Round The World and other travels

Flight Log: BA295

London Heathrow (LHR) - Chicago O'Hare (ORD)

Our latest transatlantic trip started off with a brief visit to the Business Lounge in Heathrow's Terminal 5 ('B' satellite), where we enjoyed a light breakfast and a celebratory glass of champagne. Our aircraft today was Boeing 747-400 G-CIVW, dating from 1998. We were soon called for boarding and seconds later, we were stepping through Door 2L and immediately ascending the stairs to the top deck. Ever since BA moved part of Club World into the Queen of the Skies' 'hump', I have always loved being one of the lucky twenty: the atmosphere on the upper deck nearly always seems quiet and even rather exclusive, while the side bins along the windows make for significantly enhanced storage facilities in the form of both lockers and extra surface area.

New-style bedding was already in place on my arrival, which stored nicely in those compartments by the windows. As usual, the pre-departure service got underway while boarding continued. First to appear were a bottle of water and an amenity kit from The White Company, and these were followed by my choice of welcome drink. I selected the champagne ... obviously. With the recent introduction of a new food offering in association with the Viennese company Do&Co, a new style of Club World menu card was distributed, which opened like a miniature folding room divider.

Unusually, food orders were taken prior to departure. Apparently, limited supplies of salmon and goat's cheese had been loaded, so we were asked to select one or the other. On the other hand, there was a plentiful supply of soup and salad. With this information in mind, I settled on salmon and soup for my starters. I later found out that the passengers approached on the ground about the "starters situation" were BA Golds and Silvers, so getting first choice was a nice little status perk.

There was no sign of pushing back at this point, and my welcome drink seemed to expand into a Round 2 and Round 3. Oops ... hic!

We finally pushed back 14mins down. It was a very short taxi, yet with a considerable wait for Runway 09R. I noted at 1103 that we were level with the southern end of T5B, which seemed like slow progress indeed for such a modest distance travelled - but I couldn't honestly describe myself as becoming antsy.   At this point, flight crew announced that take-off was expected in ten minutes' time. This happened as promised, and we left Heathrow behind at 1114.

In due course, I was presented with some mixed nuts, a glass of ice water and a further glass of champagne - I hope you're not keeping count.   By now, the jumbo had executed a full U-turn and taken up a heading towards Cork. I started up A Good Day to Die Hard and asked to switch to the white Bordeaux in preparation for the meal.

When the starters tray appeared, I was struck by both the very generous quantities of food and the excellence of the presentation, compared to previous Club World experiences. I must have been struck by something else as well, because I accepted a cabin-crew offer to try the Chilean Chardonnay as well.   Once I was done, I switched to the Californian red for my beef and then rounded the whole thing off with cheese and port. (There was also meant to be an Earl Grey tea, but it never did appear and I couldn't be bothered chasing it up.)

I fell asleep at this point, waking up at 1555 UK time, which is to say, with just over 3hrs to go. The seat belt signs came on almost immediately, a move not designed to curry favour with my bladder. After waiting patiently while enjoying perfectly smooth flying conditions, I got up anyway, braced for a rebuke that never came. Feeling a little bolder, I stopped by the galley for another bottle of water on the way back from the lavatory. Conditions remained perfectly smooth and again, nothing untoward was said.

When Afternoon Tea appeared - I had the sandwiches, scones and sweet - I was again delighted to see a vast improvement in both quality and presentation. An expected time of arrival was given as 1253 at this point, well ahead of schedule despite our late departure from Heathrow.

Seat belt signs came on at 1230CST and it became quite bumpy, in line with the dreadful local weather forecast. We touched down at a thoroughly soaked O'Hare at 1257 and after a long, slow taxi, doors were opened at 1316. The main takeaway from this flight, so to speak, was delight at the new food service provided in association with Do&Co. It's not often these days that you get to praise a genuinely positive step change in standards.

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