Never get the last flight of the night if you can avoid it. This British Airways service was late and I was absolutely not in the mood for it at all. Luckily there were blinis served on the flight, so that made up for things slightly.
I’d flown in from Helsinki and had four hours in between flights, thanks to a schedule which still isn’t as frequent as it once was. Since I landed in Terminal 3, I had to do the Heathrow shuffle and get on a bus to Terminal 5, then go through security again (sigh) before popping out the other side.
Yummy Lounge Food
One good thing that came out of the pandemic was the ability to order food to your table in the British Airways First Class lounge at London Heathrow. Of course, we’re back to normal now and that is sadly no more.
Delays, Delays
Already mildly irritated with myself that I’d flown back via London with a four hour layover, I was even less impressed when the flight was delayed by an hour.
Heathrow Airport makes you wait for a gate, so it means constant checking of the screens, especially when delayed. It’s a real pain in the backside to be getting up every 5-10 minutes to see if the great unwashed (us passengers) have been given permission to know the gate yet.
Eventually a B gate popped up on the screen, and several people left the lounge, including me. I arrived at the lifts at the same time as possibly every other passenger on the flight, and this seething mass of humanity waited for lifts, got to the Transits, packed into one and all sort of arrived in T5B around the same time.
BA826 – London Heathrow to Dublin (LHR-DUB)
2 August 2023
Airbus A320neo – G-TTNO
Seat: Club Europe 1A
Departure: 21:05 Arrival: 22:05
Mercifully boarding was done by groups and quite soon after we arrived at the gate. Once on board, I sat down and prayed people would get on fast so we could go. Rubbing salt in the wound was that we were on a NEO, which meant no middle table in Club Europe, which removes some of the lustre on board.
Time for Blinis!
Dublin passengers know the drill, so we were on quickly, received our apology from the pilots, the crew did the safety demo and after less taxiing than I expected, we headed off into the night sky for Dublin. Shortly after that, the crew offered the business class passengers a choice of meals and I went for the salmon option. I’m glad I did!
Overall Thoughts
Naturally I inhaled all the food and we landed safely – you’d have heard about it if not. As usual the on board service from the crew, not to mention the food, made using my points for business class well worth it. The crew also thanked me for being one of their most regular flyers in a really natural way while pouring me another glass of champagne, so that was nice.
The delay was a knock on from earlier in the day (aren’t they always) and the crew were apologetic. It was still really annoying though (I missed the bus I had booked and had to get a Taxi home), and the whole “run to the B gates” late in the piece wasn’t fun for anyone either. Still, blinis, so all’s well that ends well.
Have you had the blinis before when flying British Airways? What do you think of them? Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please leave them below.
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