Let’s Fly The BA Way… – Part II

Well, for anyone who had been eagerly waiting to hear how the rest of my trip to London and back with BA went, my apologies for the delay but I think everyone accepts that me getting work done through Christmas and the New Year while back home in Dublin was evidently not going to happen!

 

In the end of course, it’ll come as no surprise to anyone that my second drink – my benchmark test of how caring airline staff are – never actually showed up and some 30 minutes later, we came to land at Heathrow’s incredible, amazing Terminal 5. Personally, the last time I passed through the place, I really didn’t get what all the fuss was about. To me, the whole terminal is more confusing than anything else, requiring a bit of a slalom after security through a series of overpriced retail outlets and down an escalator to the actual departures area – if you’re lucky. If you’re unlucky, you then have to actually take a little train along to the right terminal of the terminal if that makes any sense (which it doesn’t, even to me and I’ve just written it). Arriving, you’ll be pleased to hear, is equally an irritation. I think arriving to somewhere is one of the best areas an airport can actually be good at, because it’s dead simple – get passengers from their plane, give them their bags, get them through passport control and customs and out the door as quickly as possible. That’s what people want – nobody’s there, after a flight, to admire the architecture or wander through corridors looking for how to get out. They just literally want to get out.

 

So I disembarked, wandered along the corridors for a few minutes before arriving at this train station (as I mentioned above) to take us from one terminal to the main terminal of Terminal 5. The train took about 7 or 8 minutes to present itself, by which time there was a number of flight-loads of passengers waiting, which wasn’t great. Then, at the other end, you go up a series of escalators for some reason, walk along a corridor, then (if you spot them) have to go back down another series of escalators to reach passport control. Where I waited 45 minutes. Somebody’s going to comment or write to me that Heathrow is a huge airport and what do I expect but no seriously, such a confusing layout and time robbery is not on at all. Example; I arrived to Frankfurt airport, also a large international airport at 19:55 last week in the midst of the New Year’s air-rush of people trying to get home and back to work. I was already standing out the front waiting for a bus by 20:17 (with my bags), and home by 20:50. Literally, it’s a model of efficiency (as you might expect from the Germans) – you get off plane, walk to passport control, the baggage belt is literally the other side of it and the bags are always already waiting and then you leave, the end. They manage it, so why can’t anywhere else? Even Dublin to be fair has made great strides in Terminal 2 with this where you get off the plane, up an escalator, and follow the same corridor to passport control, baggage, customs and even the car park without turning or changing level.

 

On the way back, things were however slightly better I suppose. I’ve gathered that Terminal 5 is one of those things I just can’t bring myself to like – it often feels designed more for aesthetics and pleasantries than actual usability. Passing through security, there’s literally just a shopping centre on the other side, which if you’ve any sense, you’ll skip right through. The only shop we did want to actually buy anything from was the WH Smith, and the queue there literally snaked from the checkout down past the drinks, looping around fiction somewhere and back to the entrance. Of course if I wanted to buy something from the Caviar House or whatever it’s called, I wouldn’t have had to wait even a second but it goes to show what most people actually want from an airport shop – a newspaper, drink and a bar chocolate. It actually took us so long to get these items from the shop, that we began to fear missing our flight and ended up taking off at a gallop to get down towards our gate, which was thankfully close by.

 

In conclusion, would I willingly choose Heathrow to transit through? Nope – I couldn’t, it’s not built to facilitate quick and fast movement around the place (or so it seems), even though Terminal 5 is a very nice building. Would I opt to deliberately go there again? I don’t know, for me, BA’s service isn’t that awe-inspiring to merit the extra few bucks travelling with them and since airspace over Heathrow always seems to be congested and causing delays, I’ll probably try Stansted or Gatwick in future and see if that’s any quicker. If anyone has any thoughts on travelling to London, the easiest or quickest ways, or comments, I’d love to hear them!

Happy New Year!

I know I haven’t written anything in quite a while – partially out of laziness, but also partially out of just having too many things to try and do before Christmas, as it always does, quickly rattled in. Anyway, after a pretty hectic year for myself and this blog, I’m really happy to bring in 2012 and wish anyone reading a Happy New Year, and what will hopefully (for all of us) be a prosperous year (I’ll let you know how that goes later in the year!).

 

Last year for me personally, was a time of pretty much all-round change in terms of moving from Malaysia back to Ireland, getting bored within about 3 weeks, and then moving on to Germany where I’ve been working in internet marketing happily ever since. While I’d like to think things will stay relatively stable for the next year, you never really know and for now, in spite of the recession/depression/rain in Ireland, it’s really lovely to be back home, even if only for a short while. And strangely, it sometimes feels like Ireland’s sort of turned a corner in terms of the ‘badness’ of the last few years – but that could be just rose-tinted spectacles and grass is greener, etc. Who knows?

 

In terms of keeping the blog going, I’ve been at this site in its varying forms, for over 3 years now and intend to keep it going, although obviously that all depends on how much time is available to put into it. And, as you’ll have seen, after 3 years of paying hosting costs out of my own pocket for it, I’ve started dabbling a bit in ways for it to maybe at least semi-fund itself. So I’m pleased to have eBookers, Expedia and Hotels.com ads on some pages, which I think makes the advertising at least more relevant and less irritating than other advertising. What do you think? Of course, I’m still always looking to hear what everyone thinks of the site, or what I could do to improve or what you’d like to see more/less of – e-mail me, andy [at] youlovethatsh.com or you can get me any of the other ways up in the menu above.

 

Anyway, I’ll be right back in a week or two with my more usual posts, but until then, have a great start into 2012!

Let’s Fly The BA Way…

A couple of years ago, the opportunity presented itself by way of sheer cheapness, to travel with British Airways from Dublin to Toronto via London Heathrow. I was excited for all the nerdy travel reasons – first up, my previous trips to Canada had been with renowned cattle-class specialists Zoom Airlines, who had since ceased to exist, and had been of a quality ranging from relatively to completely awful. Secondly, BA had only moved into the disastrously-inaugurated Terminal 5 about a year ago, and with all the problems now seemingly solved, I was keen to see this piece of aviation magnificence for my good self. Finally, BA is in theory, one of the only full-service legacy carriers still providing some degree of comfort, and since I had taken Air France to Hong Kong a few months earlier and had been suitably impressed, I was keen to see what the Brits had to offer exactly.

 

Long-time readers of You Love Thatsh will then no doubt remember that the trip, in terms of travel experience, wasn’t exactly incredible, and even though it wasn’t 100% BA’s fault, I can’t help blame them somehow for at least some of it. Firstly, in spite of any advances made for British Airways in Heathrow, the usual problems remained. Namely, flight congestion landing in Heathrow, then the ‘Irish’ gates being quite some distance from terminal 1, where the apparently land, which is in turn quite far away from BA’s home at terminal 5 and finishing at terminal 5, where nobody’s boarding card issued in their home countries was being recognised at the security screening area (and I mean nobody’s), forcing lines of people at the security screening counters, then the check-in desks, then re-joining the security line, the fronts of which now had more people trying and failing to get through. The plane ride meanwhile (the part involving BA) had three main problems from my perspective;

1. The ridiculous tightness. I asked for an additional beer and it was, on the outbound part of the flight, treated with the same enthusiasm you might treat someone asking to decant all the fuel, mid-flight, out of the plane.

2. The ridiculous heat situation. For whatever reason, the aircraft in both directions had no way individual air vents, and this coincided quite awfully with the fact that the heating was cranked right up, and we were en-route to Toronto in winter, so I was appropriately dressed.

3. The racist. I also had the very bad fortune on the way back to be sat beside an impatient racist who imparted on me his admiration for Canada and why he was considering moving there, having been there on business, because they didn’t seem to be as open to other cultures as the UK was apparently fast becoming. Then, upon our arrival in Heathrow, he was out of his seat faster than someone with explosive diarrhoea to make his connecting flight to Derry. When he realised he couldn’t actually get off, he then proceeded to verbally berate the stewardess for making the plane late; as it was surely her entire fault. Not really BA’s fault, as I say, but she then took it out on me as she knew we were sitting together and decided against saying thanks or goodbye, or whatever, when I got off, like she did with everyone else.

 

Now I don’t usually do repeats, but you can imagine that this particular story seems to be a little exceptional and not what one would normally expect. So when the opportunity presented itself to fly with BA last Friday from Frankfurt to Heathrow, I thought hey, let’s give BA and Terminal 5 a try and see if I missed something last time.

 

So here we go, user experience, Frankfurt to London. The first thing you’ll notice in Frankfurt isn’t the friendly staff waiting to greet you. On the contrary, there were two women, one dealing with someone, one on the phone. And the phone call was obviously of critical importance, because she stayed on it and didn’t acknowledge me whatsoever. I’ve been in and out of Frankfurt Airport so many times I can’t even count, but nothing remarkable there – it’s a little bit like everything in Germany, a bit bland, a touch bare but does exactly what you want it to do, which is gets you in and gets you out much faster than nearly any other large European airport I know. I can usually get home and have the coffee machine on, for example, within one hour of the plane touching down.
So, on the whole, I think it’s great.

 

Anyway, all onto the plane – the queue to get on was actually extremely long, but thankfully entertainment was generously provided by a man and his wife who were dressed like they were just returning from a shopping trip in Milan and heading home to Monaco. Their 5^th home, that is. They kept trying to queue jump me, not because they had a valid reason in particular, but because they were BA Gold members or whatever and would normally have been afforded the luxury of boarding before everyone else. Except that there was no priority boarding lane, so in the absence of that, queue jumping was obviously the next best option. I’m not sure what it is, but BA seems to keep a relatively elderly fleet of planes and it’s noticeable to be honest – but as we carried on, I let that one slip.

 

After the on-board drink was served, I decided to see if enthusiasm for second drinks was any better all these years later and so, waiting until someone actually asked if there was anything else, I made my demand and waited…would it show up? Read the Second Part now!

Have any of you had a strange travel experience, like mine with the racist? Or an airline you think is way over-rated? Leave me a comment or drop me a line, I’d love to hear…

Hello London – Part II

After what can only be described (sarcastically) as another of the most restful nights sleeps’ of my life in London, we were back up at the crack of dawn. Once again, I should emphasise, it wasn’t particularly our choice to be up at the crack of dawn – more so, somebody in the room next to us had decided to go use the toilet first thing. And as I said in the last post, all the doors were strangely spring loaded so as soon as they decided to let the door close, we were more or less resigned to getting up early.

 

So, up we go and off, once again, to the local Subway for the early breakfast special deal. London is expensive after all, and I’d much rather sacrifice the traditional British breakfast – which anyway is very similar to the traditional Irish breakfast – in favour of not spending so much.

 

We didn’t have so much time on our second day in London, so we got through the breakfast as quickly as possible and went straight out, with Anna wanting to see some of ‘real’ London this time around, so we headed off in search of Camden town and the famous market. Well, as tastes of ‘real’ London go, it was certainly that – it was so packed, that we queued about 5 minutes just to get out of the tube station, then had to try and merge with the oncoming human traffic with more care than driving on a motorway. So, surprise surprise, Camden was already packed with the streets looking like the areas around Croke Park after a GAA match. We wandered around for what must have been all of 20 minutes before getting lost, a bit frustrated and sick of looking at signs warning of pickpockets. So I’m sorry Camden town, we left almost as soon as we possibly could. But not before queuing another 5 minutes to get back into the tube station.

 

Next stop, with time getting tighter and tighter, was Notting Hill to see what it had to offer us. I won’t lie, we got off at Notting Hill (which actually looks terrible when you first emerge from the tube station), wandered down the road a bit until we came across a bunch of hardcore Russian protesters who were being steadily outnumbered by the police, then wandered back up the road a bit again until we passed the tube station going in the opposite direction. And then, quite simply, we were just out of time so we had to go back into the tube station having seen only one street of Notting Hill (but very well). We headed back in the direction of Earls Court to retrieve our luggage from the undoubtedly very safe open shed that we had been told would be fine to leave our bags in some hours earlier, and to get some lunch. Surprisingly, our luggage was still in the open shed, but that may have had more to do with the fact that the police were now swarming our former accommodation seemingly in search of a resident criminal. Yes, we truly do stay in all the classy places.

 

Moving along, the next stop was somewhere to eat, and with some money left over, we were finally able to relax a little on that front. We headed down the road from our place and came to arrive, just as the rain began to fall, at some Indian place called Masala Zone, which was really only noticeable due to the crazy artwork that was all over the inside of the place. But, as food places go, it was absolutely delicious (hence the actual mention).

 

Time was up, so bags in hand, we raced back to Heathrow as quickly as possibly as we could, checking in our bags and then seeing what else we could possibly afford in Terminal 5’s overly-expensive shops – which wasn’t much – and getting on the plane back to Frankfurt.

 

A good trip – yes; but a restful and cheap trip – absolutely not!

 

Keep an eye out in the next week or two for my review on flying with British Airways, Heathrow Airport and the missing ‘second beer’.

Hello London

For the first time in a while (excepting our various trips back and forth to Ireland), we decided to take a weekend well and truly out of Germany. Since Anna had to go to London anyway, we decided we might as well make it a full trip, and I got cheap flights with British Airways (more on that in a separate article) to Heathrow, conveniently departing right after work on Friday evening, to return early Sunday evening – perfect!

 

I won’t get into the travel experience with British Airways or Heathrow, but suffice to say it was nothing special – in other words, it was one queue after the other. Onwards to my accommodation – since Anna and I were on an extreme budget, we went for a room at some place in Earls Court beginning with Barkston. It was the cheapest place, absolutely guaranteed, with any sort of a decent location in all of London and with a double room so we didn’t have to sleep in a dorm room like we were on a secondary school trip to Irish college. To say it was luxury would be a gross overstatement – our room was at the very top of some building (which necessitated numerous flights of stairs), and the windows and doors were paper thin, allowing all noise from outside and inside contaminate our room. For added effect, we had a group of excitable Spanish students down the corridor so a restless night was almost guaranteed for the first night. And even when they did finally pipe down, there was deliveries to neighbouring buildings seemingly through the night, so there was never really a good chance to actually sleep soundly. To perfect it, the doors all had some sort of spring loading mechanism so when someone did innocently go to the toilet in the middle of the night, unless they carefully pulled the door into the doorframe again, it would absolutely slam shut practically waking the dead.

 

After a truly restless night, and with both of us involuntarily crying from so little sleep throughout the night, we took off the next morning to meet a friend of mine from many years past, who generously agreed to give of her time and bring us on a walking tour of London. We commended this grand walking tour at Trafalgar Square and took off, trying to pack in as many sights as possible, launching ourselves from the square down towards Westminster (avoiding the protests along the way for some unknown country fighting for its freedom), right along towards Buckingham Palace, into Hyde Park (to include a detour through some other park because I couldn’t possibly follow the path, given the hordes of people also out and about) and winding up for the first part of the walking tour in some frighteningly tacky attempt at a German Christmas market. Sadly, we know what a German Christmas market should look like and this poor imitation which seemed to blend the very best of stereotypes from across the world (the one or two Canadian stands seemed to rely heavily on having an oversize moose’s head sticking out the top of the stall) all into one. Funny though, all the same.

 

London is expensive, that much is for absolute certainty and in a bid to keep costs down, we then spent most of the second half of our walking tour in search for a cheap place to eat. We wandered around, incidentally seeing a number of other sights as we went, becoming increasingly desperate to avoid the ever-present Pret outlets. In the end, things got so desperate that we literally found the first place that looked halfway decent and stopped there. The rest of the walking tour was fine but for the two constants throughout the whole trip to London; everything is ridiculously expensive. Secondly, London is not a city I find to be liveable – there’s overcrowding at every turn. You queue to get out of an underground station, then you queue again to get onto the street, then queue to cross at the lights while the traffic also queue’s, then when you’re finally on the street on a path, you can’t really walk properly because there’s half a million other people also wandering aimlessly along the path. But the best example of this was our trip (momentarily) into the M&M’s store, where we somehow were going against the sea of people on our way in, and then unable to move inside the store, somehow against the sea of people again trying to get out. No matter what, it was a lose-lose situation.

 

But, after so much overcrowding and overpricing, the first pint of the evening tasted great and we had another peaceful night’s sleep to surely look forward to…

 

Continued – Hello London – Part II is Here!