JapesUK

This weeks trip report is going to be a bit of an oddity. I am travelling to Birmingham for a week of business meetings so there値l be a pretty standard hotel, very little tourism, and many curries over the course of the week. It will also be a one way trip as I値l be starting my next trip from Birmingham Airport on Friday.

Normally I would take the train which, according to google maps, takes under 6 hours. In reality I致e only managed the journey from my house to the office in under 6 hours once when all the start aligned,, the norm is 7-8 hours, and the worst was well over 9 hours during the summer heatwave with reduced track speeds.

Today instead of taking the train I知 going to fly NCL-LHR-DUB-BHX. The cost is minimal thanks to Avios, and the journey time will hopefully be no more than a couple of hours longer than the train would have taken, but far more fun!

It has been about twenty five years since I last flew through Dublin airport and I have never set foot in Birmingham Airport. Also the final Dublin to Birmingham leg is on Air Lingus with whom I have never flown so it値l be a mix of the familiar and the new for me today.

This is also the start of a fairly crazy run of four back to back trips across the next 3 weeks, Birmingham, Sibiu, Guildford, Bucharest where I will see home only once for about 12 hours between the Guildford and Bucharest elements!

And with that brief introduction the taxi is 3 minutes away so it痴 time to get myself ready to jump in the cab and head to NCL airport for the first part of this trip.

JapesUK

Arriving at Newcastle Airport I headed directly to the BA check in desks. BA have 3 Swissport staffed desks in Newcastle, one for Club Europe (CE) , one for Euro Traveller (ET), and one supposedly for Bag Drop but this always coverts to ET and merges into the ET line. This morning the CE checkin line was almost as long as ET so I joined the ET line and pretty quickly bag was dropped and I was off to security.






I’m on two itineraries as I could not route this trip end to end on BA and I need to remember to pickup and re-drop my bag in DUB. Two tickets is a little risky but with a transit of over two hours in DUB hopefully it all goes reasonably smoothly! If there are issues then there is a plethora of options from DUB-BHX so I’m not particularly worried.

Standard security was very busy but fast path security was clear and I was quickly airside.





As I booked my taxi to the airport later than usual I only have a short time before boarding and I didn’t upgrade to Aspire Plus this week. Remembering to claim the 50 Aspire Rewards points for once, I headed inside. The standard Aspire lounge is much busier but equally much larger than the Aspire Plus lounge and the food offering is very similar.









The double broken coffee machines were a nice touch . I have to be honest, it is nowhere near as chill as the Plus lounge and I regret not upgrading… one lives and learns.

Time to enjoy a small English breakfast before heading off to the gate.

JapesUK

Boarding was from Gate 3 once again and todays plane is G-TTNL which felt familiar. A quick check of my BA97 diary shows it is the same plane that took me to London last week.

My seat for today on both BA legs is 1D and so with hand baggage quickly stowed I知 buckled up and ready to go.



No trays fitted to the middle seat

A few minutes to enjoy the music and watch everyone else boarding and then hopefully we値l be off.

Next stop, London Heathrow Terminal 5.

JapesUK

Boarding was complete quickly and we had a five minute wait before pushing back. Not long after we were in the air.

Todays crew were all bedecked in the new uniforms and looked very smart. The ladies uniform looks retro to me, almost 50痴, it痴 a good look.

Continuing my safari of all the special meals I壇 preordered the Hindu breakfast




This smelled really good and had a decent amount of spice and heat to it.

In flight service was efficient, drinks were served one by one from the galley and with 5 rows of CE there was plenty of time for a refill.

An excellent crew and a straightforward flight, and we are on the ground in LRH pretty much on time.

Next stop, the first class lounge.

Note to self: book more window seats, the sunrise was spectacular.

JapesUK

Off the plane and quickly into departures where I met with a few distractions!

First up was the promo stand for the new Jack Daniels Malt Whisky which is very potable and retailing around the ｣90 mark




I have already picked up a bottle of this last week but stopped off for a little sampling and a chat with the very personable marketing chap. He tells me that the new Malt is being very well received and I’m not surprised.

Less than 100 paces later I met with another distraction, the new Johnnie Walker blue(ish) xordinaire




This is a bit dangerous to me being effectively JW Blue finished in XO brandy barrels. I was told that this is only at 3 outlets, London, Dubai, and Singapore.




Again very drinkable, smoother than JW Blue, but….a ｣350 price tag puts this into premium league. Chatting to the marketing guy he was telling me that this price tag is the issue for most people that have tried the xordinaire and to be honest I will struggle to justify paying that, it simply was not THAT good.

Third distraction was Fortnum and Masons, more on that detour later, and its up the escalator to the south lounges.

JapesUK

This is the first time in the T5 first lounge since I’ve been doing these trip reports so a little photo montage for anyone that doesn’t spent their time in the BA forum. Worth noting that in reality this is actually the Gold Card lounge for T5, anyone travelling in First has access to the Concorde Lounge.

JapesUK

And with that it’s time to settle in for a little bit and watch the planes go by. I’ve roughly an hour to burn before I need to head off to the gate and in a twisted kind of way I’m hoping for the C gates for a good wander through the tunnels.

JapesUK

The lounge has been on point today. There have been some rumblings in the foums about the standards in the lounge but today, at least in the bit I was sitting, the staff have been brilliant. Everything has been kept constantly stocked, tables have been cleared quickly, and the guys still had time for a little banter.

Gate has been announced, so time to wander indirectly to A18

JapesUK

The flight was buttoned up on time and we are on the way to Dublin on BA834

Because of the issues with the ventilation in, and subsequent closure of the Heathrow T4 airfield tunnel a lot of short haul flights have had the onboard catering cancelled. I received an email late yesterday letting me know that this flight to Dublin is one of the unlucky ones.

From the ashes of Do & Co catering supply rises the Phoenix of the Fortnum and Mason hamperling! I saw these advertised outside of F&M a couple of trips back and this is the absolutely perfect excuse to give them a try.






The smoked salmon was very good and the lemon posset desert was gorgeous, I could have eaten it again, and again!

The crew were ok on this flight, albeit very slow to serve given they had only the bar and a basket of snacks to hand out to the five rows in club.

No sooner had I finished the hamper than we were on our descent and heading to Dublin

Next stop, Dublin Airport

JapesUK

Dublin airport… hmmm, what can I say? A complete shambles would be treating them gently for this visit. With over 2 hours transit I thought I had loads of time, how wrong was I!




We landed pretty much on time and followed the maze of corridors to passport control. A member of staff was herding everyone to the Tensa barrier maze whilst to the right were completely empty egates. I peeled off towards the egates and the Tensa shepherd called out to me wanting me to join his flock! I gave him a hearty shout of ‘egate!’ And a wave of my passport and was through in seconds.

success, I hear you shout, ahead of the heaving masses… but alas, baggage handling had other plans. It took over 50 minutes for all the baggage to arrive and, of course, my bag was absolutely last. Oh well, I still have an hour…

And then…. The joys of Air Lingus bag drop




With the clock ticking down bag is dropped and its off to departures where security control who were determined to frisk, swab, and examine every part of me and my hand luggage. Fully 20 minutes later I made it to the T2 lounge and I’m very happy to report that I only had 10 minutes in the lounge, it was packed and pretty basic.







And with that it’s off to the bus gate, only to find the flight is delayed by 15 minutes, and then a further 15 minutes







Finally they call rows 1-10 to join the priority queue, which was, of course, signposted ‘general boarding’ . And with that we’re on the bus and heading for the ATR 72-600 that will take us to Birmingham

JapesUK

Boarding is from the back of the ATR72 and so I made my way the length of the plane to seat 1C. This seat was incredible for leg room




The crew of 2 on this 28 row 2-2 plane were top notch. As this is an economy only flight its a paid bar but they served it quickly and with a good amount of banter. Knowing it was paid catering I had picked up a second hamperling and F&M, this time the afternoon tea, which was very, very good.






It was so good that I was half way though the sandwiches before I remembered to take a photo!

we landed 20 minutes late and as there were 27 rows to get off the plane before me I asked if I could stick my nose in the flight deck which the captain granted and I had a couple of minutes chat whilst the rest of the plane cleared. As you might expect, the flight deck is ‘space efficient’

JapesUK

A short walk into baggage reclaim and a 20 minute wait for bags and I’m land side. An uber took a couple of minutes to arrive and I’m now writing this from the Birmingham city center Holiday Inn. As this is a business trip I have to meet the company’s hotel policy. Normally I’ll pick a hotel over by the NEC but this week the prices were ludicrously high and the Holiday Inn is central and close to New Street station. It’s a bit tired and in need of a refurb but it’ll do as a place to rest my head for the next 5 days















And with that I’ve caught up to date and have a few minutes to finish my free beer (thank you, IHG Platinum) and then head off to tonight’s restaurant

JapesUK

As the rest of the week is almost certainly going to be back to back curries I thought that tonight I have something a little different.






Turtle bay restaurant is no more than a couple of minutes walk from the hotel and is highly rated online so we値l see. The menu certainly looks good





And a nice little selection of table sauce

JapesUK

After consultation with my server I致e gone with her recommendations of Rum BBQ wings as a starter, a little off piste with the Goat Curry Hash and a side of Dumplings, and back to my servers recommendations with a 2-4-1 Passion Rum Punch which I suspect packs a lot more punch than it seems!

JapesUK

The starter has been and gone and to be completely honest I inhaled them in an unseemly short time, they were delicious. The wings had been breaded and deep fried but what is difficult to see in the photo is that they are sitting in a lake of spicy BBQ sauce that brings a real zing to the wing

If the main course is remotely as good as the starter I will be a happy man.