I returned yesterday having flown BA MAN-LGW and return. The aircraft used was a 737-500, which although quite comfortable, had seen better days. The leather seats were worn and needed to be re-covered. The in-flight service was very good and for once, exceeded my expectations. We recieved a hot breakfast on both outbound and return secors and very nice it was too. Glad to see BA still serving food and free tea and coffee even on these short domestic sectors.
The only criticism I had was both flight departed around 20 minutes behind schedule. Do any flight depart at the advertised times? It didnt really matter much to me but I can imagine its pretty annoying for connecting passengers and those all-important business travellers!
By: wysiwyg - 1st September 2004 at 23:20
I’m never able to figure out what is meant by the departure time. If a flight is due to depart at 1.30pm for example, does that mean that it will push back at 1.30pm, or should it be on the runway at 1.30pm, ready for takeoff?
As for a 20 minute delay… when you consider that an hour is assigned for such a short flight, a delayed departure doesn’t really matter. When the flight is complete in 40 minutes or so anyway, you only arrive one or two minutes behind schedule.
Departure time is when you push off the gate.
By: mongu - 31st August 2004 at 21:27
LGW is a comparative delight compared to Thiefrow. The sheer joy of being able to deplane at the terminal and take a v.short walk to the gate for your connecting flight is great.
In many ways I’m saddened by all the LHR mania, and the lack of real expansion at LGW.
By: T5 - 31st August 2004 at 20:19
I’m never able to figure out what is meant by the departure time. If a flight is due to depart at 1.30pm for example, does that mean that it will push back at 1.30pm, or should it be on the runway at 1.30pm, ready for takeoff?
As for a 20 minute delay… when you consider that an hour is assigned for such a short flight, a delayed departure doesn’t really matter. When the flight is complete in 40 minutes or so anyway, you only arrive one or two minutes behind schedule.
By: bmi-star - 31st August 2004 at 17:50
Now if only BA did singles :rolleyes: 😉
By: Mark L - 31st August 2004 at 17:30
Big Violin type thing. This girl had one and wanted it in the cabin with her (I think they had even bought/reserved it a seat from what I could make out) and it needed securing with one of those extender-seatbelt things, however they needed to get an engineer to do it for some reason!
By: Bmused55 - 31st August 2004 at 17:06
unsecured Celo?
wth is Celo?
By: Mark L - 31st August 2004 at 16:34
No Avros at LGW any more, only 2 146s go there now, one from the Isle of Man and one from Inverness, both based at the destination and not LGW.
By: danairboy - 31st August 2004 at 14:14
BA are building on the hard work done by AirEurope and DanAir in building a scheduled network from LGW
I saw lots of Avro RJs at LGW and would have loved to have been on one of those instead of the 737
By: Mark L - 31st August 2004 at 14:09
I did a similar trip to you last week, LGW-AMS-LGW and much preferred LGW to LHR. We experienced a small delay due to an unsecured Cello in the cabin :rolleyes: but other than that everything seemed to run far more efficiently than the Heathrow operation. We departed AMS 10 minutes early as we weren’t left waiting for any passengers to show, and got onto stand about 5 minutes ahead of schedule.
The 737 fleet is soon to be replaced, and when the buses come online hopefully they can really present a true Heathrow alternative at Gatwick.
By: Bmused55 - 31st August 2004 at 13:48
All the flights I have been on recently (within the last 4 years) have always departed ahead of schedule or dead on time.
Only exception being the inaugeral Air-Scotland.com flight. The CEO spent too long thanking us all for coming along etc and welcome aboard etc.
By: Pablo - 31st August 2004 at 13:44
The only criticism I had was both flight departed around 20 minutes behind schedule. Do any flight depart at the advertised times? It didnt really matter much to me but I can imagine its pretty annoying for connecting passengers and those all-important business travellers!
I have departed 5 minutes early with easyJet (LPL-MAD) approx 4 years ago. We touched down 35 minutes ahead of schedule, which is quite impressive on such a short route. Return flight was also on time.
By: Bmused55 - 31st August 2004 at 13:42
must have been a good flight.
Its brought you out of retirement and back to posting here 🙂
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August 31, 2004 at 1:28 pm