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FlyerTalk Forums (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/index.php)
-   Trip Reports (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports-177/)
-   -   Flyertalk BA Board Jersey Do 2014 (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-reports/1598697-flyertalk-ba-board-jersey-do-2014-a.html)

matthandy Jul 30, 2014 2:21 am
Flyertalk BA Board Jersey Do 2014
 
http://matt.enzy.org/TR/divide.png

Flyertalk BA Board Jersey Do 2014
July 2014 - matthandy

http://matt.enzy.org/TR/divide.png

http://matt.enzy.org/gallery/galleri...%202014/49.jpg
The Jersey Do!

This Report Features The Following

- British Airways First Lounge – London Gatwick
- British Airways A319 (ex. BMI) – London Gatwick to Jersey – Club Europe
- Two Nights At The Radisson Blu Waterside, St. Helier
- A bunch of crazy Flyertalkers!
- British Airways Terraces Lounge – Jersey
- British Airways A319 (ex. BMI) – Jersey to London Gatwick – Club Europe


Background

Welcome to my 26th trip report on Flyertalk!

So, on the weekend of the 25th-27th of July 40 or so Flyertalkers who happen to frequent the British Airways forum decided, in customary fashion, to meet up at a bar on the Channel Island of Jersey. This has now become a regular event and is lovingly organised by T8191 and his lovely wife who are in fact Jersey residents. The FT thread is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...ly-2014-a.html

I think that it would be fair to say that there are many British people out there who haven’t visited the Channel Islands before so this do (plus the 80 potential tier points!) and the thought of meeting some other Flyertalkers was enough to take the short flight from Gatwick over the Channel to St. Helier in Jersey.

I myself had previously met a few other Flyertalkers on a one to one basis but had never attended a ‘do’. I must be honest and say that I was a bit apprehensive about meeting 40 new people of which I’d only previously ‘met’ before on a strange Internet forum but in the end it all turned out well.

The Do itself had been planned a few months in advance with the date of the 26th of July selected and a venue chosen. As the months and weeks got closer to the date the attendee list grew with most people staying at the Radisson. For flights, obviously attendees were expected to travel on BA although there was one notable exception, which I’ll get to later! BA doesn’t fly from Heathrow to Jersey, much to the disappointment of many. Instead, the Jersey flights originate from London’s second airport, Gatwick. Traditionally, Gatwick has been more of a leisure airport, handling the summer charter traffic and a few more holiday long haul destinations like Orlando.

Gatwick holds fond memories for me as it was my ‘local’ airport whenever we went on holiday as a family. The airport itself has changed quite a lot and now Easyjet is by far the largest and most prominent single carrier. BA has slipped well behind and as a result, the facilities on offer for premium passengers are not on a par with the Heathrow offerings. Fear not however, the lounges are perfectly fine for a few drinks before a holiday flight and even more perfectly fine for a few drinks before a ‘do’ flight!

I, like many of the group booked ‘Club Europe’ and included the Radisson in the booking to turn it into a ‘holiday’. BA offer more Avios for making this type of booking and the rates are usually the same as if booking directly with the hotel itself. The Jersey route has to be one of the shortest offered with a Club Europe service at around 40 minutes or so on average. However, it’s great for much needed tier points as each sector earns a tidy 40 points. That works out at one a minute, far better than a good majority of routes!

That’s the background, let’s get on with it shall we?


Flying to Jersey

I live in Kent and, given the timing of my flight on s Friday night (7.40) I thought that a trip along the M25 would not be particularly enjoyable thing to partake in. I also wasn’t sure what I’d be doing on the way back with regards to alcohol so I decided to take the train.

My conference call ended early so I was able to get an earlier train and after a quick sprint to the station I was sitting on the first train towards Redhill. As you can see from the pictures, my local trains aren’t exactly business class standard but for 50 minutes they’d do just fine.

Whilst on the train I started arranging to get myself into the First lounge at Gatwick. There were a couple of Flyertalkers on my flight and I’d previously contacted boadh398 about being guested in. I noticed that there were a few delays to flights due to storms over the Gatwick area. My flight was showing with a two hour delay in fact! Given the time of day this would have meant an extended four visit to the lounge. Not a bad thing I suppose. The delays also impacted the earlier flight and some people were likely to be in the lounge when I arrived. Therefore, I was trying to rush to get to the lounge before they left and hence, I didn’t take any photos with my ‘proper’ camera until arriving in Jersey.



I arrived at Gatwick at about 5 and then headed into the South Terminal to get the shuttle to the North terminal where BA operates. Despite not being the major carrier at the North Terminal BA heavily sponsor the transit, with BA branding all over it including the voice over!

Once the shuttle arrived I made my way up to departures. The place seemed pretty busy. I believe that this was the first Friday after the school holidays had started so I imagine that there were a large number of holiday makers heading off for some sunshine.

BA check in is located in zone A, to the far left of the terminal. I went to take a cursory look as I wasn’t checking in any bags (very much frowned upon for participants of the do) and I’d already checked in on my mobile. After noticing that the place was also heaving I quickly scuttled off to security. I hadn’t realised but Gatwick North has it’s own premium security channel. I didn’t know if I had access or not but as I was in Club I chanced it. I got the magic beep and after having my photo snapped I was allowed through. I then made my way to the security screening itself. I was quite surprised. The set up is completely different to that of Heathrow Terminal 5 as it’s a standalone and very separate room with two security lanes. It wasn’t very busy and I was through in about two minutes.



After security I entered the main depature area and followed the signs to the lounges which were to the left. The only other time that I’ve been to Gatwick with lounge access I did exactly the same as I did this time which was to mistakenly go up the escalators, only to turn around and come back down again. The entrance to the lounges is actually behind the escalators. I got a phone call from boadh398 and agree to meet at the entrance to the First lounge.

There was a lovely lady on the desk and after boarding passes were shown I was in and invited to join boadh398 and his companion.

The first thing to say about this lounge is that it is on a completely different scale in terms of size and décor to it’s Heathrow cousin. It’s about the size of one of the seating areas in the T5B Galleries Club lounge which is rather small indeed. The décor is a bit of a mash-up between the old style Terraces concept and the new style Galleries concept. The bar is not a patch on the Champagne bar offered at Heathrow but it did have a nice couple of Tattinger offerings available.


We spent the next few hours chatting away, not always about Flyertalk as we do have lives outside of that! We were joined by CCayley who decided to try out the red wine for us. I stuck to the Rose Champagne.

I was a bit disappointed to find that there was very little available to eat. The menu only had a couple of low brow options after 5pm such as a soup, a bacon roll (isn’t that a breakfast item) and macaroni cheese. Not fancying the roll or the soup I went with the macaroni cheese. Actually, it turned out to be rather nice. I do think that there should be a better food offering in this lounge though.

As we drank we did keep an eye on the departure board and were pleased to see our depature time come forward a bit to around 8.40pm which meant only an hour delay.



London Gatwick to Jersey – British Airways Club Europe

Flight: BA2778
Carrier: British Airways (BA)
Aircraft: Airbus A319 – G-DBCJ (ex. BMI)
Scheduled Departure Time: 19:40
Scheduled Duration: 1h 0m
Scheduled Arrival Time: 20:40
Travel Class: Club Europe
Seat: 2A (seat map)


At about 8pm we decided to head to the gate which was a reasonable walk from the lounge. It would seem that all of the domestic flights leave from the ‘55’ gates. We were leaving from 55d. As we arrived our boarding passes were checked and then we waited on the air bridge to board. It seems that we were actually some of the last passengers to board and in fact the last in Club Europe where we were all seated.

I was a little annoyed to find that there was absolutely zero overhead locker space available for my carry-on bag. The crew member who was working in the economy section was near my seat and gave me a look of ‘what do you expect me to do about it?’ which I wasn’t too happy with. The purser soon came along a told the chap to take the bag down the back. She promised me that it would be bought up prior to landing so that I wouldn’t have to wait for it.

Soon we started our taxi out to the runway, past a fleet of Easyjet aircraft and a lone A380 from Emirates.




The Captain informed us of a very short 40 minute flight time and then the safety demonstration took place. This was done manually as there were no screens on this aircraft.

Take off was quick and we were soon banking around to the left to head south. We actually arced back on ourselves and fly parallel to the runway before heading out over the coast.

Almost as soon as we took off the crew launched into action to deliver a full CE service which consisted of a light meal (and warm bread) with drinks. Luckily there were only four rows of CE on this flight so the task was manageable. Unfortunately, I’d made the frequent flyer faux pas of drinking too much in the lounge and not visiting the facilities before boarding. I was busting but couldn’t get to the toilet as the trolley was in the aisle before the seat belt sign was off. Once I was able to get up the passenger in the aisle seat and the purser had to negotiate their way out so that I could reach the loo. Oops.

Back at my seat and I started tucking in to the light meal of cold chicken salad. Personally, I didn’t mind it. It was quite cold and dry but the salad itself was nice and the olives were great. I absolutely loved the dessert pot too. Other members of FT that had the same dish weren’t impressed. I had about 5 minutes to get through my wine which meant that I managed about half of it.


Seemingly no sooner had we taken off we were starting our descent. The purser collected up the trays and I watched out the window as we banked around to line up with the runway at JER. This would have to be my shortest business class flight ever. I’ve done a shorter ‘full service’ flight previously, which was about 30 minutes, Sydney to Canberra.

Jersey airport is on a hill which is a little unusual to observe on the approach. All of a sudden the grass out of the window becomes alarmingly close to the underside of the aircraft. The airport also seems to be rather close to a church, so much so that it has a little red warning light on top of it which I found quite amusing.

The landing was quite rough and we were on stand very shortly afterwards. There are no air bridges at JER so this meant that we got to walk down onto the apron. Unlike in Australia, the ground staff seemed to have no issues with me taking a couple of photos on my phone.




I was surprised to learn that from a mobile phone point of view Jersey seems to count as ‘Europe’. Heaven forbid that the mobile companies would miss an opportunity to screw their customers for extra charges. I had to pay for a data bolt on in order to access data services in Jersey and I assume that I’m going to get a bill for roaming charges next month too.

As we disembarked we entered the terminal, passed the baggage belt (we were all HBO hand baggage only). Curiously though we had to go through customs. Three of us were staying at the Radisson so we agreed to share a taxi whereas CCayley was at another hotel. A short ride later and we were checking into our rooms.



Up Next

A lovely breakfast by the marina and 10 hours of merriment as I meet the largest number of FTers that I’ve seen in one room.

Calchas Jul 30, 2014 2:57 am
Interesting report! I'm excited to read the rest of it.

Only one problem ...

Originally Posted by matthandy (Post 23280078)
Although Jersey is part of the UK from a mobile phone point of view it seems to count as ‘Europe’.
This change in the island's constitutional status might upset some of the residents. :D

corporate-wage-slave Jul 30, 2014 3:16 am
Originally Posted by Calchas (Post 23280158)
This change in the island's constitutional status might upset some of the residents. :D
Indeed, and they are EU Protocol territories (in the customs union and freedom of goods, but not freedom of people, services, capital (in theory) or VAT) so arguably not European either. I got a "Welcome to Guernsey" text on my mobile, but I gather that's not unusual.

T8191 Jul 30, 2014 3:25 am
Originally Posted by Calchas (Post 23280158)
Interesting report! I'm excited to read the rest of it.

Only one problem ...

This change in the island's constitutional status might upset some of the residents. :D
Well .... from a mobile phone point of view, possibly yes. And our fixed lines are also part of the UK network. But if you go to the East of the Island, you are quite likely to hook up to France Telecom ... which can cause some expensive 'local' calls if you don't notice ;)

The Channel Islands are part of the British Isles, but not part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They are Crown Dependencies. But then you all knew that! And, as C-W-S alluded above, we're not in the EU either - which is nice!

Anyway, a round of applause for matthandy :D

Polomarc Jul 30, 2014 3:37 am
Originally Posted by Calchas (Post 23280158)
Interesting report! I'm excited to read the rest of it.
+1
Great read.

OT, curious is it 5 or 6 of glasses to one bottle of Tattinger? :)

BA5E Jul 30, 2014 4:38 am
Enjoying the TR so far, looking forward to the next episode, did though follow all the great banter going on with the BAEC thread of the DO.:D

KARFA Jul 30, 2014 5:47 am
Nice TR matthandy. I am enjoying it so far, and the photos are good too. We had teh same chicken salad on the party plane on Saturday and I found it very tasty.

matthandy Jul 30, 2014 7:34 am
Oops. I appear to have created an international incident! Remind me not work for the UN.

T8191 and all Jersey residents, please accept my sincere, humble and gracious apology. I have amended the report to correct the proper status of Jersey.

It shows my naivety and if I am honest, I still don’t understand. Perhaps someone would be so kind as to explain it to me?

T8191 Jul 30, 2014 8:00 am
Originally Posted by matthandy (Post 23281007)
Oops. I appear to have created an international incident! Remind me not work for the UN.

T8191 and all Jersey residents, please accept my sincere, humble and gracious apology. I have amended the report to correct the proper status of Jersey.

It shows my naivety and if I am honest, I still don’t understand. Perhaps someone would be so kind as to explain it to me?
Stay for a week and you might get half-way there. I've been here for 9 years, vaguely comprehend some of it and still glaze over at other aspects. On the surface it seems reasonably normal to a Brit - it's when you get below that layer that you discover "The Jersey Way" of doing things.

Like this email that's just come in ...
Changes to the closure of JerseyMail
Thursday 30 July 2014
Dear JerseyMail user
Following recent emails regarding JerseyMail, Jersey Post would like to take this opportunity to advise you that there have been developments regarding the discontinuation of this service.
A small number of customers have expressed a strong desire to retain the jerseymail.co.uk email address, and as such, we are pleased to announce that customers now have the option to do so.
Whilst the current JerseyMail service will still cease to be offered by Jersey Post on 18 August 2014, from this date, JerseyMail users will now be able to retain their email address by opting to use it with a new service provided by local computer services provider MyMail.je. This new service will be chargeable but with prices starting from £1 a week, users will benefit from enhanced anti-SPAM protection, a larger mailbox and synchronisation between devices.
If you have already taken action by registering for the mail forwarding service, this will be cancelled automatically if you would like to now register for the new email service and keep your JerseyMail email address.
This additional option means that JerseyMail users can now choose from the following three choices:
1. Close your JerseyMail account - click here
2. Register for mail forwarding for one year - click here
3. Sign up for the new service and keep your email address - click here
If you have yet to take any action regarding the discontinuation of the JerseyMail service, please ensure that you select one of the options above before 18 August 2014.
Should you have any questions regarding this announcement, a set of customer Questions and Answers is available by clicking here. Alternatively, you can email us at [email protected].
Kind regards
JerseyMail Customer Service
So the small number of whining JerseyMail customers require everyone else to start again. :td:

[/rant] :D

themapelligroup Jul 30, 2014 9:54 am
I attended my first DO earlier this march in London and it was simply superb: food, venue, people... Unfortunately I couldn't make this one because I'm in another part of the world but I hope I will be able to participate in those coming in the future.
Thanks for your trip report matthandy, at least I will know what I missed.

T8191 Jul 30, 2014 9:59 am
Originally Posted by themapelligroup (Post 23281844)
Thanks for your trip report matthandy, at least I will know what I missed.
The best is yet to come ... Eventually ;)

I repeat my gratitude to matthandy for taking responsibility for the TR ... Some of you will know I don't do responsibility very well. :D

Yahillwe Jul 30, 2014 3:11 pm
Ok call me whatever you want BUT for the life of me I can't fine #2 and 3 AND my post about Uncle T not aging even thought he lost weight (because of his missing tooth :D, lov ya Uncle T) oxox

onobond Jul 30, 2014 11:15 pm
Originally Posted by Polomarc (Post 23280251)
+1
Great read.

OT, curious is it 5 or 6 of glasses to one bottle of Tattinger? :)
Agree on first point.

But it's 3 glasses of bubbly out of a bottle, ain't it?
:D

matthandy Jul 31, 2014 12:26 am
Originally Posted by Yahillwe (Post 23283711)
Ok call me whatever you want BUT for the life of me I can't fine #2 and 3 AND my post about Uncle T not aging even thought he lost weight (because of his missing tooth :D, lov ya Uncle T) oxox
I'm not sure what you mean Yahillwe?

If you are attempting to match faces with usernames I'd ask that you refrain from doing this as it is against the Flyertalk rules:

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#privacy

Respect the privacy of other members and non-members. Do not post private information of others. Do not post the names or contact information of travel company and program employees unless they hold executive management status (e.g. presidents, vice-presidents, managing directors).
I have agreement to post photos from the DO on the basis that no individual be identified by myself or other members, unless the member in the photo chooses to do so.

Thanks for your understanding.

Yahillwe Jul 31, 2014 12:44 am
Originally Posted by matthandy (Post 23285928)
I'm not sure what you mean Yahillwe?

If you are attempting to match faces with usernames I'd ask that you refrain from doing this as it is against the Flyertalk rules:

http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#privacy



I have agreement to post photos from the DO on the basis that no individual be identified by myself or other members, unless the member in the photo chooses to do so.

Thanks for your understanding.
I thought that I read somewhere that you published parts 2 and 3, but I couldn't find them. As for faces to names, I didn't need to since Uncle T already mentioned where he was in the pic and besides I know Uncle T and respect his privacy I wouldn't do such a thing without him saying something first. As for the others I know lots who went on the trip and don't need to match faces to names.


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