads and topics in which I would be interested.Have you tried London Heathrow & Gatwick Airports ? It doesn't have information for the specific dates you have already mentioned, but if you look at enough other days in the scheduling season(s) concerned, you may get enough consistent hits to be confident of the flight numbers concerned.
1635 : Flight GVA-LHR
2000 : Flight LHR-INV
I presume I did the whole thing on BA, although I used to sometimes mix itineraries with SR. The closest thing I could find for GVA-LHR was BA729, which left a lot earlier than I wrote. For the Inverness leg, I couldn't find anything. I vaguely recall Inverness flights having numbers in the 4,000 series, which makes me wonder if it was operated by anything else. I was looking for the code BAW and there were no 4-digit flight numbers around 20h00 departure time, unless a different 3-letter code was used. The return flight from Inverness to LHR was on 23rd August, departure 11h35, with the onward flight to Geneva the next day at 15h35 apparently. Same problem, couldn't find matching info. The mystery continues!
Last edited by Concerto; Jan 30, 2019 at 4:19 pm
Jan 30, 2019, 5:34 pm
#153
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My only time on upper deck on a 747 was in WT (to CPT back in the 90s). But back then I could carry water onto flights, and once spent best part of an hour in the cockpit chatting away to the captains as they explained how parts of the plane worked. How things have changed, and not for the better. WT seemed so much posher back then, I even got a little blue toiletry bag. At least QR still give economy travellers toothbrushes, eye masks, etc - all BA give is a cockroach from the seat in front (seriously! on G-XLEK last month in the upper deck a cockroach walked from the seat in front onto my neighbour's meal tray! I'm sort of glad it came after we'd eaten instead of while we were eating.)
Feb 1, 2019, 9:24 am
#155
Join Date: May 2017
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Feb 1, 2019, 10:40 am
#156
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What on earth is a "Malapropism" when it's at home? A Malaprop I know which this is from the original quote, however this sounds more like a form of retroactive pessimism.
Feb 1, 2019, 10:45 am
#157
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Feb 1, 2019, 11:54 am
#158
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A very interesting thread! And it made me recall a certain "flight" operated by BA back in 1994 which provided connecting service for passengers traveling from London to Ottawa via Montreal Mirabel Airport.
Here's the schedule from an old, battered copy of the Official Airline Guide (OAG) issued in the fall of 1994....
BA 9795: Depart Montreal Mirabel (YMX) at 3:10 pm, arrive Ottawa (YOW) at 5:10 pm
Frequency: Daily
Equipment: BUS
Note: No local traffic permitted on BA 9795 YMX-YOW
I seem to recall the bus did not offer three classes of service.....
Here's the schedule from an old, battered copy of the Official Airline Guide (OAG) issued in the fall of 1994....
BA 9795: Depart Montreal Mirabel (YMX) at 3:10 pm, arrive Ottawa (YOW) at 5:10 pm
Frequency: Daily
Equipment: BUS
Note: No local traffic permitted on BA 9795 YMX-YOW
I seem to recall the bus did not offer three classes of service.....
Last edited by jlemon; Feb 2, 2019 at 11:53 am Reason: no local traffic note
Feb 1, 2019, 4:20 pm
#159
Join Date: Jan 2019
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Posts: 91
‘97 was when I moved to ‘Regions Finance - Asia Pacific’, originally based at Comet House, then at Waterside, so this is a bit of nostalgia for me!! The 747-400 was a big part of my life for the next two years back then...I spent a week a month travelling for work back then.
In those days the BA009 carried on to Sydney, and it even did a quick hop to Melbourne and back before leaving Sydney. My recollection is that the crew spent 2 nights in BKK on the way out, 2, or possibly 3 in SYD (as they did the shuttle to MEL and back followed by another nights rest) then back again, so 7 nights on the ground and 3 the air. As office staff, we were expected to go into the office the day we arrived, or after if it arrived at night. But, we weren’t expected to travel at the weekend
In those days the BA009 carried on to Sydney, and it even did a quick hop to Melbourne and back before leaving Sydney. My recollection is that the crew spent 2 nights in BKK on the way out, 2, or possibly 3 in SYD (as they did the shuttle to MEL and back followed by another nights rest) then back again, so 7 nights on the ground and 3 the air. As office staff, we were expected to go into the office the day we arrived, or after if it arrived at night. But, we weren’t expected to travel at the weekend
Feb 2, 2019, 4:13 am
#161
Join Date: Jan 2019
Programs: BA GGL
Posts: 91
No, not me... Sydney, Bangkok and Singapore (and, briefly KUL - I don’t think BA was flying it when I started, and it seems to have been on and off since then!) were the bulk of my overseas work with BA. Indian routes sat with one colleague, and NRT plus HKG (along with its hop and back to TPE at the time) sat with another. From memory ME was lumped in with Africa at the time!
Feb 2, 2019, 5:14 am
#162
Join Date: Aug 2017
Programs: BA Exec Silver
Posts: 9
I had a look at those hard to read archives, which presumably list runway touchdown and takeoff times. I couldn't see the names of destinations, just flight numbers. I didn't find anything that really corresponded with what I have got written down. In one example, I looked at an itinerary from Geneva to Inverness on 3rd August 1995. In my pocket diary, it's simply listed as:
1635 : Flight GVA-LHR
2000 : Flight LHR-INV
I presume I did the whole thing on BA, although I used to sometimes mix itineraries with SR. The closest thing I could find for GVA-LHR was BA729, which left a lot earlier than I wrote. For the Inverness leg, I couldn't find anything. I vaguely recall Inverness flights having numbers in the 4,000 series, which makes me wonder if it was operated by anything else. I was looking for the code BAW and there were no 4-digit flight numbers around 20h00 departure time, unless a different 3-letter code was used. The return flight from Inverness to LHR was on 23rd August, departure 11h35, with the onward flight to Geneva the next day at 15h35 apparently. Same problem, couldn't find matching info. The mystery continues!
1635 : Flight GVA-LHR
2000 : Flight LHR-INV
I presume I did the whole thing on BA, although I used to sometimes mix itineraries with SR. The closest thing I could find for GVA-LHR was BA729, which left a lot earlier than I wrote. For the Inverness leg, I couldn't find anything. I vaguely recall Inverness flights having numbers in the 4,000 series, which makes me wonder if it was operated by anything else. I was looking for the code BAW and there were no 4-digit flight numbers around 20h00 departure time, unless a different 3-letter code was used. The return flight from Inverness to LHR was on 23rd August, departure 11h35, with the onward flight to Geneva the next day at 15h35 apparently. Same problem, couldn't find matching info. The mystery continues!
I've just found my old copy of Airport Timetables UK Summer 1995, and looking at the list for Inverness, [EGPE] it appears to show that the late night BA4136 (arrival time 2145 local) would night stop in Inverness and form the following morning's BA4145 to LHR, so there may be a good chance that the following flight on the 04-08-95 ..."BAW27K","GDOCN","734","B73S","EGPE","0758","0720" ,"B5L","0","09L","1",,"5","040895" ... operated the BA4136 the evening before.
Also i'm guessing that the times shown in the list will be in UTC, based on the QANTAS flight QF009. It's shown on the list with a scheduled arrival time of 0430. Airport Timetables UK lists this flight as scheduled to arrive at 0530 (which I know is listed as local time).
So would an arrival time of around 16:55 local would that fit with the BA729 times you have? I guess as GVA would have been at UTC+2 in August that would fit with roughly a 16:35 local departure from GVA?
Feb 2, 2019, 10:41 am
#163
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Wow, that's amazing, I think you have really nailed those missing flights for me! I don't actually have my list handy because I'm on the road right now (or I should say, up in the air, with London, Brussels, Valencia and Rome on one trip). But I will check it all when I get back.
I still have to find the number of the flight that left LHR for GVA on 24th August at 15h35. Were those flights with 4,000 number series actually operated by BA or by a smaller regional subsidiary? Not sure if they had regional subsidiaries in those days.
I still have to find the number of the flight that left LHR for GVA on 24th August at 15h35. Were those flights with 4,000 number series actually operated by BA or by a smaller regional subsidiary? Not sure if they had regional subsidiaries in those days.
Feb 2, 2019, 11:13 am
#164
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A very interesting thread! And it made me recall a certain "flight" operated by BA back in 1994 which provided connecting service for passengers traveling from London to Ottawa via Montreal Mirabel Airport.
Here's the schedule from an old, battered copy of the Official Airline Guide (OAG issued in the fall of 1994....
BA 9795: Depart Montreal Mirabel (YMX) at 3:10 pm, arrive Ottawa (YOW) at 5:10 pm
Frequency: Daily
Equipment: BUS
Note: No local traffic permitted on BA 9795 YMX-YOW
I seem to recall the bus did not offer three classes of service.....
Here's the schedule from an old, battered copy of the Official Airline Guide (OAG issued in the fall of 1994....
BA 9795: Depart Montreal Mirabel (YMX) at 3:10 pm, arrive Ottawa (YOW) at 5:10 pm
Frequency: Daily
Equipment: BUS
Note: No local traffic permitted on BA 9795 YMX-YOW
I seem to recall the bus did not offer three classes of service.....
Feb 2, 2019, 11:23 am
#165
Moderator, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges, and Ambassador, British Airways Executive Club
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That's still going, now as a shared limo service, under "flight" codes BA8498 DMM-BAH or BA8499 BAH-DMM. You make the booking on BA.com to DMM then ring Majestic or the BA office in KSA. No Avios or Tier Points, unfortunately. Elaborate instructions in the link below.
https://lfn.custhelp.com/app/answers...9-saudi-arabia
https://lfn.custhelp.com/app/answers...9-saudi-arabia
