Well I’ve just had 2 excellent flights with BA, Heathrow to Lisbon and back. Outbound we were delayed by an hour and a half due to crew rotation (Our crew were on a delayed inbound), however we managed to get 6 people into the BA exec lounge with just 2 tickets. Free food, drink, internet access, phones, photocopy’s, newspapers etc.! As I mentioned earlier the check in was a mess with no proper queuing system at all.
We borded our A319 G-EUPT on stand 27L and had the short taxi out to RWY27R. After departure out to SAM, over the channel islands and the Bay of Biscay and down over Porto to Lisbon.
Superb onboard service as usual, and we disembarked at Lisbon very quickly due to the size of the place, and went off to enjoy two weeks of sun, sea and surf!
Yesterday we had to return the hire car by 1:00PM, and our flight wasn’t until 6, however BA staff had no problems checking us in at 2, giving us a perfect view of flight operations at Lisbon Intl. We watched our plane for the return come down and taxi in next to us (A320 G-EUUE) and we borded and departed 20 minutes early.
Due to the weather we were given a Monte Real departure instead of the usual Fatima one, but that gave us a nice view of the airport as we climbed out. Suberb service from a superb cabin crew ensued, and we climbed up to Fl360.
We got some moderate turbulence there, and the captain went down to 350, before going all the way up to 380 where the air was a lot calmer. Perfect weather until we hit the coast of England, where the overcast thunderclouds didn’t look too pleasant!
We came into the OCK hold in good visability, and in the first turn I was presented with a wonderful view of Heathrow itself, a few turns later and we were in the storm clouds, being buffeted and dropped like never before, we then made what I assume was an autoland on 09L, and taxiied out to remote holding by 27R while we waited for our stand to become available (We were 20 minutes early remember)
We then came up to stand 148 and parked half on it. There was no marshaller! We had to wait for 10 minutes for one to come before we could park up!
Once we had initaly stopped everyone stood up to get their backs, but the F/A subtley reminded everyone the seatbelt signs were still on, as we lurched forward! Quite a few embarressed faces!
As always two very good flights with BA, just the check in going out marred that initial flight.
By: T5 - 25th August 2003 at 20:08
Nice report.
I flew an A319 of British Airways last year and liked it. It was G-EUPV and we flew to Barcelona on it. Unfortunately, the return flight was on just a 737-400 G-DOCM.
This year, at Bologna, I watched our British Airways 737-400 G-BVNN landing from Gatwick. Within 15 minutes of landing, the aircraft was boarding for it’s return flight to London.
By: steve rowell - 25th August 2003 at 01:23
Good report, you should get a job with BA public relations dept
By: A330Crazy - 24th August 2003 at 15:46
A good report Mark, and its nice to see that you had a good experiance with BA. 🙂
Cheers
By: Mark L - 24th August 2003 at 12:18
Yes, the approach was really nice. We landed on 03 and took off on 21, so we got the same view of the city twice. My most scenic view from a plane, but thats not saying much!
By: Polar Impact - 24th August 2003 at 11:54
Hi
Great to read of your report – I flew the same route on the same airline about 2 years ago…although I didn’t think the crew on either flight were as good as on yours, they still got us there safely, and that’s what counts!
cheers
p.s. we had a great approach into LIS, in over the bay/river, then over this sort of aqueduct – really very scenic!
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August 24, 2003 at 11:46 am