Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
August 2005 : Flight Log : OK669
Edinburgh (EDI) - Prague (PRG)
Well, this was
unexpected ... at least up to the previous afternoon! I had booked
with BA to travel EDI-LHR on the Friday evening, then LHR-PRG on
Saturday morning in Club Europe, courtesy of the recent I-class sale
With
the well publicised difficulties surrounding the Gate Gourmet
dispute, aggravated by illegal secondary action from some of its own
ground staff at LHR, BA had ended up cancelling my EDI-LHR flight. I
used the advertised "commercial policy" to re-book a one-way ticket
with an alternative carrier and thereby found myself sampling Czech
Airlines' Business Class product on their direct EDI-PRG service.
Before heading for the gate, I visited the
familiar territory of the BA Terraces Lounge - the first time I had
invoked my right to do so as a Gold Card holder when not flying BA.
It did feel just a little bit strange. Then, simply because I could,
I also took the opportunity to sample the Servisair lounge - so
that's another one chalked up
Soon enough, I
was settling into 3A on the 737-500. There were only two rows of
Business Class, in 2+2 seat formation
,
Having expected a Germanic breakfast offering of
cold meats and cheeses, I was really quite taken aback to be
presented with a British fry-up, complete with a truly evil-looking
half-slice of black pudding
(I ate it anyway!) The rest of the meal consisted of bacon,
scrambled egg and tomato, accompanied by a roll, a pot of yoghurt
and a blueberry muffin. I drank apple juice and coffee.
The seatbelt signs were on and off for a good part of the journey : it certainly wasn't the smoothest of rides. My knowledge of the Czech language is indistinguishably close to zero, but as I stared at the magazine rack, I began to work out that plurals must be formed using the letter "y". Seeing the word 'Notebooky' above an article about laptops amused me, for some unfathomable reason.
The bumpy ride came to an end at 1016 as we touched down at Prague and a very short taxi had us on our remote stand by 1020. At the risk of being extremely silly, my first experience of OK had been - you guessed it - really quite OK.
Date: Sat 13 Aug 2005
Aircraft : B737-500
Scheduled dep : 0705
Actual departure : 0712
Scheduled arrival : 1030
Actual arrival : 1020
Cabin : Business Class
Seat : 3A
Flight History 2005