Just some photos from Heathrow T5 today, it didn’t feel that busy anywhere.
Category: Hounslow (Borough of)
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Heathrow – Flying Chariot
This was one of the few times that I’ve ever visited Heathrow T2, and I still haven’t flown from that terminal, my experiences being limited to the Oneworld airlines who are at T3 and T5. The Flying Chariot is the JD Wetherspoons that is located landside and it takes its name from John Wilkins, who was a vicar at Cranford Parish Church, who predicted in 1638 that it was possible “to make a flying chariot, in which a man may sit, and give such motion unto it, as shall convey him through the air”.
Anyway, this was one of JD Wetherspoon’s more exotic meals that they attempted, their Thai green chicken curry with rice on a bamboo leaf arrangement, which was perfectly acceptable. I assume that their efforts at presentation didn’t help sell the dish, since it didn’t seem to spend much time on the menu. It’s quite a large Wetherspoons over two floors, with the usual airport prices for their food and drink. Since my visit was back in 2015, my memory of the experience has suitably faded, although I do remember that the service was all friendly and professional.
My favourite response to a TripAdvisor review was:
“We were told by the staff that they would call security because my boyfriend was resting his head on the table! The pub is on the airport for god sake and we woke up 3am to catch our flight so yes we were tired an 7am. I felt so humiliated. I won’t be visiting any Wetherspoon again.”
I like it when some facts are allowed into the debate to shed some light on the original review….
“We remember your visit and based on my discussions with the team, and CCTV footage, I’d like to take this opportunity to clarify events. I can see that you arrived at 06:37. By 06:39, your boyfriend had removed his shoes and was lying on the sofa. It took 20 minutes before you were approached by a member of staff, who tried to explain that sleeping/feet on the furniture was not permitted.
At 07:24, a Team Leader approached you, as your boyfriend now had his head on the table for 5 minutes or so and to all intents and purposes, appeared to be sleeping. When she was told that your boyfriend didn’t feel well, she offered to call security (something we do regularly, for people who are feeling under the weather), as they can be quicker to attend than paramedics and are able to take control of any situations. I apologise for any embarrassment or distress this may have caused you both, but unfortunately we cannot allow people to sleep within the premises, as we are an operator who pays rent to the airport, in order to provide food and drink to passengers. This is a policy within all JDW pubs, and does not change at the airport. Also, at the time of your visit there were people sat on both tables adjacent to yours, and it can make people uncomfortable to be in this situation.”
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British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Chengdu)
The current Coronavirus means that I can’t write about any recent flights on British Airways, so here’s one from six years ago. As a rider at this stage, I wasn’t intending to post these photos when I took them, so they’re not really a very complete set covering the aircraft’s exterior or interior. But, I took a photo of all the food, which is something I rarely neglect my obligations towards….
Back in 2014, British Airways decided that China was their future and they started a flight to Chengdu as their third destination in the country, as they already flew to Shanghai and Beijing (as well as Hong Kong). There was a documentary at the time where BA management, including their boss then Willie Walsh, said how important China was to them, although their enthusiasm waned and Chengdu was dropped a few years later, in early 2017. This flight was in Club World, or business class, with the aircraft being the Boeing Dreamliner.
The screen for the IFE.
The foldable foot rest, which then joined together with the main part of the seat to form a bed. BA have recently announced a new Club Suite, which looks amazing, so the days of having to step over someone else will soon be firmly in the past.
The menu.
The watermelon, feta and cucumber salad.
The Szechuan braised pork with bean curd, an appropriate dish as this was the area of China that we were flying to.
The summer berry cheesecake with mascarpone cream.
The breakfast menu.
Fresh fruit and the mango fruit smoothie. The smoothies on BA are world class and I always tried to get refills if they had enough.
The continental breakfast option.
I took these items from the Club Kitchen on board to nibble on between meals.
I can’t remember much about these meals, primarily because I ate them six years ago, but I was rarely disappointed with BA’s food. I also know that I got my first choice for all meals on this flight, which is always a bonus. Unfortunately, I didn’t note the registration number of the aircraft or much else.
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British Airways Lounges – Crisp Selection
As evidence that I need to get out more, I was overly excited to see that British Airways have replaced Kettle chips with Tyrrell’s crisps in the lounges. Not that there’s anything wrong with Kettle chips, but a change is as good as a rest or whatever the phrase is. Hopefully they’ll change the flavours about a bit and won’t try and stock the vegetable crisps that Tyrrell’s make….
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Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow
This is what I think is my seventh visit to this hotel, and also the third time that I’ve posted about it. I might need to switch to a different Accor hotel for future visits to give me something else to write and moan about….
No welcome gift, which is mildly irritating since I’m trying to compile a list and it’s constantly this hotel that fails to deliver one. It’s not important at all in the scale of things, although Accor themselves said that customers should rate the hotel down on review sites for this, which is probably not what the hotel franchise holder wants to hear. On more important matters, the room was spotlessly clean and was well provisioned, so no complaints there.
For the second time this year, the hotel didn’t offer me a drinks vouchers. I had to query it, at which point the staff member discovered that it should have been given out.
Service at the bar was polite, but the staff were serving customers out of turn. Since I wasn’t buying anything, just getting a free drink, I’m happy for them to serve their paying customers first, but the staff didn’t know at that point that I wasn’t buying anything…. The drink is again under-measured and the staff member slid it across the bar at me. That requires some confidence, as if a staff member gets it wrong then the drink will go crashing into a customer.
The free drink is though generous, it’s any drink other than champagne, so I went with the reliable if unexciting London Pride. What more interested me though is that another customer asked if they had any craft beer. This was a very good question, and one I haven’t bothered to ask as I knew the answer. The hotel doesn’t have any incidentally, although it really should….
The hotel doesn’t have any information in the room about, well, the hotel. So I had to go and take a photo of the breakfast sign I had noticed by the lift to get the times. I’m not sure why the hotel can’t provide this information in the room on an information sheet that nearly every other Ibis does. Anyway, the room was quiet and I didn’t experience any issues with noise either internally or externally. The wi-fi was also fast, efficient and easy to connect to.
I hadn’t noticed this book corner in the hotel before, looks good.
Well it looked good until I saw what they had done with this book. Grrrrr….
I went down for breakfast at 06:29, a precise time as they were serving the hot food from 06:30. I had a yoghurt and fruit selection whilst waiting and the hot food was brought out pretty much exactly on time at 06:35 or thereabouts.
The hot options are fine, although the sausages are of an unexceptional quality. The bacon was what I’d consider part-cooked as the bacon wasn’t rendered enough for me so I was left cutting bits of fat off. But, I’m irritating like that, I’m sure most customers were entirely content with the bacon. I don’t usually eat scrambled eggs, but another customer asked for fried eggs and a polite member of staff said that the kitchen couldn’t offer those.
These pastries really aren’t great, although I still suspect that they’re sourced from a central supplier agreed by Accor, so it’s hard to blame the hotel. I don’t know, but I wouldn’t be surprised if these are from Brakes. The staff were all efficient at the breakfast area including one who was using customer’s first names, which is unusual, but adds a bit of personality to the event.
Overall, the hotel came in at just over £30 as part of the Black Friday offer from Accor, so given that includes breakfast is a very reasonable price. There’s some tidying up needed on how they deal with the ALL (Accor’s new loyalty scheme) as they’re well behind most other Ibis hotels, but their reception staff are helpful and efficient. The bar staff, as I’ve noticed on my previous visits, verge between helpful and hopeless, but there we go. Still recommended, although I saw people using the Hoppa service again when they could have just got on any TFL bus free of charge to the airport….
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Flights – Heathrow T5 to Bucharest (British Airways)
My flight today was the 10:05 BA886 service operating from London Heathrow T5 to Bucharest in Romania. I haven’t been to Bucharest before, although I’ve been to Romania when I visited Oradea a couple of years ago. The aircraft being used today was G-TTNC, an Airbus A320 which was acquired new by British Airways in June 2018. The aircraft had come from Toulouse this morning and after it had returned from Bucharest, it then flew to Brussels.
The boarding process was well managed and the boarding by group was enforced. One of the staff was quite forthright in dealing with customers who tried to board before they were meant to, but if there’s going to be a policy on things like this, it may as well be enforced. I was surprised how many customers tried to ignore the instructions that the staff members were making and although some might have been lost in translation, there were a few customers with headphones who seemed just a little oblivious to everything going on around them and they just wanted to board.
I had an emergency exit row seat, so there was plenty of space, and no-one was seated next to me either. I felt sorry for the crew, playing Jenga with bags to try and fit them all in the overheads. They had to put some bags in storage elsewhere on the aircraft and so they were perhaps fortunate that there were twenty or so seats which were unused. As I’ve posted about before, the amount of bags that are brought on board is going to have to be reduced at some point.
The emergency exit row.
This is the first short-haul BA aircraft that I’ve been on which has wi-fi availability. I can cope, well – just about, without Internet for a couple of hours, so I wasn’t tempted, but it’s a useful service.
For those who do want to use it, the wi-fi service costs £2.99 per flight, which seems reasonable enough.
The descent was quite bumpy, with one customer walking down the aisles stumbling somewhat, but the crew were on hand. The crew were always pro-active and helpful, offering a really friendly service which always felt efficient but unhurried. The flight arrived in around ten minutes before its scheduled time and the pilots offered useful and timely announcements. The flight wasn’t the cheapest at £66 return and it would have likely been cheaper with a budget airline, but the cost wasn’t unreasonable and I felt that £33 for each journey was entirely acceptable.
Incidentally, the border process at Bucharest Airport was efficient, although the staff took quite some time with every incoming individual and so I’m not sure what they were checking. There were lots of signs about the coronavirus as well, with a fair few passengers wearing face masks. Anyway, what I was going to mention was just as I was being called forwards, a customer came from the back of the queue to ask the member of border staff to hurry up. He was ushered away by another staff member in what was a polite manner, but I have to say that any customer who is rude to border or customs staff is taking a huge risk….. I suspect that his request for a swift route through the border wasn’t granted.
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Heathrow T5 – British Airways B Gates Lounge
I’ve written about this lounge before in more detail here, but there have been a few new food developments….
I haven’t seen this before, and although I’m not sure garlic is an ideal ingredient before customers board an aircraft, I very much like black pepper chicken.
It was absolutely delicious, the chicken was tender and there was a peppery taste to the sauce.
I’ve seen this before, but only recently, which is the carrot cake. Very nice…. Moist and flavourful….
But, my favourite addition to the lounge food are the pork pies with piccalilli. I don’t like pork pies with lots of jelly, so these meet my requirements in terms of their overall taste and their lack of jelly.
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Flights – Heathrow T5 to Warsaw (British Airways)
This was the clearest photo that I could get of today’s BA850 service from London Heathrow T5 to Warsaw Chopin Airport in Poland. The aircraft was G-EUPH, an Airbus A319, which British Airways have owned since April 2000 when it was new. These A319 aircraft are gradually being withdrawn from service, but they’ve served the airline well.
As I was at B Gates lounge I asked the staff member if she could see where the flight was departing from before it was announced, to save me walking back if the departure was at B Gates. It was at Gate A23 in the main terminal and I was the first to arrive there, primarily since the gate number hadn’t otherwise been announced.
And here’s the packed waiting area, although it soon got much busier. The staff were pro-active in trying to get customers with two bags to put one of them in the hold, as the flight was nearly full. Some people refused and so a different staff member, who was more forthright to say the least, went round and politely told customers that it wasn’t really an option. The amount of bags that customers are taking on board is becoming ridiculous, something will need to be done at some stage about them.
The boarding process was otherwise orderly and well managed, with groups called forwards carefully and customers were despatched back to the seating area if they tried to jump the queue. I like organisation.
I had an exit row aisle seat and there was no-one next to me, so it was a comfortable flight in terms of the space available.
We were delayed on take-off, partly as the inbound flight had been a few minutes late, but primarily as the crew had problems trying to fit all the bags on. Some customers, mostly those who were trying to bring on a bag the size of a small hippo couldn’t find anywhere to store them. At one stage there were eight customers standing in the aisle of the aircraft with bags not fitting in anywhere, but the crew did their usual jenga tactics of moving and restacking bags, with another going into storage elsewhere.
The flight eventually arrived into Warsaw twenty minutes late, so no real problem, with the crew members being conscientious with their announcements and updates. There was a buy on board service which went up and down the cabin, but I saw only a few customers buy anything from it. The fare was £55 return plus 2,500 Avios, although I get 1,350 Avios back with this flight.
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Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow
I’ve stayed at this Ibis hotel near the airport a few times and written about it before. It’s a short free bus journey away if using TFL buses and there’s car parking available for those who insist on driving everywhere.
This is one of the Accor hotels which persists in this habit of welcoming customers from the customer side of the reception desk. I don’t much like the practice, they’re often leaving screens open with names of other guests, and I’m pleased more Accor hotels are ditching this policy.
The check-in process was relatively quick, but they missed my free drink voucher, although it was provided quickly enough when I very politely hinted about it.
I’ve only once been given a welcome amenity by this hotel, and Accor themselves have told me to mark this hotel down for failing to do so every time. That seems a little harsh, but consistency is probably in the hotel’s own interests. The room was clean and well presented though, with a most lovely view of the car park. Everything was well stocked and worked properly, with the wi-fi being fine, albeit with a couple of drop-outs. They still have the anti-theft devices on their towels that I mentioned last time.
The room this time didn’t have an information card about breakfast times, contact details and the like, but it now has a menu instead.
The hotel is asking guests to pay £1 per bag they want stored during the day, which is donated to charity. I’ve never stored bags here, but I’m not convinced that charging for a service that guests would expect for free is an ideal solution here. I thought Accor hotels were meant to organise separate events to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust rather than this, but it is a marvellous charity to raise money for.
This was provided after I queried where it was….
The bar area, with two members of staff, one of whom was competent and welcoming, the other was, well, not. Bar work really isn’t an ideal role for those with misanthropic tendencies.
The London Pride was off, just for a short while, so I went for the Goose Session IPA as I haven’t had it before. Slightly generic, but it’s an interesting additional option for the hotel to offer as nearly every customer I noticed order beer went for the Stella option….
And served in a branded glass and at the appropriate temperature.
The breakfast buffet arrangements, with the food placed on two large tables in the centre of the restaurant area. There were plenty of seating available and the manager was making continual efforts to keep everything clean and tidy. There didn’t seem many customers going for the breakfast option, but it starts early and runs late to cater for those with strange flight times, so perhaps it’s rarely overly busy.
The croissants were particularly nice, although the muffins were the usual bland Ibis affair which the company must provide. The sausages were delicious and flavoursome, with the bacon either served slightly firm (my favourite) or with raw fat on it (my least favourite) which required some dexterity to get the piece I wanted. The ham lacked some colour and seemed quite grey, as if it had been out for a little while, but everything seemed organised and well presented.
I had a look at TripAdvisor to amuse myself and the hotel was left this ridiculous review.
“When I arrived at just gone 11am, which I have done on MANY occasions, I was expecting maybe a short wait to get into my room as 11 is a little early, what I wasn’t expecting was to be told the hotel was fully booked the night before & I would have to wait until TWO pm to check in UNLESS I paid an extra £20.00 & then low & behold a room would miraculously appear clean & ready for me.”
I’m often one of those people who checks in early, but 11:00 is very early for a check-in…. £20 for early check-in seems reasonable to me, although it’s free for most under the loyalty scheme anyway.
“You either have NO rooms available full stop because the hotel is booked OR you put your prices up on your website & on booking.com to reflect how much you are ACTUALLY going to charge people to get into their room at a reasonable time.”
14:00 seems reasonable to me…. They definitely had a room, ready and waiting for those who wanted to pay…. This is the problems that hotels face, they try and help customers by giving them something they’re not entitled to, such as an early check-in, only for the customer to throw it back at them later on with a 1 star review when they don’t get the same favour.
Overall, I can’t much complain (although I seem to end up doing so on here….) as the room, including breakfast, came to just over £30. For the convenience of Heathrow, this was ideal, plus I’ll get some points back on the new Accor Limitless loyalty scheme.
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Heathrow – Free Travel Zone
I’ve been aware of the free travel zone at Heathrow for some time and it’s a useful way of getting to the airport from Bath Road without having to pay for the Hoppa Bus. I stay relatively frequently at the Ibis Heathrow which is marginally outside of the zone, but it’s only a three-minute walk to the next bus stop that’s within it.
For some reason (probably because I don’t think as much as I should….) I’ve always got the buses to the central bus terminal and then got the underground or Hex to T5 (both free for changing between terminals) from there. But, I realised today that there’s the 423 bus which goes straight to the delights of T5, so there was no need for me to go to the central bus terminal.
It wasn’t the busiest bus that I’ve ever seen, although it picked up a few more passengers en route to T5.
And here’s the free travel zone in its entirety…. For anyone staying on the Bath Road, unless they’re at a strange place along it, getting the TFL bus is a handy saving on the otherwise quite expensive charges of the Hoppa bus.
