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Tag: Heathrow

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Glasgow)

    After a productive few hours at London Heathrow, it was time to board the flight to Glasgow from the domestic gates. I don’t normally take domestic flights for environmental reasons, but more on that later in this post. The boarding process was smooth and efficient, although there was a situation that I’ve never seen before that no-one in Group 1 boarding came forwards, and there were only two of us in Group 2 boarding. The member of staff at the gate said to me that this was unusual, although it wasn’t for lack of customers as the flight was nearly full. I think that more customers are just remaining in their seats until the end of the boarding process, which is what I tend to do if I have an aisle seat.

    The meander down to the aircraft, which I unfortunately couldn’t take a photo of as it was hidden behind the air bridge at both ends with no viewing points from the terminal. The aircraft was an A320, registration code G-TTNR, and it was only delivered to British Airways two weeks ago.

    The aircraft was spotlessly clean and things feel much cleaner than they used to when boarding British Airways flights. There were no maintenance issues, although the aircraft is only two weeks old and so it would be a little strange if there were.

    Every customer was given a Dettol wipe if they wanted to clean their seat area a bit more.

    Ready to depart. I’m still intrigued at watching the bags that customers try and fit into the overhead lockers, with some clearly never going to fit. But, I don’t get involved with such dramas…..

    I had an emergency exit row seat and there was no-one sitting next to me, I’m guessing due to BA’s Theoretical Seating platform.

    The flight was scheduled to depart at 20:15, but the boarding process was so smooth that the pilot made an announcement to say he was ready to go early. Air traffic control were happy, so we left at 20:06. The flight was also meant to arrive at 21:40, but we landed at 21:17, so much earlier than I had anticipated. Above is Heathrow whilst we were taxiing before take-off.

    British Airways flights in Euro Traveller have reverted to offering a free drink and snack. This was the crisps and water offered on this flight, sufficient I imagine for most customers given the short journey.

    The disembarkation process was by seat row, so customers were told to remain seated until their batch of five seats rows were announced. An American in the row behind me said “you’d never get this in the United States, everyone remaining seated” and I must admit that even I was surprised at the compliance. I didn’t have much interaction with the crew, but they offered a friendly hello and goodbye, so that’s good enough for me on a flight of this length.

    Back to the environmental issue that I mentioned earlier. I’m a huge advocate of the rail network and have been delighted at the improvements that have been made over the last two decades. But, for these long journeys, the rail network cannot match British Airways in cost, in comfort, in efficiency or in its ability to allow customers to get work done. This sort of journey should be viable by rail as the best option for the environment.

    Looking back to my LNER journey a few weeks ago, the company is just badly run as far as I’m concerned, and they can’t even get seat reservations right, let alone have enough staff to deal with the problem customers. Long journeys need to be handled more elegantly by rail companies so that customers are actually comfortable. At the same time, British Airways has worked out how to transport people cheaply, with excellent customer service and handles customer loyalty well. And, they’re doing it with the advantage that it’s a much quicker form of transport. There needs to be a much greater capacity on the mainlines from London to Scotland if they want people to get out of cars and off planes to go back onto the rail network. This is all happening whilst the HS2 East leg looks to be cancelled and that wasn’t meant to open until 2033 anyway.

    The nearest best option is the sleeper service and I enjoyed using that, but it’s being threatened with strike action which makes it hard to rely on. If they retain some of their social distancing so as not to pack out the carriage, then that becomes more viable as there are lounge areas and it’s a comfortable enough way to travel. I accept that it’s possible to use coach services and these are much cheaper, but the length of journey and lack of comfort are challenges here. I got the long distance National Express service from Newcastle to London and they hadn’t even bothered to provide seats at the bus station (or outside it in my case, as the bus stations is shut for many departures) for waiting customers and had drivers smoking in the entrance to their coach. I can’t quite imagine the pilot standing in the British Airways cabin vaping away whilst vaguely looking at customers walking by.

    On many Amtrak services in the United States, a staff member welcomes customers and shows them where their seat is and writes their destination above the seat on a card. There is a substantial amount of leg room, there are observation cars, a buffet car and the whole service feels spacious and comfortable. It’s easy to get work done and there’s a loyalty scheme which rewards frequent travellers. On long-distance rail services in the UK, there’s no-one greeting customers, there’s often not even a seat (or someone else is sitting in it), there’s a poor loyalty scheme, crammed in seats, no observation cars and inadequate dining cars. But there’s not much point in offering that to customers given that the network is so busy already.

    So, in short, this was a near perfect flight experience for me and I can absolutely see why customers are choosing this form of transport. I have no need to take domestic flights on a regular basis, but I was surprised to see just how efficiently British Airways are managing the process at the moment. Given the problems with using rail for long journeys, I suspect that the best medium-term strategy is finding more environmentally efficient air travel and I know that funding is pouring into that. Otherwise, we’ll have another 50 years of people staying in their cars and driving everywhere, which really isn’t ideal as it’ll lead to no end of new road projects.

    Anyway, rant over and a very lovely flight from British Airways.

  • Heathrow T5 (BA Galleries South Lounge in August 2021)

    Heathrow T5 (BA Galleries South Lounge in August 2021)

    This is my first flight in nearly a year, a domestic flight from London Heathrow T5 to Glasgow Airport. I don’t like taking domestic flights for environmental reasons, but the rail network didn’t give me many options on this one in terms of the price. Things are going to have to change to improve capacity, customer service and pricing if people are going to be tempted away from their cars and from airlines.

    I’ve always liked this “welcome to our home” messaging from British Airways at T5. I was able to use premium security several hours before my flight as I like to arrive early at airports in case of a disaster en route. I then meandered around a rather quiet airport to the T5 Galleries South lounge.

    There’s a new scanner at the entrance to the lounge check-in to avoid needing to go to a staff member. Anyway, it rejected my boarding pass and the kind and patient lady overseeing it mentioned “they’re new and don’t work very well”, but it was soon over-ridden when I used the more traditional staff member at a desk set-up. The lounge felt quite quiet and there’s no self-service offered still, everything is ordered on-line by customers and it’s brought to the table. Staff in the lounge were all personable and kind, it’s a friendly and peaceful place at the moment.

    Having quite a lot of time to get things done I was able to work my way through the menu, this is the Sticky Ginger and Tamari Chicken. I’ve never heard of Tamari, but a quite Google search tells me that it’s a Japanese version of soy sauce. This was really pleasant, tender chicken with a rich sauce and fluffy rice. And some green stuff. Incidentally, on another point, there are power points available so that my devices could charge up throughout the afternoon.

    The beer choice was Heineken, which is a completely pointless drink as far as I’m concerned. BA have reverted to having a whole range of wine, but absolutely no beer of even average quality. I hope that the Brewdog tie-up can be brought back soon to rectify this little omission. I’m sure that normality will resume soon enough in this regard.

    The beef chilli with sour cream and rice, again all very nice.

    I had a quick vodka and Coke, because the Pineapple Ciroc sounded very lovely. And it was, I’m a fan of that now.

    Photos of part of the lounge.

    My dessert of carrot loaf, or whatever it was called. It’s like a stodgy carrot cake.

    At this point a lounge manager walked around politely telling everyone that as it was quiet, they were closing the Galleries South lounge down for the day. She added that customers could go and use the First Class lounge instead, somewhere that I haven’t been for over five years.

    I had finished for the day with food, but there was a different menu on the on-line ordering system in the better lounge, so I felt the need to have a little try of the Barbacoa beef tortilla. This was a step-up in terms of the food quality, very tender beef and the sour cream complemented it well. Quite messy to eat though, but an innovative little dish. Other options I could have gone for were the red wine & mushroom pie and the Caribbean spiced chicken.

    The infamous (well, on Flyertalk anyway) lounge horse lamp…..

    Then the walk to my flight began, through a very empty Heathrow T5. The whole experience is somewhat different to what it was two years ago, but I think it’s all nicer now for customers, although that’s partly just because it’s quieter. Anyway, all very lovely, and a pleasant way to spend a few hours before the flight.

  • Accor Hotel at Heathrow – A Bit Shut

    Accor Hotel at Heathrow – A Bit Shut

    I arrived with great excitement to my Accor hotel near Heathrow (I’m not going anywhere from the airport, it was just where I was staying) and had the slightly annoying situation that it was shut. I said to myself that this definitely wasn’t ideal. A staff member on site helpfully told me that I’d come to the right hotel, but that it had been shut for five months. They added that this was the problem with booking with third party sites, and I’d need to contact them to deal with the issue.

    Unfortunately, I hadn’t used a third party site, I’d booked directly with Accor. So I phoned them and was delighted when a real life person answered the Platinum/Diamond support line (I was pleased my call got routed there, it made me feel important….). They were really quite friendly and they apologised several times, realising that the booking was valid for a shut hotel (if there’s such a thing as a valid booking for a shut hotel). The first stage of their resolution was to set up a complaint which they immediately upgraded to Stage 2. I don’t know what that means, but it sounded exciting. The second stage of their resolution was to rebook me in a nearby Novotel hotel as I didn’t fancy sleeping at the airport (I didn’t intend to recreate the film Terminal) and Heathrow never liked that at the best of times, so I imagine it’s impossible now. That worked out (the rebooking, not the sleeping at Heathrow), although they couldn’t get through to the hotel to guarantee the booking, but they booked it internally anyway.

    The resolution team is meant to be getting in touch with me over the next couple of days, although I like the hotel that I’ve been moved to. They did tell me to keep my receipts and get a taxi there, but I couldn’t be going through all that stress so I just walked the thirty minutes to the new hotel. It was a lovely walk near the Bath Road with the sun setting. Not the three night stay that I had expected, but I won’t complain at three nights at the Novotel.

    I would be annoyed, but I like Accor and to be honest, I quite like the drama and excitement….. The two staff members on the phone actually sounded interested in helping, so that was all positive. Although I’ve now got to work out where to get the 222 bus to get to the Piccadilly line….. I could get the Hotel Hoppa bus and charge Accor, but I hate that service and I don’t fancy faffing about sending receipts. Anyway, that’s another adventure I’ve gotten myself into.

  • Heathrow T5

    Heathrow T5

    Just some photos from Heathrow T5 today, it didn’t feel that busy anywhere.

  • Heathrow – Flying Chariot

    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.”

  • British Airways (Heathrow T5 to Chengdu)

    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.

  • Flights – Bucharest to Heathrow T5 (British Airways)

    Flights – Bucharest to Heathrow T5 (British Airways)

    With my time to Bucharest over for this year (or at least I have no plans to return this year), my flight back was the BA887 service from the Romanian capital to London Heathrow T5.

    I don’t always see the British Airways aircraft landing whilst waiting to go back to London, indeed I very rarely see it due to the layout of airports, but I did today. Here’s the aircraft landing in Bucharest, just a few minutes late. The aircraft is an Airbus A320, registration G-TTNH, introduced to the BA fleet from new in January 2019.

    The boarding process was well managed, Groups 1-3 boarded first in what seemed an organised little arrangement, then Groups 4 and 5. The staff members were friendly, it was all quite a relaxed affair.

    I had an exit row seat by the window. I’m going off these exit rows a little as I have to put my bag into the overhead lockers, and I like it being nearby. Anyway, there wasn’t too much pressure on the overheads today and so it wasn’t a difficulty. The seat next to me was kept clear, which is a handy feature of FLY, with a gold status member in the aisle seat, and my lesser status by the window.

    The flight was free from any issues, which is just how I like them. I fell asleep for about an hour, watched everything I’d downloaded from Netflix and then, a few minutes early, the aircraft was ready to land. The crew and pilot announcements were all professional and timely, but I miss the drop-down screens as it was nice to see how much progress we’d made. I think on airlines with wi-fi fitted that this information is freely available, but this wasn’t a wi-fi enabled aircraft.

    I still don’t really like the Buy-On-Board (BOB) strategy that BA implemented, when they started to charge for food and drink in Euro Traveller. The food and drink is a little immaterial, but it allowed the crew members to engage with customers and it also broke the time up a little bit. The BOB didn’t take much during the flight, or at least, it didn’t whilst going by the rows near to me and before I fell asleep….

    The aircraft landed at A Gates and that meant just a short walk to border control without walking from B or C Gates. Very impressively, it took me less than twenty seconds from entering border control to leaving it, as there was no queue for the kiosks and my passport was processed within two seconds. Marvellous.

  • Heathrow – Ibis Heathrow

    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….

  • Flights – Heathrow T5 to Bucharest (British Airways)

    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.

  • 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.