Sometimes BA and LHR aren't so bad...
 

A happy story for once. Out to HKG on the 27 tonight (10th trip this year :eek: ). No queue in Zone R and two very cheery agents on the F check in. Two lovely moments:

* After a bit of jiggling around they manage to get my bags checked through to PVG, despite KA not being a OW member. ^
* The plane has changed to a 52J from the usual 38J. My heart sinks at the words 'your seat has changed', but rises when he says they have held back 20A for me as a GCH. ^

Security staff were borderline civil and no sign of the evil shouty people.

The lady on the lounge front desk remembers me from the weekend and we have a nice chat. There were lounge staff manning the Champagne Bar and a bacon baguette swiftly followed up a glass of the Jacquart. All this and the lounge is deserted.

Proof that even the combination of BA and LHR can - on occasions - be a pleasant one. Feel free to post your happy tales here too. ;) :D

Have a good flight ^

LHR can be tough, but I actually don't mind it when I only have to connect within T4. Easy enough to navigate. BA's lounges are good, even if they can be crowded. And, I love Scotch and they do have a nice selection at the shops. Switching terminals saps a lot of the pleasure though.

Enjoy!

Nice when it goes like that, puts you in the right mood for a long haul... Bon voyage!

Absolutely ^ We do tend to forget that sometimes on here amongst the (valid) complaints about other areas. Agree with you as usual, Swanhunter - I was in a very good mood after a similar T1 experience last Sunday as you read. Albeit for a less glam destination and flight ;)

Have a good trip - and a glass of Jacquart for me ^ :D

Well put Swanhunter. ^ We do tend to forget the positives sometimes.

Have a great trip, and if you're there at the start of next week - I'll see you there!

I think we can all agree that it remains a daily miracle that LHR can handle the passenger load with a crumbling and chronically under-maintained infrastructure, and still manage to function at all.

It still is a dump though. :)

Must admit, had a very pleasant F flight to Cairo last night. Excellent crew and the food does seem to have picked up. Even getting through Flight Connections wasn't so bad, only about 20 in front of me (and obviously only 1 scanner open).

Was a 777 with the cr*ppy tiny TV though. First time I'd seen that in F.

Worryingly, Cairo airport does not seem much worse than LHR. Man from the Four Seasons met me before passport control, put the visa sticker in my passport and when he saw I had no checked luggage managed to whisk me out of the airport quickly. I was in a Merc heading into town less than 10 minutes after stepping off the plane - LCY-style timing!

I'm such a sucker for stories which remind of historical times long past. :D

Only because the positives are few and far between.

Shouldn't it be that we only feel the need post the bad experiences as they are exception and not the norm?

It is a sad state when someone feels they need to post about how good LHR is because it is so cr@p most of the rest of the time.

No offence meant Swanhunter of course, and I hope you enjoy your 400th trip to HKG for this year :D

I disagree. I just think the serial complainers seem to be shout more loudly than the happy customers. I would suggest that the majority of frequent travelling Golds would come into the "very happy", "happy" or "content" categories.

But I guess it is only natural to write complaining about something, rather than praising something. If the views expressed here were the only views of BA's very frequent fliers, there would be a lot of empty planes flying around.

ps Just checking in for a mid-day (not particularly business orientated) flight, which has nine rows of CE, and only a few empty seats in the cabin.

Well, it carried on just as well. Excellent crew who couldn't do enough from getting we a water bottle before take off as I was planning to sleep, through to sorting out breakfast way before breakfast time. Very pleasing! ^ The experience was only let down by the springboard effect with the seats, and the perennial timekeeping problems.

I guess I started this thread partly to highlight that things can go well..but that too often they are merely OK and that the bad happens more than it should. I am one of the more vocal complainers, but perhaps because I have the chance to fly a broad selection of airlines (especially in Asia) which rather shows BA and LHR in 'warts and all' mode. Perhaps some of the BA flyers who are content don't have the benchmarks to see where things could be better? The other reason for posting was to offer postive comments where due, and last night was a genuinely good experience at an airport and with an airline where I have been underwhelmed a little too much.

Positive experiences on BA have kept my opinion of BA generally favorable, but I note with sadness that I've lately shared the sentiment in the last part of Swanhunter's sentence. It's good to hear when the experience was a delight.

This depends what you use BA for, and what you are benchmarking it with.

If you travel in Europe and you are a frequent user of the CE product, then any benchmarking will lead you you to conclude that BA is "not bad" and you are "content".