Nobody likes a connecting flight, especially when there are non-stop services available between the cities. I recently flew from Amsterdam to Dublin via London Heathrow rather than flying straight through, which might sound like a strange thing to do.
Aer Lingus, KLM and Ryanair all fly non-stop between Amsterdam and Dublin and indeed I took Aer Lingus on the outbound. For the return, I wanted to fly business class and so I elected to fly British Airways, which required a stop at London Heathrow.
Amsterdam to Dublin via London
British Airways closed their Amsterdam lounge for good during the pandemic, which is a real shame. The Aspire Lounge they now use is closed for renovation, somewhat ironically as this is being done to expand into the space next door, formerly occupied by the BA lounge. Passengers are being directed to Café Flor instead. I had some water there and eventually headed to my gate.
BA435 – Amsterdam to London Heathrow (AMS-LHR)
23 July 2023
Airbus A320 – G-EUUA
Seat: Club Europe 1A
Departure: 15:00 Arrival: 15:15
Afternoon tea flights are my favourite and I made sure I selected that service on the first leg of my Amsterdam to Dublin via London trip. Meal service features a trio of gourmet finger sandwiches, a scone with jam and cream and dessert.
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- Afternoon tea on British Airways.
As usual this meal was quite delicious and we landed at London Heathrow without incident. Next, I spent an hour or so in the Galleries First Class lounge before it was time to board the connecting flight back home.
BA824 – London Heathrow to Dublin (LHR-DUB)
23 July 2023
Airbus A320 – G-EUUO
Seat: Club Europe 1A
Departure: 17:35 Arrival: 19:05
This time the choices on board were a Caprese salad (tomato and mozzarella) and something that had more grain. I went for the tomatoes as I was feeling like something moist to eat over something that sounded more dry.
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- A lovely Caprese salad.
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- Nuts!
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- Champagne and water.
A lovely meal all round and I appreciated the mousse type dessert as well. For a flight of an hour, it is quite appropriate, though I would say for dinner time it would be nice to have something hot. There’s only so much salad you can eat!
Overall Thoughts
Some people think I am quite mad to fly from Amsterdam to Dublin via London, but I really enjoy eating on a flight. Usually the food quality is excellent, perhaps moreso when it’s a salad as it’s always very fresh.
That plus a virtual guarantee of excellent service from the British Airways crews made it an easy choice for me. Of course, I was influenced by the fact I could use my British Airways Executive Club Avios for the trip rather than paying for it, which made it even better value.
Do you ever fly via another city instead of taking the non-stop service? How come you do it? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please let me know.
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Featured image by Kiefer on Flickr via Wikimedia Commons.
I can’t imagine adding 4 hours to a journey just to have a plate of cheese lol
Hahaha! A fair point!
I flew CDG-LHR-BRU a few mos ago. I was staying near CDG and it was easier than train so I did it. Easy cxn and went to galleries first lounge as well as OWE
Yes, it’s nice when you’re OWE so you can do that. Thanks for that – seems like I’m definitely not the only one!
I’ve flown AMS-LHR-CDG (was chasing OneWorld status) and I’d probably never do it again because of delays and misconnects, it took over 12 hours. From an immigration perspective it’s also funny since you are getting stamped out of the EU and then stamped back into the EU upon arrival at your final destination when really you technically never left the EU.
12 hours! Yikes! It still takes a hell of a lot of time when it all goes right, as you have to connect, re-clear security at London Heathrow and all of that palaver. It’s not something I’ll be doing again, especially at the end of a trip. I’d rather just get home. Nice to see I’m not the only one who has done it though!