Boarding has commenced nice and early and people are streaming on board. G-EUPN this afternoon which I was last on board 10 months ago for NCL-LHR.

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I’m on my usual 1B perch avoiding the boarding battering as always.

Boarding complete in good time and it is looking like an on time departure and, potentially an early arrival!

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Menus have been distributed, doors are closed, Next Stop: Newcastle in around an hours time

You haven't been to MXP this morning. This look like nothing. Just like walking through. The line up in MXP was crazy. For the automatic gates I had to wait 45 min to get through. For the regulat passport line it was even worse. I think there you would have to wait more than an hour. It looked like some Asian flights arrived before mine.

Finnally, you took your first selfie and prestent it here. 😁😁 No, I'm just kidding

After a good fifteen minutes of taxiing we finally joined the queue for take off. Another ten minutes of slowly shuffling along and it was finally time for us to escape this great metropolis, and we were off the ground at 15:32.

The crew were a bit slow out of the blocks serving the afternoon tea and so by the time they were clearing trays and glasses we were well into our descent and 10 minutes to landing.

The standard afternoon tea sandwich offering, no scone through my choice.

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As the team were hustling to bring in the last of the glasses the plane gave a fairly decent bump and buck which elicited a ‘yahoo!’ from the crew member as she was passing me, that made me chuckle.

It continued to be an interesting landing all the way down but no problems gettting us on the ground and now taxiing to the gate

And that brings this little weekend distraction to an end in the same fashion as they all end, with my penning this final update in an uber on the way home.

Once we were at the gate and the seatbelt light was off a BA captain who was in 1F returning home after an LA trip was out of his seat like a shot and front of the queue for disembarking. When the flight deck opened and our pilot came out he noticed his college and said “got it in one” so obviously he’d had a fun time getting it on the ground.

I should be home at around 5pm and then have a whole 22 hours at home before I need to head back to the airport for “To Bucharest by SkyTeam - Again” :D. That will be a little different to last week, I’ve mixed in some AF and a return to BHX.

See you then.

I tried to sneak that in but you spotted me :D :D

Another great report, thank you - whetted my appetite for a trip to Lisbon after a gap of nearly 20 years.

And good to see you in your rightful place at top of the charts ;)


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Crikey, it must be a slow day on FT :D

Shocking he'd think you'd not coordinate the red top and red orange skirt better, they'd ban you from the CCR for a clash like that. Excellent report, as always.

is that Scrambled Egg ? 😬

Supposedly so :). They were better than they look, however I was given the nod by someone that next time I should ask for Freshly scrambled eggs.

Great report as always! I just love the format. Looking forward to the next OTP next week

No airline has tried to sabotage it's FFP in a while now, apparently :D

We've been here too. And perhaps stayed a little too late in the evening :D

Glad you spared us the rest.

I'd have said welcome home, but I'm guessing you're already halfway to Bucharest, so just greetings from Privium lounge where I'm having my dinner and pretending to be waiting for the train to Antwerp while really waiting for the train to The Hague. (I've decided I'll write the trip up and already started on the plane, will be up in the next days. As an aside just realizing you're on your way to Bucharest by Skyteam... Have I just missed you by leaving the KLM lounge?)

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Guh. Early morning departure and no lounge before that, my second worst nightmare.


If your experience with BA biometrics is anything like my experience with LH biometrics, it's gonna be years until you get to actually try it, if ever.