Another post for the sake of completion, so there were no major dramas getting from Heathrow to Luton. It was rather odd that I was staying around twenty metres from the country’s major airport and had decided to fly from Luton Airport. Such is the lure of the £8.99 Wizz Air flights. Geographical inconveniences don’t concern me though…..

It was raining so I decided against walking the one hour to Hayes and Harlington railway station.

I don’t find buses very exciting, but this was a handy option which only took around ten minutes. I also appreciate that bus content is not traditionally where great travel writing finds its highest expression, but there we go.

I remember when this was all fields…. Well, I remember it before it was on the Elizabeth Line and it had this fancy frontage anyway.

I might not love buses, but I do like trains and here’s the Elizabeth Line train sweeping in. I got the train into Farringdon to complete a little task involving free food and then decided that I’d walk the 30 minutes to King’s Cross St Pancras as the rain had stopped. I’m a natural athlete me, albeit one whose sporting career is mostly based around refusing to pay for short tube journeys.

The delights of St. Pancras, a really rather beautiful shopping centre with some train lines.

Platform 1 was the train to Corby and that would get me to London Luton Airport Parkway in under 30 minutes. I would add that the rail fare was £4.20 which is rather decent value for money I think bearing in mind I only booked it yesterday.

One day I’ll find getting trains boring, but for the moment, it still excites and delights.

In crawls the train…

I don’t like five seats across as I don’t think trains were originally designed for this, but anyway, it wasn’t that busy. I also provided a free tourist service to the guy who was trying to get to Luton and I didn’t once ask him why he wanted to go to Luton which I think showed considerable restraint and perhaps even personal growth.

Still the worst managed railway station in the country in my view, but I won’t labour that point as I might have drivelled on several times before about it.

I walked the twenty minutes to Luton Airport and passed by the Vauxhall building, now closed down and staffed only by security teams and guard dogs.

And safely at London Luton airport.

And the longest queues which I’ve seen at London Luton, although, to be fair, I was still through in under 25 minutes and I was hardly in a rush as I had, once again, arrived five hours early for my flight. I can imagine that my two loyal blog readers can hardly contain themselves with excitement for the next post….

We had spent some time in the lounges and the gate was already boarding when we got there, so it wasn’t clear just how efficient the boarding process was in general. However, for us, it was fast and well managed, with the team members being personable and friendly.

There are jet bridges to board the aircraft so everyone went by the front door. I like stairs for the simple reason that I can see the registration of the aircraft without looking it up, which in this case was G-DBCG. This is an Airbus A319 that has been in the BA fleet since 2012 and before that it was operated by bmi (owned by Lufthansa but sold to IHG in 2012) from 2006.

I was in the aisle seat at the rear of the aircraft and I noted the rather rickety nature of the seats. That seat in front was reclined during the flight which is impressive as the seats don’t actually recline. The aircraft was rather hot during boarding, but was I pleased to note that the temperature became somewhat more comfortable after take-off.

Boarding was a little chaotic. The crew members behind me were saying to each other that the overhead lockers were now full and so they were having to be creative. The passenger sitting next to me had a large bag and was walking up and down the aircraft trying to find a place to put her bag, so I ended up standing in the aisle for five minutes watching the confusion unfold. And the crew didn’t check the lockers as one flew open when taxiing which felt a little sub-optimal. But we were ready to depart pretty much on time.

However, onto the positives, the crew were very friendly throughout and there was a free biscuit and water on BA which is at least something. I was surprised and delighted to have access to WhatsApp during the flight, this was something of a bonus to me. However, in a separate post, I’ll do a comparison between Wizz Air and British Airways as to who I thought was the better carrier.

And safely in Gothenburg. There was disembarking from the rear doors and that meant I managed to be the first off the plane into border control. That is exciting, but is always stressful in terms of working out where to go and I had to wait for Richard anyway.

The border was particularly friendly, a very positive first impression of Sweden. It also meant that I have now visited every EU country, which excited me….

Here’s Richard with his luggage.

Sorry, wrong image. Anyway, this is the posh bit of the American Airlines lounge and again I’ve only visited the standard bit before so many thanks for Richard guesting me in.

The staff member checking us in wanted to see my passport to check that Richard wasn’t guesting in some member of the lower classes, before joking that she needed to decide which lounge to send us. However, after seeing all of Richard’s bags, she thought she’d better send us to the premium bit and here’s the menu board outside.

Apologies about the complete lack of useful photos in this post, I was too excited about the trip ahead. The beer selection was woeful, American Airlines hadn’t managed to get any American beer in, which would have least shown some willing.

We didn’t go for the table service as we’d just had a three course meal, but I had a healthy salad with a generous amount of bacon bits from the self-service area. This tasted perfectly acceptable for a salad, with the Peroni 0% tasting thin and dull as ever.

I should have really explored the lounge a little more to write a fuller report, but time was starting to get short and I was getting distracted. There could have been more power points available, but we found some by a seating area, but a wider provision would have been useful.

There were some pre-packaged sandwiches in the fridge which I assume they didn’t mind if passengers took, but I decided against it. I did take some crisps for the evening though as I saw numerous others doing that.

I felt that this was the weakest of the four lounges with the whole arrangement being a little lacking in atmosphere, power points, food and drink. The ceiling was also leaking and it didn’t have the calmness of British Airways, the informality of Qantas or the luxury of Cathay Pacific. However, the staff were helpful and the surroundings were generally clean and organised.

Richard was very kind to guest me into the lounges, it’s been some time since I’ve been to Heathrow Terminal 3 (now I use Wizz Air to go just about everywhere) but it was all an interesting experience.

The next lounge for our little visit to Heathrow T3 was to Cathay Pacific, which I’ve visited numerous times before but not to the posh bit. This is the seating area of the First area of the lounge, with the table service restaurant off to the back left. We went over, but there was a fifteen minute wait, so I sat excitedly whilst Richard sat on the phone doing business things.

There was a friendly welcome at the reception desk, it felt authentic and personable so my first impressions were very positive.

The dining room area which all felt clean and comfortable.

The self-service drinks area.

The beer selection was the best of all of the lounges we visited in the day.

The full drinks list in the table service area.

The food menu with some tempting options. With the food and drink, I appreciated the effort to offer some Asian choices as well as some European choices.

Richard with his salmon starter.

My burrata starter, which was delicious although I felt that the burrata could have been just a little creamier and I’m not sure why a second one was provided. It was nicely presented though.

The dim sum selection which is available in the main lounge, but I thought I’d have this for my main course as I don’t ever get to come here any more. This was as tasty as ever, one is shrimp, one is vegetable and the other is pork.

I ordered a pork bun as well as I got muddled up when they asked if I wanted anything else.

The cheese board selection for dessert and this was perfectly pleasant, but only the blue cheese had much in terms of the depth of flavour.

It’s unlikely that I’ll come to this part of the lounge, namely the posh bit, again so thanks to Richard for guesting me in. I’ve always liked this lounge in general and it was a very positive experience to visit it again. The posh lounge area was quite compact and we had a bit of a wait to be seated, but it all felt professional and I hope I can get in the main part of the lounge again at some point in the next few years…..

And with that, we thought we’d pop to the American Airlines lounge.

I’ve written about the Ibis Styles Heathrow before, so I shall just briefly mention the highlights for my two loyal blog readers. We had arrived in style in Richard’s decadent Uber, an unusual way for me to get here.

I had a view of the runway from my room and I was pleased to discover that they had shoved Richard at the back of the hotel looking at the car park.

The room interior.

All very nice for £40 a night. I was pleased to also discover that Richard had been given a smaller room as I’m petty like that.

The welcome drink beer selection.

It took me a while to find a politician I wanted on the TV behind and there’s Richard in a relaxed mood. It took me an hour to drink that beer, it didn’t surprise and delight.

In the morning there was Watergate when Richard realised I had an extra water bottle than him. He decided against complaining to the hotel management, although that would have made for an interesting watch.

Back to the hotel though, the team members were friendly, the location was clean and there were no noise disturbances either internally or externally. It’s only a five minute bus journey to the airport, so it’s a convenient place to stay. I’m not keen on windows that can’t be opened, I would have liked the noise of the city, but the air conditioning worked so it wasn’t too stuffy.

All in, I’d merrily stay here again, especially after Watergate.

For a little bit of variety in January 2018, I decided to use American Airlines to get to the United States from London rather than British Airways. They’re still part of Oneworld and I think that there’s some sort of revenue share on the flights, so it wasn’t total disloyalty to British Airways….

American Airlines depart from Terminal 3 at Heathrow and the transfer process from Terminal 5 was easy with numerous airport staff available to help. The welcome desk at American Airlines was exactly that, enormously welcoming and friendly. The staff member asked if I was taking an ex-EU flight (meaning Europe rather than European Union, it’s often a cheaper way to travel, my ticket was from Ireland) which I said I was, before she added that it was becoming increasingly common.

The aircraft felt modern with the economy cabin being clean and well presented. The IFE screen was of a reasonable size given the cabin and I particularly liked the easy to access power to ensure my devices were kept nice and charged. The selection of films and television seemed quite wide ranging with some modern films being available.

It’s not rare now on airlines, but this was the first time that I’ve encountered this on my flights. It was news being fed to the aircraft whilst we were in the air, so I heard about the resignation of a Cabinet Minister.

I was going to America, so I had to have a Dr. Pepper. By “had to have”, I meant that I consider it to be a national drink of the United States, although I suspect most Americans would pick something else.

The main meal of mashed potato on minced meat (that’s not its official name) didn’t look very pretty, but it tasted better than it looked. There was some salad, which seemed superfluous to me, as well as a pleasant cherry crumble cake. The roll tasted American, so it was rather sweet.

There was ice cream handed out during the flight.

I liked the packaging, it looked exciting  🙂

Inside the box was a fajita pepper wrap on one side, and a lemon sponge cake on the other side. Served alongside another Dr. Pepper, it was a perfectly acceptable breakfast.

I liked the entire flight, indeed more than I expected. The service was polite, efficient and fast throughout. I had an aisle seat in a bank of only two seats, which although at the back of the cabin didn’t cause me any problems with noise or disturbances.

There were sufficient washrooms for the number of customers and the environment seemed clean and comfortable. British Airways seem to have had real problems recently keeping their aircraft clean, and American seemed to be more on top of that issue. It all adds to making the flight a little more pleasant.

My morning British Airways flight from Heathrow T3 having safely landed in Luxembourg. The load was a little light across the aircraft and the new boarding by group operated by BA was efficiently managed.

This is the breakfast on Club Europe, which as I’ve commented on before is what I think is the weakest meal that BA serve. It’s excessively salty for my taste (and I like salt….) and sits in a pool of grease, but I’m sure that it’s not an unpopular product. It’s a shame that they don’t offer the cold meats selection as an alternative though.

One minor thing which a few crew do is ask customers if they want tea or coffee when they serve the breakfast. It threw one customer, who wanted an orange juice, but thought that their selection was limited to tea or coffee. That promptly threw the crew’s service slightly as customers they’d already served then ordered additional drinks.

Indeed, the service on this flight was about as minimal as the crew could get away with, never asking if customers wanted anything else and never really being pro-active. Fortunately I’m pro-active in asking for more orange juice…. There were two crew to deal with a very light Club Europe cabin, which was just four rows and that was only half-filled.

Another problem I keep noticing on BA flights isn’t exactly a serious issue, but their cleaning crews even in their home base rarely seem to be able to check the seat pockets in the time they have. There are routinely things left in seat pockets from previous customers. Ryanair resolved this by removing seat pockets, creating a handy compromise of preventing customers from leaving things in them.

Although Club Europe customers can order from this BOB (buy-on-board) menu, it’s designed for Euro Traveller customers. Alex Cruz removed free food and drink from the Euro Traveller cabin and replaced it with this effort, operated by Bidvest. Most of the food is supplied by Marks & Spencer and the quality seems reasonable, not that I’ve ever ordered from it.

The sandwiches selection on the BOB menu.

One of the little illogicalities about the BOB menu is that the coffees that are served in Euro Traveller are much better than the ones in Club Europe. The Bidvest selection have the coffees which have in-built filters and there’s some attempt at selling branded products. The Club Europe coffees are the standard BA filter coffee efforts, and they’re not exactly a taste sensation.

The beer selection on the BOB menu.

So, another efficient flight which took just 55 minutes to get from Heathrow T3 to Luxembourg. BA continue with their strongest point though, which is to be inconsistent with their customer service.

As mentioned in my previous post, I had walked to the Heathrow Ibis and this is one of my favourite of the hotels on the Bath Road and I’ve stayed there numerous times before. There was a friendly welcome from the team member at reception and the atmosphere felt suitably warm and inviting. I was told that I had been given a room upgrade, which was very kind, and I guessed that this wouldn’t actually be a better room, but just a better located room. That’s realistically the best that a hotel can do when every room is the same design. Although I suppose that they could have put a little mountain of crisps in the room for me by way of an upgrade, but perhaps that’s not for everyone. The team member also asked if I’d like a free late checkout, but given my morning flight that wasn’t needed although it’s kind to ask.

I went for a pint of Goose Island Midway as my welcome drink. I might have mentioned that I have something of a passion for Goose Island, including visiting their Chicago brewery last year. I accept that Midway isn’t exactly the Bourbon County Stout that they brew, but there we go.

I approve that they local the musical instruments up to prevent unnecessary noise from musically untalented guests.

I’ve never actually eaten at this hotel, other than when the breakfast was included as part of the deal, but I merrily take photos of the food options that are on offer.

As I don’t get out much, I was surprised and delighted to get exactly the same room as when I stayed in the hotel for three days earlier on in the year. I like patterns in life and there seems something reassuring in repetition, especially with the never ending change that travel brings. I should definitely get out more as I suspect that I might have overthought that. Anyway, it was a peaceful night’s stay, not least as I was on the top floor in the corner, something I’d agree is an upgrade.

Also, I forgot to take a photo of the room,  so I’ve used the one from earlier in the year. I’ve just found some more missing posts from this blog, something else I’ll have to fix along with the missing images. Bloody thing.

At this moment I heard from Susanna, Bev and Thim. They were all safely at Stansted Airport, and I was reassured that Thim was there with them since last time Susanna and Bev were left along at Stansted Airport they got drunk and missed their flight in some sort of drunken stupor. I’m pleased to report that this incident didn’t happen again. Their flight, two hours before mine, left without any issues other than Thim wasn’t thrilled and delighted with the leg room situation which he was encountering.

I decided to cut it very fine in terms of leaving for the airport, which meant that I departed the hotel just 2 hours 30 minutes before the flight. Razor thin I tell, razor thin timing. I’m not sure I’ve ever risked it quite that much before, although I accept that I am very risk averse with travel arrangements.

This was the last day of my little trip home and I had chance to pop into the airport lounge at Dublin. This is a different one to where I was before going to the United States, I was off in Terminal 2 at the Aer Lingus lounge then. I’ve written about this Dublin lounge before, so won’t repeat that. I was fortunate to get a seat though, it was at near capacity when I got there and didn’t really let up. It’s an odd shaped lounge and they really need a bigger facility, but it was an entirely satisfactory place to spend three hours.

It had just turned midday, so having a farewell to Ireland Guinness seemed sensible.

Mine was the 15:20 flight and one of the gate staff made an incorrect announcement of the gate number which caused some people to get up and move. I hovered between the two gates thinking that this was far from ideal. I didn’t intend to miss a flight at this stage of the trip.

I had worked out that the flight could be three hours late and I would still be able to get my train home to Norwich. Above that I’d miss it, but I’d either get EU261 compensation or at least a duty of care if it was weather related. I think it transpired that the flight was about eight minutes late so I hadn’t needed to pre-worry.

Ready to battle the rain for one final time in Ireland.

No airbridge in Dublin. This was the tenth and final flight of this trip, along with the twelve or so rail trips I took in the United States. It’s aircraft Airbus A320 G-TTNS and for my own interest only, I hadn’t been on this aircraft before but that’s not surprising as they only took delivery of it on 1 October 2022 and this flight was on 19 October 2022. It’s one of the newest aircraft that I’ve been on I think.

It’s a short flight and it was entirely unremarkable, with the crew being the usual friendly and helpful sort. I was given water and crisps, but I saved them until I was sitting at London Liverpool Street waiting for my train.

Boarding the underground to cross London on the Piccadilly Line, which is always much less exciting when coming back from a trip rather than getting there.

I was able to get a seat.

After an entertaining couple of hours in the British Airways Galleries lounge in Newark, I then walked the short distance to the gate, an earlier flight than I had been anticipating. I was very impressed with how BA handled this, they made it easy not just to change flights but also to ensure that my seat reservations were carried over.

I don’t like the seats on this Boeing 777-300 aircraft, they’re too narrow for me. However, I was in an exit row on the aisle, which is my favourite, meaning that I did have plenty of space. The three seats were all taken, but I was fortunate that the person sitting next to me didn’t veer into my space once.

The crew members on this flight were exceptional, making an effort to build rapport with customers where they felt appropriate and being ever present. I’m rarely disappointed with the friendliness and engagement of BA crew, with the pilot making chirpy and positive announcements.

It’s fair to say that I had enough leg room.

The first drinks round took place around one hour after take-off and the crew member seemed pleased that I asked for Brewdog Jet Stream by name, so she gave me both cans on her trolley.

The crew member didn’t let me down with the Brewdog beer, she remembered me from before and pro-actively asked “would you like another Brewdog beer?”, which of course I did. So she went off on a mission and came back with another four cans, two raided from a different cabin, the other two from the trolley on the other side of the aisle. Apologies if anyone else wanted Brewdog Jet Stream, but the crew member was wonderfully hoarding them up for me. Incidentally, that’s the film Belfast on the IFE, a story about the violence in Northern Ireland during The Troubles.

Onto the food, these meals are catered in the United States and it all entirely met my expectations. I can’t quite remember what sort of chicken dish this was (and I probably wasn’t entirely sure at the time), but it tasted better than it perhaps looks. It comes with a couscous starter, a chocolate dessert and then some cheese and crackers. For an economy flight, which cost me just £220 or so return, I felt I had received excellent value for money with this whole arrangement.

I then thought I’d have a nap after enjoying the heap of Brewdog Jet Stream cans that they had given me.

I admit this wasn’t to my taste, the breakfast option was a cheese bagel or a cheese bagel with turkey. Very innovative. I don’t like the smell of certain melted cheeses and unfortunately this went into the bin, as seemingly did many of those given to other passengers. I rarely eat the breakfast options on aircraft as they’re not often appealing to me, but BA seem to want to provide some sort of hot option. It’s a shame they didn’t have a cold option of just a cereal bar or something, it’d likely be cheaper for them and lead to less waste.

I had a two hour connection before my flight to Dublin, but there was a long delay disembarking and then it was a bus to the gate which all took up time. I was moderately disappointed that this was all eating into, well, my eating time in the BA lounge, and I was partly wondering whether I might be able to miss my flight to Dublin and get a later one since I was in no hurry.

Still my favourite airline, although American Airlines aren’t far behind. Who needs Emirates and Qatar?

And off we go to Heathrow T5, where I’ll pick up my flight to Dublin in my next post.