It's not a junket really

[simongr]

Grantly Adams International Airport

I have been to hell and survived but I am scarred so badly scarred (ok you are now comparing me to Paris Hilton as a prima donna but roll with it guys). This transit has to be the epitome of a clusterfrack. I get off the plane and look for the transit lounge (pah) and find my options are “Three hour transits” and “other”. So I fill my forms in proceed to the queue as I have 4 hours 30 mins. At immigration I am asked for my itinerary – being a bit lazy I tell them I have my BP for my next flight (never ever do this again ever) so I am told “Go back out………..” so I am now confused. After another 10 mins in a random queue I am put back into the main terminal with NO lounge – the lounge is landside.

I spend an hour or so in the paid bar (yup there is only one in this new terminal and building work is still ongoing). I comfort myself knowing that NM would have liked the bar due to the availability of JW Blue and Tscharke would be happy with the Heineken

I am very impressed by the free wireless internet (Sydney take notice – mind you LAX, JFK, LGW, LHR take notice) in the main departure lounge. I settle myself in for a watch of the cricket for an hour or so and do some work before I hit the (paid) bar. It’s back to departures – I watch some TV on the lappie and charge it up a little. I then mooch towards the gate and the screaming starts. Now I am not kid friendly (actually I am not parent friendly – they should be able to control their kids – many many other parents have fantastic kids that just sit and play and make the airport a place to smile as you see how they are excited by the trip). Now normally I can cope but this but the kid is out of this world. He even drowns out the incredibly loud PA system (which they use in lieu of a proper notification system – you know a screen that shows flight departures etc. After about 10 mins of the “screaming abdabs”the kid is brought into the pod of seats I am in. I have been raising my eyebrows for a few mins but as soon as mother brings screaming kid into the pod I get up and walk away. There are a few eyebrows raised this but hey its that or I feel like Trotsky and his icepick.

The flight is delayed and I know that. The flight crew are now on board and boarding is impending but to get away from screaming boy I am half way down the terminal when I hear “Can mr. simongr please come to the information desk”. Now I know this flight is only two class so this can’t be good news. In actual fact its brilliant news of a sort. Strangely AA do not have an agreement to interline baggage at BGI so my bags have been sat on the carousel for the past 4 hours waiting for me. I now have 10 mins to collect bags, recheck bags, go through security and board the flight. To say I am irked is to say that Pompeii was a little warm once. I rush through and have to say that the BGI ground staff who walked me through is great – but I eventually got through and rushed onto the aircraft. I am normally very early onto the aircraft so I have time to relax and enjoy – this time it was “Bring me my fracking champagne and frack off”. I have been happier. This was not endearing me to experimental DONE4 flights…

I reflect that in fact if I had know all this I would have collected baggage and gone to the landside lounge and had a fantastic BGI experience – you live and learn :/

 

[simongr]

Journey – BGI-LGW
Flight no. – BA2152
Class – Business
Seat – 3A

After the initial stress getting onboard the experience is not too bad. It does feel crowded in the full business class section – moreso than on CX and QF. I am still not at one with the New Club World seats (not the New New Club World Seats that my colleague got on his JFK-LHR flight as he gloatingly emailed me). Yes you can lie flat but being 6’ 2” I am just a little too tall. I also find them very hard so not a wonderful experience.

Dinner is passable and I am in fact asleep before the cheese course! The service was nice – it’s the little touches that make a difference to me. Simply being called by my name is nice – especially when they don’t have to refer to the passenger manifest in front of me.

I wake up and check my watch and I think it’s about 45 mins to landing – I didn’t sleep that well but I got some shut eye. The flight attendant who has been looking after me (well the one that could actually see – I think I was invisible to some of the others) offers me a cup of tea and bacon roll – now I know I am on BA!

The landing is interesting – not flying with a window seat that often I don’t often look out the window. It’s interesting to see the number of other aircraft in the air around us. It’s almost like a graceful peaceful ballet. We take quite a while to land but finally after a few circuits we are on the ground.

It seems like a long walk to immigration but I am first through (I had to step through, over, past a few people to be first but you do have to separate the wheat from the chaff ) and down to baggage collection. Where I wait and wait and see the people I walked over pick up their bags and drift away. I can sense some of you are thinking that there is an element of poetic justice here

Finally I have my bags and I queue to get through customs – for some reason there is a horrendous queue but eventually I am in a cab to go and babysit for my brother’s kids. Tomorrow is another day of flying. I don’t feel badly jetlagged and doze a little in the afternoon (England’s batting performance would be enough to put a squirrel on speed to sleep) and seem to again have successfully shifted my body clock.

 

[simongr]

Journey – LGW-PFO
Flight no. – BA6842
Class – Club Europe
Seat – 1A

Since when did Gatwick airport become a zoo? I know it’s the first day of the school holidays in the UK but it’s a nightmare. The queue for business class check in was 45 mins until they took out a few people who were getting late for their flight. Coupled to that the baggage conveyor wasn’t working so all bags were being mandhandled – I honestly can say that I have had better experiences.

The lounge wasn’t much of an improvement – level 4 Terraces was a kidzone and I couldn’t find the “better selection of food and drink”. I was able to find a working power point (in the middle of a walkway so I had to put some chairs around it to stop people killing themselves), connected to Skype and had a chat to wife and mother. A nice glass of champagne and I have started to relax.

Now I know that priority boarding doesn’t exist so I join the gate lice and wait for the scramble. They seem to be running a little late but eventually boarding is called and to my surprise business and status PAX board first – small relief but a good one.

Onboard Club Europe is astonishingly small and I realise that my 1A seat choice was not my best choice – the lack of leg room is a killer. I start to write a couple of trip reports to catch up a little and then dinner arrives. I think the entrée (appetizer for the yanks) is Tandoori chicken with green goo – and after eating I am still not sure what it was.

Dinner is beef in horseradish sauce and despite being scorchingly hot is ok. I actually get into a conversation with the person next to me who is also a frequent flyer. After a while we are on descent into Paphos and a rather unexceptional flight is over.

I pick up some duty free and wait and wait for my bags (time for an email to oneworld regarding that concept of priority baggage). I finally now will be able to offload all the stuff I have been carrying for my parents so at least the bags will be lighter going home.

I have two full days in Cyprus before I am finally homeward bound…

 

[simongr]

Apologies for the delays in finishing this - been sick as a pig since I got home - I hope to finish this today.

S

 

[simongr]

Journey – LCA-LHR
Flight no. – BA663
Class – Club Europe
Seat – 3A

After a couple of days in Cyprus I am finally really homeward bound. I feel on the Sunday like I am getting a little flu – this is not what I want but I know by the time I get home I am going to be “as sick as a pig”. Hopefully I wont spend my time onboard infecting people and keeping them awake with coughing and spluttering.

I get to LCA to find that they have enhanced the terminal – well it has new doors at least! Inside it’s still the same. My bags are now considerably lighter, having offloaded the gifts and extra luggage that my parents asked me to carry back to Cyprus for them but as I check in and see that the luggage is tagged “short stop at LHR – terminal change” I ask for priority luggage tags to be told “No, that will only confuse them”. I can’t be bothered to argue and maybe he is right so it’s not worth the risk given LHR’s alleged reputation for lost bags.

Inside LCA terminal it’s clear that there are major renovations going on. I am quite concerned for my onboard safety though as I don’t have to remove my laptop from my bag before x-ray screening – what if there is something dangerous inside – how will I be protected? My concerns die down as I make my way up to the lounge. This is not a OW lounge but a Cyprus Airways lounge. Since I was last here they have significantly reduced the size of the smoking area in the lounge from 50% to about 5%. However they seem to have increased the use of cigars by about 1,000% so although I can get a cold beer the smell is off putting. Thankfully the Budapest flight leaves after about 30 minutes of this and the atmosphere in the lounge thins to just about choking rather than suffocating. On reflection my cavalier attitude to travel is starting to creep in as I see that the flight is on final boarding as I reach for a third beer – I must start to pay more attention (more on that later). A quick walk to the gate and I find the Bus option is being used. The less said about bus transfers the better.

The window seat is not a great choice again but at least I am now learning what I want from my seating. At least this time I have somewhere to put my bag so I can easily grab my computer to watch TV on the laptop during the flight. Club Europe is being reinforced for me as basically somewhere between WT and WT+ - it really is a very poor business class. I hate to think what’s happening behind the curtain in whY.

Another flight and another G&T – again a little bottle of Gin rather than a poured gin – I am increasingly realising how spoilt I am when I fly long haul J. The prawn salad appetiser is ok but I am not a fan of tabouleh so it’s a little small. The cheese is ok (Emmental and blue) but not special.

The flight is pretty boring as I don’t avail myself of the IFE – mainly because I don’t do main screen viewing any more (again with being spoilt). I get my first indication of some future laptop issues as the battery dies after only about 45 minutes of TV watching – this is not a good thing.

I have a very clear plan on this sequence of flights that I must sleep LCA-LHR, stay awake LHR-HKG and sleep HKG-SYD (still hoping for that points upgrade to F). My plan is intended to make it so that I will get to Sydney not too exhausted and have reset my body clock. So far this isn’t working as I glug down the wine on this flight and am pretty much wide awake (I do grab about 10 minutes sleep).

After a few hours we are told by the pilot that we are likely to be delayed getting into LHR only to be told to buckle up for landing about 30 seconds later (someone must know how much I want to get to the CX lounge).

On landing I am the only person in the security queue for flight connections and it just takes 20 minutes from landing to lounge – take that KiwiFlyer and the for 70 minutes at LHR (mind you in all honesty it was exceptionally quick and I would not bank on that happening again – so I will be following the guidance of travellers much more experienced than me).

I am disappointed to find a lack of WiFi at the CX lounge and although it’s nice and peaceful it just isn’t up to the standard of the Pier. I hadn’t been able to pick up my BP for my QF (HKG-SYD) flight at LCA but the chap at the counter sorted it for me (usual great service – “Mr Simongr please get yourself and drink I will come and find you when I have your BP”). The seat selection is forward aisle – second row upstairs on the 747.

Sadly there are no bubbles on offer in the lounge so I make do with a couple of Heineken (toasting Tscharke as I drink). Also sadly they aren’t televising the cricket in the lounge – but on reflection that isn’t a bad thing.

 

[simongr]

Journey – LHR-HKG
Flight no. – CX254
Class – Business
Seat – 11K

After a while in the lounge I make my way to the gate. We are going from a gate I haven’t been to before (I mean realistically how many gates have I been to at LHR – I am not that much of a flyer yet) and I find T3 a little drab and boring.

At the gate I skip past the queues to the elite boarding lane – only to find that after swiping the BP we are then stuck at the gate for another 10-20 mins. Finally we board and there is more elite boarding – after some crew who are dead heading are allowed to board.

On board I realise I have a window seat but thankfully there is a shorty next to me so I will be able to step over the little fella if needed (it was only needed once). Finally though the most important element of boarding is confirmed – they give me a glass of champagne – my first since my flight BGI-LHR and this time I am actually relaxed.

We seem to have a hugely long taxi to runway 09R and I note NBII (although why I wrote that down have no idea) as always with a long taxi I chortle to myself the oft used joke “Blimey Charlie it feels like we are going to drive all the way there” – you know in my head it’s much, much funnier. There is however no oneworld welcome (I am beginning to think that the outbound flight was an aberration and I will have to wait until I am emerald until I get the welcome).

On board is a delightful G&T – in their lovely little purple glasses. Just enough for a nice taste but not so much that it has to be quaffed before dinner is served. I am not massively hungry for this flight and I am very focussed on my “grand sleeping plan” – so I nibble at the prawns for appetiser (c’mon who actually buys prawns in the UK – they are tiny and hugely expensive so as a spoilt AussiePom I think an alternative could have been provided ). I have the chicken in black bean which is nice – I am now 2/3 for eating the asian option on CX.

I try to not to have too much wine as I am focussed on not sleeping on this flight. I do however realise that I am a little tired so after a little more TV on the laptop I aim for 4-5 hours sleep.

I wake up to a small breakfast – but by this point my body clock is so stuffed that I am not sure what to eat so I just nibble at a bi of fruit and cereal.

I am increasingly getting sick of my power options on CX (and AA/BA) as I noted before that I have my dell power pack plus a Targus empower/cigarette converter plus my international plug – I am determined to change when I get home (that’s another rigmarole but getting closer to resolution finally).

We seem to have a very long descent and back track a few times and we land through clouds so on landing all I can see is water and not much else – it’s a little unnerving but I don’t often worry about death during flight/on impact so I keep reading my book (mind you that is pretty slow going – Robert Jordan – Wheel of Time, the first few chapters are mind numbing).

Finally we are here in HKG and I steel myself to the tortuous transfer process (that I experienced on my first flight of this trip – that seems a very long, long time ago now) in the knowledge that I will soon be in the Pier (only J Pier still) and those noodles are calling.

 

[simongr]

Journey – HKG-SYD
Flight no. – QF128
Class – Business
Seat – 12C(?)

HOMEWARD BOUND – I WISH I WAS HOMEWARD BOUND

This is it – it’s the final countdown, I’ll soon be leaving on a jet plane and I will be home for a week. To my delight my trip through security is very quick and I am in the Pier shortly after landing. I want to call mrssimongr, freshen up and get something to eat before seeing if I should explore the QF lounge (never been there and I need to change my FF number as I note the BP has my QFF number) and the Wing (never been there also). There is a lot to get through but I have plenty of time as my BP says boarding at 21:10 for a 21:30 departure (this is very important later).

In the Pier for the first I find the Long Bar. When I was here in the J lounge before I wondered why everyone raved as the beer selection was pretty poor – just some canned beer near the noodle bar. I perhaps should have looked right as I turned into the lounge and I would have seen the massive marble topped bar before

I have a really great shower in the lounge – it even gives me some ideas regarding shower design when I come to build my own place (still 5 years away). I am feeling a lot more human after the shower but I know I am going to be sick this weekend. The flu is building inside me.

I have my first noodles from the noodle bar (I desperately want to run into the F lounge and see if they have any of my favourite BBQ buns). The wonton soup is nice but scaldingly hot and the noodles aren’t great – so perhaps it wasn’t my best choice.

I decide to watch a little TV on the laptop and realise I left my international charger on the previous plane – ARGGGGGGGGGGGHHH so I am on battery power. When that finally dies (a little sooner than expected which foreshadows my need for a new battery a few days after landing) I decide to explore HKG. MY objectives are to find the QF lounge and the Wing. Now as a relative newbie to HKG I actually find it hard to navigate and after about 40 mins of walking I finally find the QF lounge but still haven’t found the J entrance to the Wing. A quick stroll around the QF lounge reveals that my selection of the Pier is a good one – except it is much closer to the QF gate. I get my BP updated (well they change the number in the system but refuse to give me a new BP even though I have been sat on this one for 15 hours and it’s a bit ragged.

I can now see the J entrance to the Wing and I estimate it’s a 10 minute walk. It’s now 8PM so I have plenty of time to wander over there. In the Wing I am a little disappointed – it seems more cramped than the Pier. I set up the laptop (with replacement power adapter and grab a beer). At about 20:40 I reckon its time for a second beer. As I wander up to the short bar I grab a quick look at the departure screen and am a little surprised to see that my flight is in Final boarding. That can’t be right I still have 20 mins to boarding. Just to be sure I take a look at the boarding pass and see that the boarding time is 20:10 with a 21:10 departure!!!!!! It’s time to scarper!

I grab my gear, finish my current beer (well you can’t let it go to waste – that would be irresponsible) and run/walk to the other end of the terminal. I get there and no-one is remaining to board and I think I glimpse my name on a board as I run to the gate – well at least there are no queues on boarding – it’s like my own personal elite lane

On board the plane is full but the staff are great – there are no semi-surly staff glaring at me for being late – just someone taking my jacket and offering me champagne. So far this is the best QF flight in a while.

We are actually a little delayed on departure as the ATC need to go to manual which means 6 minutes between take offs. This delays us 35 mins but gives the crew time to hand out the new J amenity kits. I am conflicted by these. Whilst I think it’s great to minimise waste by only handing out the stuff people want (personally I only use the facial products or give them to mrssimongr – the rest is dumped) it just looks cheap and tacky.- maybe they could do it like the breakfast menu, pick the bits you want and then they can hand them out rather than running a trolley of it all.

With my time waiting for take I am able to reflect on what I prefer as a J seat and frankly the Skybed is the best of the bunch for me. Perhaps it’s a little nostalgia as the Skybed was my first business class experience but I just find them more comfortable than the rest. They feel more spacious than CX and I really, really hate Club World (I wont rate the AA domestic F and J seats or Club Europe).

We push back at 21:35 and I am amused to hear that we have a German CSM – not sure why that is amusing but it has been a long trip.

The rest of the flight is a blur – I think that they take food orders by status as across my four seats they ask for food choices 1-3-2-4 in that order and sneaking a look the pax next to me looks like a WP. I can feel that I am getting sicker and slightly more depressed that I am ending a massive trip like this again.

The food was ok – the service was good but this is a flight that I am too sick and tired to enjoy this flight and it’s a real shame because I think this was the best flight on QF for a while – especially international J.

Finally we land into SYD. I am pretty quick off the plane and I can see that other aircraft are disembarking so it’s elbows out, head down and a brisk walk to duty free. Two bottles of vintage moet (to restock the cellar after Christmas and House moving decimated the stock) and I am into the “express duty free lane” which works pretty well. I see my flight companion stuck in the queue for a while after I am through to baggage collection. It’s the usual story here – my bags are not even close to priority but at least for once they are not last.

The queue to clear customs is a monster – about 20-25 mins queuing just to see a customs officer and even then all bags have to be x-rayed. The upside is that “Border Protection” is being filmed so if my contraband is discovered at least I will get to be TV (“Hi Mum”). Seeing the x-rays queues I happily declare that I have goods to declare – in fact it’s just four boxes of tea bags – but they are still food At the customs counter the staff are very pleasant and ask what I have to declare:

Customs: So sir where are you coming from today?
Simongr: Umm, Hong Kong, well Cyprus via London and Hong Kong
C: That’s quite a trip
S: Yup it sure is
C: So sir what have you to declare?
S: A few boxes of tea bags
C: Is that it?
S: Yup
C: No chocolates for easter, gifts for the wife?
S: Nope – I really have a sad existence don’t I
C: Yup – off you go

So finally I hand over my bags to the driver and it’s off home. I get to go through the new Tunnel that has just been built in Sydney and it cuts my travel time home from 50 mins (on the way there) to about 35 mins – well worth the toll when we start to pay it.

I have two more trips on this DONE4 but they are just a simple SYD-BNE-SYD weekender with mrssimongr. Generally a pleasant trip but not really worth a report. It’s amazing for me how far I have come that a return flight to Brisbane in Business Class is not that impressive!

But now I am home and I get to spend 4 days sleeping and recovering from my flu and the trip. I am home for at least 5 weeks before I am up into Asia that is another story….

 

[simongr]

Reflections on an expedition[/b

I thought on finishing this trip I might reflect on my experiences as a whole. To put it all in context again (given I assume people wont scroll up to the first post to get my back story) I changed jobs in May 2006. At that point I was QF PS/QP and had spent the past two years doing trips around rural NSW on REX and QF. I had never flown real international business class (only QF SYD-AKL-SYD). Since then I have flown:

SYD-LAX-DFW-PIT-LGA,JFK-LHR-SIN-SYD
SYD-AKL-SYD
SYD-BKK-SYD-AKL-LAX-JFK-LHR-LCA-LHR-HKG-SYD
SYD-SIN-SYD
SYD-HKG-TPE-NRT-HKG-SYD
SYD-HKG-LAX-MIA-MCO-LGA,JFK-BGI-LGW-PFO,LCA-LHR-HKG-SYD-BNE-SYD

By any comparison that’s a reasonable amount of flying

So what have I learnt over the past year? For a start I still have a lot to learn the main thing is that before you embark on a new career that changes your flight patterns make sure you do a bit of research so that you don’t end up mid-tier status (currently QF SG and AA Plat) on two programs.

But my main reflections are that for me with that amount of flying, the benefits of status are really very, very important. Flying that much is hard work and repetitive so anything that makes it smoother is fantastic. It relaxes you before and during the flight and turns a bus ride into a journey. More importantly, when those benefits are removed (e.g. the lack of priority boarding lanes on AA or the lack of priority boarding of any sort on some BA flights) it really throws you.

One massive driver for me is to hit that EXP mark as soon as I can, I really don’t think I can face a trip through LAX without flagship lounge access and I want to experience the new F lounge in SYD (if it ever gets finished) and most importantly I need to get back into the F lounge at the Pier!

My bugbear is my absolute disappointment with Club World – I just can’t stand those seats. The problem is that they are better than AA across the Atlantic but given the no points travelling BA across the pond I have to make matters worse by flying to BGI – and there is no New Club World on there – a few suggestions please!!!

My final learning is that I really need to research and document my research more about my transits. The BGI “fiasco” was one purely of my own making and a little bit more research would help. Given some more experimental trips on my way to/from Europe this July I need to make sure there are no more surprises.

Well that’s it – this is “Chocka Bloke Checking Out” – thanks for reading and be ready for the next adventure – simongr eats pigeon heads in China!!!

 

[Kiwi Flyer]

On landing I am the only person in the security queue for flight connections and it just takes 20 minutes from landing to lounge – take that KiwiFlyer and the for 70 minutes at LHR (mind you in all honesty it was exceptionally quick and I would not bank on that happening again – so I will be following the guidance of travellers much more experienced than me).

Nice luck. I had similar good luck at LAX, where my transit was a full hour less than I expected, which was great since I had wondered how I could squeeze in shower at the only available place in a 2 day flying sequence. Fly often enough and eventually bound to get lucky.


Thanks for the nice report simongr - hope you get better soon (if not already).

 

[simongr]

Thanks - back to 100% now - hopefulyl I wont be so run down before my Asia trip.