Round The World and other travels

August 2005: Flight Log: BA985

Berlin Tegel (TXL) - London Heathrow (LHR)

I located the BA Terraces lounge at Tegel without too much difficulty and was rather impressed by the scale of it! London - Berlin must be an important business travel destination for BA. I don't think this is necessarily as obvious as it sounds : I have flown FRA - LHR many times when the flight has been three quarters Club Europe and the FRA lounge is nothing like this. I suppose that, like so much in life, it's the art of the possible - what's offered will be constrained by the space that the airline can secure at individual airports. Anyway, I spent a relaxing hour or more reading and snacking, as one does

The flight was announced in plenty of time, but happily the rest of the passengers had already cleared passport control and security at the gate. Very soon, I was settling into what seems to be my favourite seat, 2A. The cabin crew offered a hot towels service prior to departure, which was a nice touch and not a variation of the service that I can readily recall having come across before. The Club Europe cabin was lightly loaded on this flight - just six of us (2A, 3A, 4A, 5A, 3F and 5F) in five rows, a complete contrast to the outbound flight two days previously! We pushed back at 1637 and made the short taxi out to runway 26L, while the cabin crew struggled to get the safety video working properly! We taxied to the end of the runway, executed a U-turn and began our take-off run, lifting into the skies at 1646 local time. There were no especially good views to be had, these being experienced on the approach.

On such a relatively short sector, the crew wasted no time in getting the meal service underway. I had a salmon salad with Caesar dressing, some tasty warm brown rolls  and a rather nice piece of cheesecake, all accompanied by the almost obligatory Champagne   The salmon itself was very good, but I can't honestly say that the salad was very exciting. Considering some of the delicious salad leaves that I've had in the past, plain old bog-standard lettuce doesn't really cut it! Maybe I'm becoming too fussy

I noticed that the cruising altitude was 38,000ft, which seemed somewhat higher than usual. I recalled the very bumpy conditions on the way out and wondered if it was simply an avoidance measure. I can't say too much about the route, because the overhead screens for the moving map were proving troublesome again, but I'm fairly sure we overflew both Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Amazingly, there were no delays into LHR and we were able to loop round the north of London and over Windsor Castle for a 1713 touchdown on 09L. From there, it was a fairly short taxi to the gate, giving an ahead-of-schedule arrival time of 1717.

Another enjoyable Club Europe experience, apart from that nondescript lettuce!

 

Date: Mon 01 Aug 2005
Aircraft : Airbus A319
Scheduled dep : 1635
Actual departure : 1637
Scheduled arrival : 1730
Actual arrival : 1717
Cabin : Club Europe (Business Class)
Seat : 2A





Flight History 2005

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