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Tag: British Airways

2022 US Trip – Day 30 (Newark Airport – British Airways Galleries Lounge)
As anyone who knows me and my travel habits knows, I don’t like arriving late for anything. I don’t even like arriving slightly early, I’m always far too early. But then again, I don’t miss anything so there’s a win there I think. Unlike my friend Liam who seems to consider arriving at an airport two hours before the flight acceptable, I’m very risk averse. The reason I’m mentioning this is that I actually arrived at the BA lounge two hours before the flight. However, by this, I mean the flight before mine, I was about six hours early for my flight.

The lady at the desk was personable and engaging, saying I was of course welcome to enter the lounge early (after she checked I wasn’t one of those Priority Pass customers who can use the lounge earlier on during the day) and she said that I hoped I enjoyed my time in it. Then she looked at my boarding pass and said she was concerned, I would miss my connecting flight to Dublin the next day because of the late outgoing flight that I was booked on. I explained that I wasn’t too concerned as I wasn’t in a rush and that I had an emergency exit row seat on the aircraft with plenty of space so wasn’t keen on moving to a central seat.

The staff member was endlessly helpful, she had a look at the options and said that she would be able to move me to the exact same seat on the flight before mine. She said that way I’d get time to visit the lounge at Heathrow and also get a couple of hours in the lounge in Newark, arriving in Dublin actually earlier than I was ticketed. Given this, I was sold and my new boarding passes were issued for the earlier flight and she was also able to replicate by seat on the London Heathrow to Dublin flight. I’m not sure if anyone else got booted out of the seats I was given but I was surprised that the seats were available that close to departure.

I really liked the friendliness of all the staff members here, but the agent at the desk was everything I associate with the United States (well, not the guns) in terms of her willingness to help and offer excellent customer service. The above photo is of the snacks area which I first thought was the entirety of the food options so I wasn’t initially delighted.

I really should wear glasses and I’ll get that sorted at some point, but until then I use my phone to zoom in on the beer options in the fridges. They weren’t breathtaking, but they would suffice me as I only had a couple of hours.

There were some extensive views over the tarmac from the lounge and it was suitably bright and colourful.

I’ve mentioned this before, but there’s something very comforting about seeing Speedbird as I’m one of the fanboys of British Airways and it to me offers the reassuring nature that I’m going home. I remember particularly feeling this when I went to Chengdu and spent a week struggling to find anyone who could speak English, so it was beautiful to see Speedbird in all of its glory at the airport, although British Airways have long since given up flying there. Over the last few years the airline has become even more US centric, something I can’t much complain about.

The taqueria station and this was my favourite of the food sections. It was all self-service, although there were additional food items that could be ordered using the app. There’s a separate dining area for those who want to use it although the staff were ridiculously efficient. I had a slight problem that I got myself a drink and put it on the table to go and get food, then it was cleared away as they thought it was abandoned. I returned and put my food on the table to get another drink and then had to rescue that plate from being collected when I returned with my replacement drink, even though it was full of food.

The cheese station.

The charcuterie and New York deli station, which is all combining to be my favourite foods. I started to regret changing my flight to an earlier one and indeed I wondered if I could just move into this lounge permanently. To be honest, I’d have given thought to have spending the entire trip just in this lounge, I can be quite easily won over by food.

Big pretzels. What a time to be alive.

My second beer, the Brooklyn Lager, I had already had the Nut Brown Ale from Sam Smiths. The staff member at the bar remembered me from my first drink and was about to get me the same beer again, I think she thought I must have been disappointed with my Sam Smiths but it was more that I like variety. And I don’t want to support Sam Smiths too much as they’re a ridiculous brewery led by one of the people I consider who has most trashed the atmosphere in pubs with his joke of a company which seems to take pride in shaming their own staff. Anyway, I’ve rapidly digressed, but I’m quite appalled at the actions of Humphrey Smith and it’s no surprise he’s become a figure of fun.

It looks simple, but it was absolutely delightful……

At that moment, I was done in the lounge as the flight was called. I was content with the amount of food and drink that I worked through, really handy just before getting a meal on board the flight. This was one of my favourite lounges, it wasn’t too busy, there was an excellent range of food and drink which felt tailored to my own personal tastes (I accept that it wasn’t designed that way, it was just chance) and the staff were friendly and keen to help. It was a positive last note on which to leave the United States.
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December 30, 2022
2022 US Trip – Day 1 (BA Galleries South Lounge Heathrow T5)

Liam’s impressive timing meant that I got to the airport at a perfect time, not too early (my usual style) and not too late (his usual style). I arrived at the Heathrow T5 BA lounge complex at 04:59, one minute before it opened. Very handy.

I was the first person into Galleries South lounge, that’s never happened before. I can’t claim it’s something that I should get a badge for, but it did let me get some photos without other passengers cluttering them up. This is the main food area in this photo where they were laying out breakfast.

One of the seating areas, this one is just behind where passengers enter the lounge. These lounges do sprawl and there are three of these Galleries Lounges for BA customers at T5, two in the main terminal and one at B Gates (plus the First Class Lounge and the Concorde Room, which are too decadent for me).

The seating area at the end of the lounge which overlooks south security, with the cinema room off to the right.

And my favourite seating area, high chairs and power points, very convenient for my laptop arrangement.

Another photo at the back of the lounge. You used to be able to overlook security until they put that sea of grey over the windows, which is understandable, but I did used to like watching it.

One of the coffee stations and sets of beer fridges, where I was pleased to see that Brewdog Jet Stream was available. I had a few espressos to wake me up, although I’m not sure that they worked that well.

The cinema room.

I only had one beer as it was a bit early. I was pleased to see that the lounge had burnt the bacon, which is good as that’s just how I like it. Those sausage patties are very moreish as well. The BA food offering has definitely improved recently at this lounge (and non burnt bacon was also available).

Some healthy eating. Along with some grapes.

Anyway, my three hours in the lounge was very productive, although I was a little sleepy. The lounge was starting to get very busy when I left, so I was pleased with my timing.

I’ve photographed this before, but it’s just an iconic image and so I thought I’d have another image of it.

September 18, 2022
Thursday – Crossing London on a Rail Strike and Flying to Newcastle with BA (Part 1)

Starting Thursday having stayed at the YHA at Lee Valley, I was fully rested and ready for the excitement of crossing London during a rail strike. Although I’ve trailed that bit with the title of this post really.

Much of Britain has been a bit short of water recently and this is the River Lea looking the driest that I’ve seen it. Incidentally, it can be spelled either Lea or Lee, or as Wikipedia notes “the spelling Lea predominates west (upstream) of Hertford, but both spellings (Lea and Lee) are used from Hertford to the River Thames”.

The railway tracks for the Greater Anglia services are on the left, but they weren’t running at all from Cheshunt, although there were some trains shuttling up and down the line. The Overground was operating, although it wasn’t going to be the next day, but only from 08:00 which is later than usual. I wanted to get across London as quickly as possible for my 13:20 flight, so I caught the 08:02 service. I’m not entirely sure why the Overground was operating later than usual, but I assume it was because there were difficulties in getting drivers in on time.

The service was busy when I got off at Seven Sisters, but I think that was just a lot of people switching to the underground network who would have otherwise got the train into central London. It wasn’t busy for much of my journey, but I can imagine it was nigh on intolerable for many.

This is how I spent much of my journey, in the peace and quiet of the underground. I arrived at Heathrow T5 at around 09:40, which was as fast as I could have expected even on a day without strikes, so I was more than pleased with TFL.

I don’t often fly on domestic flights for environmental reasons (and my flights will be decreasing sharply next year anyway), but I have to note, it is much cheaper and convenient than using rail. However, I didn’t have many options when I needed to be in Newcastle and the trains weren’t running. A single fare cost £30 on BA, which I thought was very reasonable and compared to the railways, it’s just far better in terms of comfort, speed, efficiency and cost.

They’ve changed the security queueing system around a bit and I was stopped from going to the premium security bit by a staff member who said that there was no access via the way I wanted to go. I asked how I could get to the premium security line and she pointed me the way that I had been going. I suspect my dishevelled look must have slightly disorientated her. The staff were all friendly, but there was a woman complaining that her liquids were being seized. Again and again this happens, surely people must realise they can’t sneak stuff through, although I’m always impressed how surprised people pretend to look.

I had time to visit the BA Galleries South lounge and the breakfast spread here has improved no end recently. I’m not saying this is world class, but it’s more than sufficient and everything has reverted to being self-service once again. I’m pleased that they’ve stopped insisting on putting the bacon and sausages into rolls, it’s now served separately.

How decadent.

There’s now a market table as they’re calling it, with salad items and the like, as well as rolls.

And it’s the first time that I’ve seen nachos in a BA lounge as well.

Some of the hot options, which includes pies, chicken curry, vegan curry, chilli and the like. I was very pleased that the gravy was self-pour. They took the breakfast options away just before 11:00 and brought the hot food out just after 11:15, which I think is earlier than it used to be.

I was pleased to see the gravy was self-serve because that meant I could drown my pies in it, just as I like them. I’m easily pleased I accept. They’ve changed to pea and ham pies this month, and the quality is very acceptable indeed. I could have had quite a few of these. I know that as I did have quite a few of them.

There seem to be a lot of screens down around Heathrow at the moment, although the number of staff seems to have increased.

Boarding was a mess and it took them nearly 40 minutes from announcing the gate was open to letting people through. It’s easy to be critical, but they could have explained what was happening as I could see the annoyance on the faces of some people. And, if I couldn’t, the man next to me shouted down his phone to someone “it’s blasted carnage here”. I’ve changed the “blasted” word to be less rude, but readers (if it’s plural) of this blog can guess the word he used. I privately thought that the word “carnage” was a bit strong for a queue of this length, but sometimes people like to recount their stories of drama.

It transpired, as the pilot mentioned it on board, that the computer system had gone down and the gate staff were trying to fix it. They probably could have just said that whilst we were waiting, but they did look short-staffed and perhaps they were just focused on getting people through quickly. Boarding by group fell apart, although the queue I was in moved quickly and so I boarded relatively early. It was all fine, but it isn’t helped that there aren’t enough seats in this part of the terminal, so it’s not entirely comfortable waiting.

I can’t recall many air bridges that are so long, the terminal building is visible at the rear of the photo.

The flight was impeccable as ever and I had plenty of space and no-one seated next to me. The snack was the same crisps and water as with every other flight, but I’m content with that. Helpful and personable crew, but that’s fairly standard in my experience of British Airways.

Safely in Newcastle in under an hour from taking off. We had taken off 44 minutes late and arrived 38 minutes late, but I wasn’t in any hurry, so all was well. The boarding had been a bit odd as people were trickling on the aircraft for over half an hour, but on a day of a national rail strike, I was just glad to have arrived safely.

The aircraft is G-NEOR which as the registration suggests is an Airbus A321 NEO which BA have had since new in 2018. Of no interest to anyone else, but just for my own interest, I haven’t been on this aircraft before. The weather was colder than I’ve experienced in Norfolk over recent weeks, which to be honest was just a relief.

And I’ll leave this post here, starting off again soon enough with getting on the Newcastle Metro into the city and then checking that the pubs were all still open.

August 22, 2022
Thursday : From Prague Airport, Walk Across London at Night and Back to Norwich

Carrying on from the previous post, this is now late Wednesday evening. After a hot day of public transporting around Prague, I arrived four hours early at the airport, ready for my 21:15 flight back to London Heathrow with British Airways, albeit operated by Finnair.

The security process at Prague Airport is just before boarding, so I was able to get to the Mastercard Lounge quickly and without delay. The staff member politely mentioned that entry was only allowed two hours before my flight, but then she asked who I was flying with and when I said British Airways, she said I could enter immediately. I don’t know whether BA offer a higher rate than lounge pass schemes such as Priority Pass, but I was very appreciative.

I was here a few months ago with Richard, but that was a morning flight and this was one of the last flights of the day, so there was a different feel to the arrangements. It was all clean and organised, there’s a self-serve soft drinks machine, snacks in the fridges and self-pour alcohol. They had a separate beer fridge with a couple of choices in it, nothing exceptional, but perfectly acceptable given it was free. I’m not at all picky when stuff is free, I’ve noticed I’m more inadvertently generous on Untappd. Nathan would no doubt tut at my lack of consistency….

The two hot options were pasta and chicken drumsticks. It seemed an odd choice for a lounge, as the chicken was a little greasy and they were going to end up with bones dotted around the place on places. However, I wasn’t let down with the taste of the chicken, although the pasta was a bit bland.

The food menu and the meat platters were rather lovely.

It’s a relatively large lounge, although it wasn’t particularly busy when I was there. They have very few power outlets, although I was fortunate to find one as I did need my devices fully charged given that I might not get chance later on. They had views over the runways, although no power points in those areas of seating. They also have unlimited popcorn…..

The seating was comfortable, it was practical for those with laptops and the like, although there were some more comfortable chairs for people who prefer just to relax and not always sit and stare at a screen as I seem to.

The flight was showing as delayed by one hour, but after three hours in the lounge I thought that was enough, so I meandered over to the gate. There was plenty of seating available, with a few power points dotted around.

The boarding process was efficient and customers were called in group order.

There’s the Finnair aircraft, which BA are wet leasing as they seem to have managed to not have enough of their own, a situation which seems far from ideal.

And as it was the Finnair aircraft, I opted for my favourite seat with lots of legroom.

Excellent crew again, although the Finnair cabin crew nearly always seem very professional and personable. I had the entire row of three exit row seats to myself. Whilst I was in the lounge, I had received a message from British Airways saying that there would be no catering on board the flight due to operational reasons. I had another chicken drumstick to fill me up in case there was no mini bags of crisps and water on board. It transpired they had water, but no crisps, which I could manage without, although I’m not sure that the Club Europe passengers would have been quite so impressed as they get meals provided. The crew said that the catering lorry couldn’t reach the aircraft due to a crash at Heathrow, which meant that they didn’t have their food either, so they were wondering where they could eat at nearly midnight at Heathrow.

We arrived into C Gates of London Heathrow about thirty minutes late, although I was in no rush. It’s not ideal to be at C Gates usually, as it’s quite a walk as the internal trains don’t run when it’s close to midnight. But I was in no rush and I like walking.

The UK border was moderately busy, but their automated machines were rejecting a lot of people, including myself, which meant a bit of a queue as there weren’t many border control officers. They were doing some quite detailed checks on some people entering the country, but I was waved through after a cursory check of my passport. I tried to look and act as British as I could in case they thought I pinched someone else’s passport or something.

As my flight was arriving late, I decided against a hotel in London, which at the moment are ridiculously priced compared to what they were. I had a great idea of just getting the 06:00 train from London to Norwich, which was £10, and getting the night bus from Heathrow into central London. That meant I wanted my devices fully charged, so this was the arrangement I set-up for myself, I found the chair and moved it towards the power points and refused to leave (not that anyone asked me to) until everything had full battery. This travel isn’t as easy as people think when there’s a fear of devices without power….

The arrivals floor at Heathrow T5, not very busy at night. For anyone who wants to stay the night at the terminal, it’d be on this level, they remove people from the departures floor. It’s not particularly comfortable, but there’s power, wifi, toilets and I think one of the shops stays open overnight.

I was pleased that the weather was overcast and not too hot.

Heathrow still have no date of when pedestrians can walk into the terminal, something they’ve currently banned from doing, although cyclists can cycle in from next year when the tunnel reopens. The free travel zone has been scrapped and they’ve introduced this new drop-off fee, all adding to the expense for many people. But, Heathrow have shareholders who need cash…..

I’ve never caught the night bus N9, but it’s a bargain really at £1.65 to get from London Heathrow to Trafalgar Square.

The bus timetable if anyone should want it, but the services are regular throughout the night and it’s an 85 minute journey from one end to the other.

On time and not very busy.

The passengers who boarded were just using the bus to get to T3, so I was on my own on the bus for a while after that. Well, with the driver obviously as I’m not sure what my bus driving is like…. (although, I have driven a bus without incident when the driver let me near Cromer, but I’m not sure that was entirely within the rules so I best not go too far down that line). It was a very peaceful journey and it’s actually really quite nice to be able to watch the city go by without stopping at literally every bus stop. There was a mixture of night workers coming back from work, going to work, some early morning commuters, party-goers and travellers.

Sad to see the Admiralty pub like this, certainly different to the last time I was in it a few months ago.

The pub was badly damaged by fire a couple of weeks ago and it looks very serious in terms of the repairs that will be needed.

It was gone 03:00 by this time and I was surprised just how many people were still around Nelson’s Column and Trafalgar Square. It all felt safe and non-threatening, although I was careful taking photos as I didn’t want any mugging incidents.

The Royal Courts of Justice. I had intended to pop into the 24 hour McDonald’s on the Strand to kill an hour, but it was at near capacity and I didn’t want all that raucous noise and party excess. I’m over 30 now and can’t be dealing with that.

St. Paul’s Cathedral and it was a real treat to walk across the city when it’s so quiet, it feels like such a different place. Buses still shuttle around the city, so it seems alive and energetic, but yet with a sense of calm.

The Royal Exchange.

It took me around 40 minutes to walk across London, so I arrived at London Liverpool Street at 03:45. I’ve never seen the railway station all locked up, but the side entrance to McDonald’s was open so I thought that I’d get a little snack.

Back in the day, there used to be seating in this McDonald’s, but this is it now, just self-ordering kiosks. They were all switched off and I wasn’t sure what to do, but a security guard came up when I looked confused and got a crew member to come and take my order at the counter.

McDonald’s probably wondered what they’d do with the £1.80 I gave them for two burgers….. But just as I had finished, the gates of London Liverpool Street railway station swung open at 04:00.

It’s not often the concourse is so quiet.

By now it was 04:02 and the first train out is at 04:40 to Stansted Airport, which is where most of the waiting passengers were heading I think.

It’s very hard to get a photo of this statue as there’s often rubbish on or around it, and it’s also used as a seat or somewhere to lean against. I don’t entirely like this sculpture here, it’s not prominent enough and I hope they can rearrange things a bit. Note the uncomfortable seating behind it designed to avoid anyone homeless sitting on it.

Für Das Kind, or For the Children, designed by Flor Kent, which I’ve written about before.

I sat down for an hour in view of where the new Greggs will be opening soon.

There was nearly no-one around after the first train to Stansted Airport had gone.

I was pleased to see that this wasn’t the Stansted Express with no tables.

This wasn’t a busy service at all. I managed to fall asleep as soon as the train departed, but was conscious that the train guard was checking tickets nearly straight away as there were so few of us on the train.

And safely into Norwich Railway Station at 08:00. The blog will be quite quiet for the next month, with the exception of some odd random and irrelevant (not that they ever really cross the boundary into relevant) posts which I’m sure I’ll feel the need to make, as I’m doing nearly no travelling. Expect a few bits about the LDWA AGM weekend, the Summer Poppyline and some pub photos, but not much else.

July 31, 2022
Sunday : Canterbury to Prague via London Victoria

The weekend in Canterbury had gone quickly and the four of us in Carena House waved goodbye to the landlady. It was a clean B&B (actually, it was more of a B as there was no breakfast included), although quite quirky, but the welcome was friendly enough, even when Richard changed rooms for reasons unknown. But, I don’t get involved in these matters.

We walked to Tannery Field and had a little look at the bull, designed by local artist Steven Portchmouth. There’s a double purpose to that sculpture, it marks that this was a tanning site, but also that there was a tannery rail track, so they’ve replicated the rails in the artwork.

And there’s some more information about the bull for those who want to know even more.

It was a similar walk to the previous day, with West Gate in the background. It was still too hot.

Back in Wetherspoons, which I accept shows a complete lack of originality, but I didn’t have long and there was a power point here which was handy for ensuring my devices were fully charged for the day ahead. The poached egg was only just runny, they keep getting these wrong now, but that’s my fault, I probably should have gone to a local cafe.

Back again also to Canterbury West railway station, where we set off from the day before.

And the sizeable waiting room, with an absence of power points. I had another little debacle at this railway station, as I had stupidly used my Chase card to buy my rail ticket. The collection machine was having none of it, but this is a known fault with Chase cards on the network, as confirmed both by them and also by Great Western Railways. Chase had said the workaround was for the ticket desk to print the ticket (which isn’t really a solution to their dodgy arrangements in this area), but the man on the desk said he couldn’t do that. I wasn’t going to argue, although I’ve noted that other ticket desks have managed to, but he was helpful enough to wave me through the barriers so I could get to the platform.

My plan was to go and speak immediately to the train guard to tell him of my little predicament, which was a good strategy. The guard said he couldn’t print the ticket either as his machine didn’t have that functionality (there’s a lot of little issues in terms of consistency within the rail network), but that it didn’t matter, he’d wave me through the barriers at London Victoria.

Another routine complaint of mine, there isn’t space in a rail carriage for five seats across, and I am unanimous in that…. Anyway, we got about 100 metres down the track before the Southern ticket inspectors came to interrogate passengers, but fortunately, the train guard noted this and told the inspectors I had a ticket but the machine was broken at the railway station. The inspectors looked confused, as the machine wasn’t broken, just it wouldn’t print my ticket, but they didn’t pursue the matter. They came back through the train twice, with one of them forgetting they had spoken to me already, but the other was more alert.

That meant at London Victoria station I had to get through the barrier as I still didn’t have a ticket printed out. The customer in front of me told the gate guard that “the guard had forgotten to print my ticket” which was not an excuse that was accepted. For about two minutes there was an argument about this, with the gate guard saying that he didn’t believe the guard on-board had forgotten, and even if he had, the customer should have reminded him. Voices were raised and it was bloody clear that the customer didn’t have a ticket, but he was let through anyway. This is a fault with the rail network, what’s the point of this expensive set-up if people are just let through anyway? I was slightly worried that the gate guard would instead have an argument with me, but I showed him my booking reference for the ticket that I couldn’t print and I was let through without dispute. I think it’s fair to say, it’s not hard to get through those barriers without a ticket.

It was time then to get on the Victoria Line for a couple of stops, to then board the Piccadilly Line to get to Heathrow, a moment of excitement as that meant a few days overseas, the last I’d get for several weeks. No delays here, all was going well.

Back at Heathrow T5, which wasn’t particularly busy despite all the fears of overwhelmed airports. The flights that have been trimmed seemed to have helped operations though, with the wait at security being relatively minimal.

The BA lounge has gone from self-service to order via app, back now to order at a counter. Here’s the menu for the lounge, a choice of meatballs, pie, vegetable curry or vegan balls.

I opted for two steak pies with a can of Brewdog Jet Stream, living the dream…. These pies aren’t world class, but they’re moreish (as are many things with me) and sufficiently tasty for my needs, especially when I get chance to ask for extra gravy.

These raw juices were rather delicious, although I suspect I overdosed on fruit with them. There was no fruit health warning in the area which I felt that there could have been.

There’s the green sludge of the raw juice in the background. And another highlight, crisps have finally returned to the lounge, so what a time to be alive!

And even more excitingly (I don’t get out much), the ice cream has returned to the freezers.

The flight was departing from Gate A1 but I wasn’t entirely sure this was well managed, as there weren’t enough seats and there was a paucity of announcements. Standing there for thirty minutes was fine in terms of time, although the terminal in this area was quite hot.

None of these dispensers were functioning at the airport, another one of Heathrow’s little short cuts I imagine.

Ready to board the BA0858 flight to Prague on aircraft G-EUYT, which I’ve travelled on before when going from Heathrow T5 to Warsaw.

The interior of the aircraft and I had an exit row seat by the window. The flight was very busy and at near capacity, so there was the usual faffing around trying to fit ridiculous numbers of arguably oversized bags into the overhead lockers.

We took off over 30 minutes late, which is always slightly frustrating on a night flight, especially when I had plans to catch the last bus of the day in Prague. Fortunately, we landed on time as the pilots were able to make up the time during the flight. There was nothing much notable about the flight, which is always a positive as far as I’m concerned.

The standard in-flight snack of crisps and a small bottle of water.

At Prague airport and there was more queueing as UK travellers now need a stamp in their passport. Fortunately my fast walking had meant the queue wasn’t too long when I arrived, I think I was through border control in under ten minutes.

Rather random, but I liked the little aircraft shaped holes they had made in the benches. I had visited Prague a few months ago and remembered where the ticket machines were to buy bus tickets, something which saved a few minutes of uncertainty.

I caught the last 191 bus of the day, with just a couple of minutes to spare. It wouldn’t have mattered as a night service then kicked in, but this saved me over thirty minutes, so I pleased to be able to catch it.

The bus journey takes around 40 minutes and I was fortunate with my hotel choice, as there was a bus stop just a one minute walk away. It goes direct from the airport to the city centre, or at least the west bank of the river so that people can take another bus or tram to get elsewhere in Prague.

Off the bus and ready for my big one minute walk to the hotel. It’s rare that they’re such short treks at this time of night and I had already alerted the hotel that I’d be late. I’m not sure they care to be honest as they have 24 hour reception desks, but I like to let the hotel know of my plans in case they flog off my room to someone else and they replied promptly and politely telling me all was fine with arriving late.

And here it is, the Ibis Praha Mala Strana, a well reviewed Accor hotel on the west side of the river which isn’t an area that I’ve much explored before in my previous visits to the city. The entrance, for reasons unknown, is tucked away on the far side of the building, but the signage was sufficiently clear for me not to get muddled up.

Typically, someone had just checked in despite it being after midnight, so I had a little bit of a wait, but that gave me enough time to take photos of their shop area. The staff here were always friendly and welcoming, this transpired to be one of my favourite Accor hotels.

My welcome gift was doughnuts and I was very pleased indeed with that. I just knew that this was my sort of hotel.

And the room, the standard Ibis layout, all clean and comfortable. I’m still quite content with this sort of room layout, it’s functional, it has a desk, working wi-fi and space for storage. Given that I had such a late arrival into Prague, I was surprised that I was able to make such timely progress to be in the hotel just after midnight. That gave me enough sleep before breakfast, but more on that in the next riveting instalment of this blog as it transpired to be relatively memorable (or as memorable as a hotel breakfast can realistically be).

July 27, 2022
British Airways : Minimum Connection Time Between Flights at Heathrow Update

I excited the nation with my fascinating post a couple of weeks ago about my flight being shifted from Heathrow T5 to T3 which then meant it failed to meet the minimum connection time between terminals at the airport. I was interested to see how long it would take BA to notice from when they shifted the flights on 4 July 2022.

It’s 18 July today, so exactly two weeks, and I’ve got an email saying they’ve agreed to the changes I’ve requested. I haven’t requested any such thing, which makes me slightly pre-annoyed. They’ve shunted my entire journey forwards a few hours, so I would leave Dublin at 06:30, arrive into London at 08:00 at T2 (they’ve switched me to an Aer Lingus flight), then depart T5 at 09:40.

I’m going to phone BA as that’s a very tight connection at the moment for Heathrow and changing terminals, and because they’ve shunted my Dublin to Heathrow flight forwards, they could have left the Heathrow to New York flight in place. Not least because it leaves from T3 which gives me more time at the Qantas lounge and I would prefer to fly on American Airlines rather than BA. I shall call them up and will report back on how I get on….

July 18, 2022
Tuesday : Nearly Missing the Bloody Train in Krakow, Finn Air to Heathrow and Ibis Budget

After a few days in Krakow eating pizza and complaining about the heat to anyone who would listen, whilst calming my overheated nerves with the large hotel breakfast every day, it was time to return to the UK. The old railway station is visible in the photo above, but they’ve built a new station building which is linked it to the Galeria Krakowska shopping mall. It was also surprisingly busy for a Tuesday morning at just before 09:00.

The new platforms are in this photo, the old railway station is behind me. Like nearly everywhere in Poland, it’s all very clean and organised.

There were no ticket machines to be seen on the platform which seemed odd. I discovered on the way out that passengers could buy tickets on the train, but I wanted to get this sorted in advance and so I bought mine from the PKP web-site. It’s a ticket that doesn’t need validation and is for a specific train, which is the one that should be leaving from the platform I was standing by after the 09:01 to Gdynia got out of the way. Anyway, the train didn’t move and I heard part of an announcement which was only in Polish, stating that my train to the airport was switching to another platform. I was moderately annoyed as that meant I had to rush, but obviously I didn’t want to run in the Krakow heat. Or indeed run at all, it’s exhausting.

I caught the damn train with thirty seconds to go, but I noted some others didn’t and were still on the wrong platform. They didn’t even check the ticket (I mean the ticket inspectors on the train, not the people on the wrong platform). Anyway, I arrived into the airport as expected, but could have done without the rushing about the place. Clean train and on-time, so I can’t really complain.

I was through airport security in under two minutes and so next was the non-Schengen airport lounge at Krakow Airport, which was small, although luckily I had given myself three hours to sit in it. It reached near capacity by the time that I was about to leave the lounge, and it does feel a little under-sized. Very friendly staff and there are toilets and showers within the lounge complex.

Lard and bits of pepper sliced up, it’s not exactly Greggs is it?

Now we’re talking though.

My starter.

The amuse-bouche. They had a couple of different beers, nothing exceptional, but sufficient for me.

In fairness the chicken salad was very lovely, so that proved to be a useful main course. I never had the lard.

There was a ten minute delay, but nothing too bad, for the return flight to Heathrow.

This was as clear as mud, with a Ryanair and British Airways flight departing at the same time, as well as separate queues for Groups 1-3 and Groups 4 and 5. I guessed the queue correctly when the Groups 1-3 were called, but numerous other customers didn’t, finding themselves in the wrong place. Anyone who tried to access the Groups 1-3 queue without having the correct number on their ticket was sent packing, albeit politely.

As with my outward journey, this was a British Airways flight that they’ve wet leased to be operated by Finn Air. It’s the Airbus A321 with registration code OH-LZN, which Finn Air have operated since the aircraft was new in 2017.

This annoyed me, it started to pour with rain just as I boarded. All week I waited for rain and the moment I get on board to come back what happens?

I’ve blurred this (again) by mistake as I was trying to rush, but I was the first to board. The person in the photo is flight crew and they were all exceptional during the journey, again Finn Air should be proud of their professionalism. Someone in my row seemed quite seedy in the way he was talking to the crew member, but she professionally batted him and his attempt to take her for an Indian meal away.

Got my seat with lots of leg room again. The flight was near full, but the boarding was efficient and well managed. At this point we sat there for around 45 minutes, as the rain that I craved all week was now flooding the airport and so they had to temporarily shut down operations.

The chatty and friendly crew came around with the snack before take-off to ensure everyone remained happy. The water was served after we had taken off.

Safely back at Heathrow T3, ready to spend ten minutes walking around their slalom course. You could practice for an LDWA 100 walking around this.

I’m starting to feel that I know Heathrow T3 far too well.

The Central Bus Station, ready for me to pay for a bus to get me to the Ibis Budget on Bath Road since Heathrow have removed the Free Travel Zone. Yes, I will complain about that in every post for some months, there’s nothing like repetition to cheer the soul.

I had pre-paid for this room at a much cheaper rate, but this is a sign of the ridiculous prices in London. For an Ibis Budget which isn’t that well located to be charging £100 is far from ideal.

I stayed here a few weeks ago, it’s the former Travelodge they’ve converted into Ibis Budget. The windows here don’t open and I asked for a fan, which they said they’d bring to the room, but they didn’t bother. However, I decided the air conditioning worked sufficiently well for me to not traipse down again to ask where the fan was. The hotel though is still receiving deluges of negative reviews about the air conditioning not working, but it appears they should have it all fixed soon enough.

Not that I’m one for complaining, but just I got in the room it started to rain again. That weather is just ideal for me, cloudy and rainy, perfect for exploring a city.

July 6, 2022
British Airways : Minimum Connection Time Between Flights at Heathrow

A scenario I haven’t had before, BA have changed my flight to New York in September from T5 to T3. That’s normally good as I prefer that terminal, but it’s not relevant here since I’m connecting with little time to spare. I’m flying from Dublin and the original flight got in to T5 at 10:50 and the US flight departed T5 at 12:20, which is thirty minutes longer than the one hour minimum connecting time at Heathrow T5. Now BA have shunted my departing flight to T3 and they’ve also changed the departure time to 12:15, which would have been enough at T5, but it means it’s five minutes too short to meet the minimum connecting time between Heathrow Terminals which is 90 minutes. I think I just have to wait for BA to realise and change my flight, which I’m going to guess will mean getting into New York two hours later.

Not that anyone cares, but I will carefully edit this post when I find out what actually happens with this and how long it takes them to realise…. I don’t much mind, I like the excitement, although I suspect the only option is for BA to move me to the flight I mentioned which is two hours later, but that’s departing from T5 which would at least mean I could pop into the BA lounge….

July 4, 2022
Thursday : Heathrow T3 to Krakow with British Airways (operated by Finn Air)

After the excitement of being at Heathrow T3 through the night started to become marginally less exciting, I decided to walk through the bright lights of the walkways to get to the main terminal. It’s surprising how quiet Heathrow is at 03:00…..

I was ready. I was ready around 835 minutes before the flight to be fair.

They could probably do with some more seats on the first floor, but it was starting to get a little busier before the security lines opened at 04:30. I was confused why around 40 people were standing in what I thought was an odd place for the security line, at an overflow area. I decided these savvy travellers must know what they were doing, but I was hardly in a rush, so I stood in the normal place. Fortunately, I managed to find myself at the front of the queue and so was the second person (or second non-staff member to be more accurate) to enter airside.

Peace and quiet at duty free.

I’ve never really understood who buys all this stuff, it’s a huge retail area and nothing seems particularly good value to me. I don’t know whether it’s a mix of people buying presents and those who just get excited when they see alcohol for sale. Now, if they had a decent craft beer selection then I might be interested.

Slightly blurry, but there’s no shortage of seating if you go to the airport early. Who needs a hotel? An unnecessary decadence.

I have no idea how I’ve managed to take such blurry photos, but there’s the very quiet oyster and champagne bar or whatever it is. It’s not somewhere I’ve felt the need to spend much time. Actually, as an aside, I don’t really understand it, it’s expensive and I’d have thought if you can afford to go there, you’d likely have airline status to go to a lounge. And it’s a very open place to sit. But there we go, perhaps people like being seen when they’re being decadent.

I’d arrived before any of the shops had opened as well.

The BA lounge opened at 05:00. Well, it’s meant to, the bouncy and happy staff member went to open the First Class section at 05:00 and then she realised there was no-one at the main entrance. At 05:05 an harassed member of staff turns up and the lounge whirs into action. Fair play to her, what a time to get to the airport and the staff have to go through security every day, it must be tiring. Anyway, the First entrance is to the left and the Club entrance is to the right. Two of the customers in front of me were entirely the wrong place, they were going to the Aspire Lounge or whatever it was, and seemed annoyed at BA that they hadn’t made clear it was the BA lounge. The signage on the wall is a clue.

I must have been tired, these photos are dreadful. Anyway, the BA lounge main seating area.

Looking towards the rear, the little business section is to the right. No beer again in the lounge, just Heineken.

The BA order to the table app seems to have been removed, everything is on display again and it’s fair to say that’s it’s beautifully presented when no customer has mauled it all about.

The sausage and bacon rolls, which seem to be a waste of food if I’m being honest. A fair number of people ditch the rolls, including myself, to eat the bacon and sausage. The muffins were soggy and the rolls were hard and inedible, it just seems a waste of BA’s money. They must be able to deliver something better than this. I’m not specifically complaining, well no more than usual, for me, just that they’re spending all this money and delivering a product which is evidently inferior to the lounges around them (although I’d add the First section of the lounge is better, but I haven’t had access to that for years).

I asked a couple of times when the showers would be opening with no-one being sure, and the lovely lady on the First desk (not that I had access to that lounge, it’s just next to where the showers are) was confused why they were shut. She went off to find out and came back very apologetic to say the showers were closed for the week, but she hadn’t been told. I appreciated her help and assistance, but fortunately, there was a solution to this, the Cathay Pacific lounge which opened at 05:30. The staff try so hard in the BA lounge, but the airline doesn’t always seem to want to help them.

Cathay Pacific had showers which were immaculate, so that was that solved. The staff try so hard in the Cathay Pacific lounge and the airline does seem to want to help them. It wasn’t busy, and indeed I was the only person in the lounge for a few minutes, this is the part of the self-service breakfast selection. Spotless as ever.

And the other bit. There’s a selection of sausages, bacon and the like for those who want hot items.

But, yet again, I decided I wanted to order from the chefs at the Asian food counter and got my standard order of Thai coconut and vegetable soup, the Mix Dim sum basket, Fanta and beer. What a time to be alive…. And compare and contrast to the BA lounge. The flight time meant I didn’t really enough time to visit the Qantas lounge for some calamari as it opens a little later, but I was refreshed and ready for the new day after leaving the Cathay Pacific lounge. I’m disappointed to say I won’t be back in T3 for a while, as the flights I had departing from the terminal have been moved to T5.

It was unclear whether there was a priority line at the gate, but I wasn’t going to go hunting for it. The man behind me didn’t have the same restraint, I heard a series of “I will go and look”, “no, we’re entitled to use it” and the like, as his what I assume was wife tried to calm him. He stomped over in the end and asked where the priority line was, before shouting back to wife “we can enter the priority line here”. I admire his determination to sit in the gate slightly quicker than the others, although I have to confess to them following him. I tried to look as embarrassed as the guy’s wife.

The flight was booked with British Airways, but they’ve run out of aircraft, so they’re using Finn Air on a wet lease arrangement. So the pilots and cabin crew are all from Finn Air, whilst the service standard is British Airways. This has the advantage of this seat with lots of leg room, which as far as I’m concerned is the best in the economy part of the aircraft. I think I dozed off for a chunk of the flight and there was no-one sitting next to me, so this felt very spacious.

The mid-flight snack, a smaller bottle of water and a Nutrigrain bar. There was a man in the aisle seat, and we must have both dozed off, as the crew had just left them on the seat for us. The crew were excellent, friendly, personable and engaging, Finn Air should be very proud. Apparently they spend five days in London being put up at hotels, which must be costing BA a fortune, before returning to Helsinki for a few days.

Oh good, a bus to the terminal. Not that it matters, I’m hardly ever in a rush. I noticed that it was too hot.

Although getting a bus did give me time to take a photo of the aircraft, which is OH-LZU, an A321 which Finn Air have operated since it was manufactured in 2018.

It didn’t take long to get through border control, and I decided to use my limited Polish to the border guard. He replied, in Polish, asking if I was Polish as I would have then been in the wrong queue. He soon realised from my garbled answer that I wasn’t. Here’s the front of the terminal and it was evident to me that it was already too hot. I may have mentioned that.

The train from the airport to the city centre, which is over twice the price of the one from Warsaw. That’s the problem with these tourist cities.

I bought a ticket from the machine and then waited excitedly to board. The train was quite busy and unusually, you can buy tickets on board despite there being ticket facilities on the platform. One person showed their bus ticket, but the train guard was having none of it, they had to buy a rail ticket.

I’ve visited Krakow numerous times before, but here’s a quick photo from the city centre as I walked to the hotel in the searing heat. Krakow is a beautiful city, but it is very touristy, so I prefer visiting other cities in Poland, but it’s nonetheless a delight to be back.

Grrrrr, I didn’t entirely like the room, it’s one of these damn Ibis changes to make it feel like a nursing home. I’ve stayed at Ibis Krakow Centrum before, and they had better rooms with a desk and chair. I did query with reception if they had any of the older rooms, but they said they didn’t. Their answer was “we don’t put chairs in rooms any more”. I’m not entirely sure how that is seen as a good idea, as although I understand not everyone has the same requirements as me, a chair isn’t beyond Ibis Budget, let alone Ibis. This is, I think, an upgraded room, as there’s a coffee machine. I didn’t understand the point of that as they gave me two coffees for a five night stay, but those two were delicious I suppose. There’s also water provided, which I appreciated as it’s too hot. The window opened so that was positive, but the air conditioning in the room sort of worked, not to make the room as freezing as I’d like, but sufficient to be comfortable.

I appreciated the note though, that was kind. I’m not really into red wine, but it was a gift and that was very nice of them, so I did drink it as I didn’t want to be rude. I’m selfless like that.

Wwith that, I was back in Poland, although I had some sleep to catch up on.

July 4, 2022
British Airways : Random Post – Change to Check-In for Bronze

I found this quite odd at Heathrow T3. I’ve reached the giddy heights of silver (after spending hours finding the cheapest possible way of doing it, since I’m not very decadent with my airline spending, or indeed any spending other than on craft beer which is one of life’s essentials) but BA did allow bronze and silver to use their priority check-in desk. There’s now signage saying this.

And this. It’s a bit confusing since priority check-in is a stated benefit of Bronze statue. I mentioned this as my friend Richard is a bronze member (and spends decadently to reach that) so I will report back any tales if he’s refused a priority service at check-in. How exciting! It’s quality content like this that keeps this blog reaching its dizzying height of two readers.

July 4, 2022