EDI-LHR-ATL Part 1: EDI-LHR

A group of friends and I decided to attend Dragon*Con this year. In fact, we decided last year.
After registering for attendance to the convention, we got together and manage to book rooms at one of the host hotels. It should be stressed that the three host hotels usually sell out of rooms in a matter of hours. In 2010, the booking for the 2011 event lasted only 6 hours before all rooms were booked up. And we’re talking thousands of rooms. One hotel alone has around 4000.

So, with that in place, I took advantage of the January 2011 sale at BA.com and booked my flights:

BA1447 EDI-LHR
BA227 LHR-ATL
BA226 ATL-LHR
BA1446 LHR-EDI

I’ll do this in four parts.
Photos a few and far between unfortunately.

BA 1447 – EDI-LHR – 31/08/11 – Scheduled Departure: 07:05

It was a very early rise, 04:30 for a 05:30 pick up.
It was dark outside, but I could see some mist hanging in the air.
It wasn’t particularly cold either. I decided to wear jeans and a t-shirt with some comfortable walking boots for the trip, I was not feeling any chill as I sat outside in the dark with my large suitcase, my roll-on and my laptop bag.
Fearful of my hold luggage getting lost, I crammed enough underwear and clothes in my roll on to last me a few days. As it turns out, this was completely unnecessary. The large suitcase to be checked in was only just in the weight limit. With 4 costumes, 3 pairs of boots, under wear, toiletries, some army webbing and utility belt and other assorted paraphernalia for my costumes, the suitcase weighed in at 22.7 kg. BA allows 23kg before fleecing you for extra cash on their international flights.

My ride to the Airport arrived promptly at 05:30.

The trip to the airport was uneventful and quick, thanks to the lack of traffic.
I had checked in online, so went to the BA self service kiosks and got my boarding pass for my connecting flight to LHR. It would not print out my pass for the Atlanta flight however.
The “Quick Bag Drop” was anything but. I stood in line for 45 minutes. There was a group of Japanese tourists up front, about 8 of them. A mixture of their lack of English and their over sized, overweight luggage had caused mayhem up front and was the reason for the slow queue delay. They were occupying 2 of the 3 desks. Once the last of them was dealt with, the queue moved quickly.
I got through security and to the departure gate with only 5 minutes to wait before boarding was announced. I was in the first wave of passengers to board, having secured myself seat 27F during check-in.
An Airbus A321-200 was waiting for us at the gate. I couldn’t make out the registration of the plane.
The boarding process was remarkably quick.
It seemed to take only 10 minutes or so.
The leather or leather effect seats were quite comfortable. The legroom was more than enough; I was able to stretch out my legs with ease.
After the customary announcements of the welcome and safety nature we headed to the runway.
However, as we turned onto the runway, the Captain came on the PA.
One of the FA’s behind me had reported the smell of electrical burning. We were returning to the gate for investigation. After the airport fire service intercepted our Airbus, they escorted us back to the gate we had just left. An engineer, the captain and the airport fire chief came down the aisle and started a discussion in the aft galley.
The captain then went up to the flight deck and announced that we would be doing an engine run at the gate to test a few systems.
After 90 minutes of engine runs, endless discussion in the aft galley and, I suspect, a forest of paperwork, we were cleared for departure again.

The flight itself was uneventful from then on so I’ll not describe it any further.
I will tell you about the hot breakfast though. It was actually very tasty. It consisted of one Cumberland sausage, 2 rashers of bacon, scrambled egg, tomatoes, tomato sauce and mushrooms, served with a little roll with butter, marmalade and orange juice. I took a photo of it, just for you lot:

There is not much else to say about the flight. I was routine and uneventful once we left Edinburgh. The landing in LHR was smooth and deboarding was quick.

I give it a 9 out of 10 rating.

I have video of the takeoff, approach and landing which I will upload and link here asap. Just need to hit Adobe Premiere with a hammer so it’ll accept the codec the video is compressed in.