DJ Bitterbarn

This is yet another in a long string of trip reports that I've struggled to find the motivation to write. Not because of the report itself, but because actual work keeps getting in the way. But I'm going to keep working on them, because this trip is particularly memorable in a new plane, new airports (in a sense), and entirely new experience in IRROPS. Plus, I've been writing too many papers lately and it feels good to write something in a totally different style. I'll update the report as soon as I can organize the photos for it, but I'd like to get the text up rather than have it sit in my drafts folder forever, like the InterMADventure from May, which you'll hopefully get eventually.

With that, I present to you a short trip to and around BRU, and one more reason why I can justify reading Wikipedia when bored.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Needing a trip in a very bad way, I found myself on Wednesday standing just out of the rain in the bus shelter waiting for the big yellow airport shuttle to ORK. Conveniently, the bus stops about a 3 minute walk from work, allowing me to get an entire morning's worth of designs and meetings in before I was off to meet my girlfriend at the end of her conference in Brugge. I was cutting it close to get to my EI flight to LHR (something I normally avoid in lieu of a better deal and real mileage with BD out of DUB) but what can you do? I had conveniently foregone any checked luggage and had my boarding pass printed and ready to go, so all that was left was to jump from the bus to security and on to the plane.

Luckily for me, early afternoon on a Wednesday is a prime time to try and get a flight at ORK, as it seems 90% of the traffic out of here is either charter operators to Lanzarote and Malaga or FR to Stansted. Conversely, do not try to fly out late on a weekend. But at 1:30 on a Wednesday the lines are virtually nonexistant and I made it from the bus to the gate in record time. I even had time to pick up an overpriced croissant at the bar. Oh, *G benefits, how I miss you in ORK, although I guess they're offset by how easy it is to start a trip here.

Wed, 02 July 2008
EI714
ORK-LHR
A321
Seat 12A

Soon enough, our flight was called to board and as it wasn't a charter or FR, the lines were short and orderly. In no time, we were out onto the sunny tarmac, passing under the least-used airbridge in the world to get to our plane. I settled down in 12A and after admiring the very odd layout of exit doors, noticed that the bipolar weather that is Irish Summer had decided to go back from sunny to torrential downpour. This was, of course, entirely expected by everyone on board except a particularly vocal American woman who wandered back to her seat complaining furiously about how "we spent how many million dollars on this airport and we still have to walk through the rain?!" to assumably the FAs and anyone who would listen. Would being the operative word here, because everybody could hear it.

Thankfully, the peanut gallery quieted down and through excellent seat allocation and light loads we took off toward LHR with nobody else in my row. So far so good. I avoided the buy-on-board cart yet again and contented myself with reading Cara (yours free to take home, thank you very much) and looking out at the occasional gap in the clouds. In short order, we were approaching LHR from the east side of 9R, with a great view of the Concorde, the ever-parked SAA 340s, and the big green thing. The pilot then hit the brakes a bit abruptly and we pulled off to the taxiway to finally pull up at the big corrugated intestine of T1 next to my favourite BD bird of all time, the A320 painted in the AN-era *A colours.

By now I've probably stressed enough that LHR loves me, but I think this is the first time I've ever been through there without a terminal change, a convenience which only sped up the process. In about 5 minutes I was out of security and checking into my BD flight to BRU at the one free *G checkin kiosk left (note: the machines are the only reliable way I've found of checking in to a BD flight and making sure it shows up on your AC account, every other way seems to meet with epic failure).

Wed, 02 July 2008
BD155
LHR-BRU
A320
Seat 11F

As this was one of the last days before UA and NZ moved over to T1, the checkin area was relatively deserted. Security was equally quiet on a Wednesday afternoon, and I was through the passport check and photo point, discovering to my enjoyment that photos are only required on UK domestic/Irish segments. Security was equally easy, with no lines to speak of, and less than 10 minutes after checking in, I found myself back in T1, but in the side that doesn't resemble an unhealthy metal part of the human anatomy. Seeing as the new *A "Super Lounge" wasn't due to be opened for another two days, I decided to make the trek down to the SAA business lounge, as even though the catering is sub-par I love the atmosphere and semi-African decor, not to mention the wine. It's been my favourite T1 international lounge, so I was disappointed to find out it would be closing its doors forever at the end of the day (I thought it had another day or two to go). In the spirit of documentary, I tried to make the most of it and take as many pictures as possible and drink some very nice wine, despite it getting a touch crowded up front. Thankfully, I had snagged a comfortable seat near the back and the noise from up front wouldn't disturb my delightfully classy wine and potato chips. I did take a magazine home (I'm guilty of having an extensive collection of inflight magazines, I admit) to further torment my girlfriend, who would love nothing more than to visit Africa!

Unfortunately, as all things must pass it was time to head back to my gate and say goodbye to Africa for now. Maybe some day soon we'll get a chance to actually go there, but for now it was time to go to Belgium. I headed back to the main shopping area and decided that since I had a few minutes it might be interesting to check out the BD lounge at the start of the pier. Despite popular reports, it was relatively crowded, but the really nice agent at the desk said she'd be doing calls for the flight, giving me time for an espresso (unfortunately poor coffee in the SAA lounge) and a quick confirmation that I knew where to go in Brugge. Unfortunately it also meant that I could track down what gate my flight was leaving from..... discovering it would be from the exact end of the pier I had just left, requiring yet another wait at the swing gates.

It was soon apparent the flight would be slightly delayed, so I waited a while before making my way back to the far end of the pier and boarding a suspiciously large A320. I was under the impression we'd be on an ERJ, but the large number of men in suits suggested there was enough government business for one big flight a day. Thankfully, these men in suits knew how to fly and in short order we were packed in (thank you *G seat blocking) and off to 9L, racing LH and EI planes for position. Of course, we lost the race and had to wait around for a while longer, but eventually we were skyward. Due to my diet of potato chips, peanuts, and wine, I broke my "no buy on board" rule and picked up a disappointingly bland roasted chicken sandwich, further reenforcing my "no buy on board" rule. I did, however, manage to get £10 change from a €20, which I thought might come in handy some other time when I had to actually go into London. Little did I know, it would be more handy than I could imagine (cue an all-to-familiar round of ominious music).

We landed on time and pulled up next to another ERJ painted with now-nonexistent *A partners (bonus!). Thanks to no checked luggage I was through customs and down to the Hertz desk in mere minutes. The sign on the desk suggested that #1 Gold customers should go to the lot directly, and wanting to try out my assumed new Gold status, I first still went to the desk to find out where exactly this mythical lot was. Not the most professional start to my Gold career, but oh well.

At the desk, it took a while to work out exactly how my status worked, as I didn't exactly have a card, but in short order I was standing outside a nice, semi-new Peugeot 207 that I had always wanted to try. And drive it I did, all through the week until Sunday when we parked back up at the Hertz drop-off point and headed into the terminal to check in for our flight back to Heathrow.

Sunday, 06 July 2008
BD153
BRU-LHR

Now the first thing I noticed wasn't the very large mechanical board that displays all the flight check-in kiosks. Normally I would have noticed that first. I like those boards. In this case, what I noticed was the very noticeable "Cancelled" sign next to our flight number. This is not a good sign. So we headed down to the ticketing desk to discover that indeed, our flight was completely cancelled and we had been bumped to the next BD flight at 7:00. Normally this would not be an issue, however due to a number of reasons, we were to connect to a separately-ticketed EI flight back to ORK at 6:25. Problem.

Cue the incredibly-helpful BD ticketing agent who even tried to phone Dublin directly to get them to waive the change fees for our tickets so we could be accommodated. Sadly, EI was unwilling to budge and we found ourselves with a problem: the BA flight to LHR was completely booked with BD pax, and there wasn't any possibility to connect to LHR in time. We had little hope until it occurred that we could possibly take our chances and get to LCY, and then attempt to make it from there to LHR before 17:40 when they closed our checkin. It sounded crazy, but it was either that or standby for a BA flight we might not even get on. So with an ever-growing line of passengers behind us waiting for their turn, we committed ourselves to something completely new. Now all that was left was to head over to the VLM counter and check in for our new flight.

Sunday, 06 July 2008
VG157
BRU-LCY
Seat 12B

We checked in at the VLM desk with the one suitcase and discovered that the beer run we made a few days prior in Brugge was contributing to a luggage weight of 28 kg. Thankfully, VLM had no problems with this sort of luggage weight, something I've taken for granted with *A in the last few years. Unfortunately, EI would have no such sympathy for our love of fine Belgian beer and we realized we were going to have to repack this bag when it came out the other end. This meant an on-the-fly repack on the DLR, Tube, and HEX. Luckily we had the hand luggage space to do this so we let Future Us worry about the problem and headed through passport control for a quick snack that had eluded us since breakfast earlier the day. Then a quick walk through security and up to the virtually-empty BD lounge where an explanation of the situation and our original flight number got us through for a much-needed beer. On the way out the agent had even taken the time to check out our gate for us and let us know exactly where we needed to be! Sooner than later, we were down to the bus gates of Pier B and standing around on the bus waiting impatiently for 5 misplaced passengers. Thankfully they showed up before too long and we were off to the far end of BRU to board the Fokker 50, a plane I've never had the chance to try up until now.

After boarding, we ended up in row 12, at which point I discovered the lack of a decent window at this row. At this point in the trip, though, the idea had started to sink in that I'd have to navigate from a completely new airport based entirely on things I'd read while killing time on Wikipedia and I wasn't really up for planespotting anything that wasn't currently about to fly us to LCY. Before too long the engines were spinning away and we were up in the air. As it was a rather abrupt airline change I had no idea what to expect from VLM. Luckily, they really came through and were it under different circumstances I'd probably have enjoyed it a lot. Candy was passed out before takeoff and shortly afterward, a food run was made although I had to pass on the sandwich, being in not much spirit for solid food. Drinks followed and although the coffee was marginal, it was served in an actual china coffee cup. Excellent! The crew then made another chocolate run before landing and seemed very attentive and professional the entire time. Although I didn't notice earlier, there was no point in the flight where we were offered anything for sale, something exceedingly rare in this age of aviation.

As all good flights need to end, so did this one, and it was time to consider our options as we started to prepare for the mad dash across London. I knew that as a non-EU citizen I had to fill out an immigration card, but past experience with UK immigration officials has been nothing short of shining, so I wasn't too worried as long as I could avoid the queue. I did send my girlfriend ahead for the bag, as she would have no such queuing issues. Thankfully, LCY is very different than my usual arrival at LHR T3 and the queue was almost nonexistant and I was out to the belt to regroup the team. After that, we waited about 3 minutes before our bag arrived and we were off at a run.

There is a reason I never leave home without my Oyster card, despite not living in London, or the UK at all. You never know when you might need to get on the Tube RIGHT NOW. At this point, it was a lifesaver, although my girlfriend wasn't quite so lucky. If only we had change to get a ticket to Paddington! Wait... That sandwich! I had an extra £10 note in my wallet right next to the Oyster! So ticket and card in hand we used the three minute wait for the DLR to plan our trip (next stop Bank Station) and we were off. It was, unfortunately, at this point that I looked at my watch and noticed we almost had time to spare. We could even take the District line as far as it would take us and then decide whether to tube it to LHR or give up and take the HEX. At this point Future Me would have slapped Past Me for making this kind of stupid mistake, but linear time doesn't work like that so we decided to try for District & Circle.

Now the part that random reading of Wikipedia months ago does not tell you is that there's a current large-scale construction project which means changing from the DLR to the District & Circle lines means leaving the station and going outside. So a long walk ensued and after asking some incredibly helpful people where we were, we arrived at the station just to see the District train pull away. Thankfully, the Circle train was 2 minutes later, and we piled on to the realization that taking the tube all the way to LHR would be stupid. So we vowed to ride it out to Paddington, like we should have done directly in the first place (on the red line, whichever that's called), and take the HEX.

After what seemed an eternity on the tube, we arrived at Paddington and fought the crowds to reach the ticket office. From there, it was a quick jump onto the first carriage we could find and in the 7 minutes before the train left and all the way to LHR, we madly repacked everything we could out of luggage to get the weight down below 20 kg. About 5 minutes out, we determined we had repacked enough and I could spend the rest of the ride in extreme stress. I have never actually missed a flight where I wasn't easily reacommodated (although this one time I had to make a lot of Germans angry to do it) so the idea that we were going to have to pay almost €300 to get home was not an attractive one, especially when we were so close to the cutoff. At this point I was really wondering if online checkin wouldn't have helped a bit.

Sunday, 06 July 2008
EI723
LHR-ORK
A321
Seat 3A

When the train stopped, we became ignorant tourists and politely trampled our way out of the train and hit the platform at a run. We ran straight through T1 to the EI checkin desks newly-moved down to zone Timbuktu only to find we had missed the flight closure by 5 minutes. So at this point, it was down to just plain goodwill on the part of the checkin agents. First we explained our situation to the agent at the machines who directed us to the next available desk, where we politely barged in front of another woman and explained the situation to the guy at the desk. He looked at us like we were hopeless VBITs for not showing up in time, but said he'd make a call to see if they could take our luggage. To his surprise (or that's what I gather from the one-sided phone conversation) they would, and we were checked in to the flight, even though our luggage had only made it down to 21.5 kg! We made it!

Then the agent looked at our poster tube (a big plastic tube for carrying posters, exactly what you might be thinking it is) and said "oh, you're going to have to check that."

...

Me: "Excuse me? We just brought this on a Fokker 50, not to mention a lot of EI flights before. I'm pretty sure they'll let us go."
Agent (looking at me like he's talking to a three-year-old): "Those were other airports. This is Heathrow. Things aren't the same here as they are in other airports."
Me (trying very hard not to tear the head off the guy who just saved our trip): "I've taken this tube through Heathrow plenty of times in the last month* and there has never been an issue"
Agent: "Well you can try, but they might not let you. Now your gate is 84. You have to RUN."

* Once through each of T1, T2 and T3, as well as a second time through T1 the previous week by my girlfriend. Interestingly, T3 was by far the nicest, with both my previous experiences with T1 and T2 requiring me to take out the papers inside... for some strange reason.


So we jumped out of the queue and rushed off to security to find a huge queue at the "Achtung: Dangerous Killer Liquids" counter. Thankfully it was only the usual group of people who can never remember if what they packed contained water, so we just pushed past to an empty photo point. Two quick photos later and we were in the security queue where a very nice couple realized our hurry and let us go ahead. Finally, we were back in the mall of T1 where my suspicions were confirmed. That agent lied to us again! Our flight wasn't even boarding yet and we had to run? Please.

By now our progress had slowed to a quick walk as we reached the photo checkpoint and passed through quickly to the old T1 domestic. Down to the Corrugated Metal Colon End of Heathrow we walked before reaching a very busy gate area with no sign of boarding anywhere in sight. But we had made it, so I wasn't about to complain too much. Finally, after another wait where I think we had time to go see the new T1 *A Superlounge (like originally planned) our flight was called for boarding and we continued to sit around while the crowds died down. Eventually, we got on board to find out that LHR was terribly backed up due to weather and we'd have to wait for about half an hour at the pier before moving out to 9R. Thankfully, I could see out to the runway and busied myself watching the takeoffs become more frequent as the weather improved. Finally our turn to move came and in relatively short order our slot came around and we were airborne.

This flight was completely full, and all we were able to get at such a late notice were seats in separate rows, although thankfully at the front, so I spent most of the flight checking pictures from the week and re-reading Cara and a few other magazines I'd picked up on the way. Thankfully on a short flight like this it's all small diversions until we landed about an hour later. Luckily, because our bag was the last to get on the plane, it was one of the first to come off the plane and we walked slowly out to the big yellow bus that started this whole trip.

As a sidenote, I of course had to start thinking about this trip and realized that I could probably do it faster. So a quick check of the TFL and HEX sites confirmed that from boarding the DLR to getting off the HEX at T1 should only take 63 minutes, which means that including the run to the EI desks and the whole immigration thing at LCY, we should be able to do this in about 1:20. Without a 28 kg bag, I'm fairly sure it could be faster. I'll have to try it again some day.... without the panic, of course. As well, I've confirmed that if AerArann would only start flying ORK-LCY, they'd be getting a lot more of my business.