Round The World and other travels

A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries

This is: Round The World 2006-07

End of Part 1 (but stay tuned)

It was Friday, the Muslim holy day, and I had been assured that the roads would be empty. But, cautious chap that I am, I was not in the mood for taking risks and had set my alarm for 0600. I found it surprisingly easy to get up at this time - I suppose I'd had plenty of practice during the last week! As I'd been very good the previous evening and had everything well organised, I had no trouble at all being ready in plenty of time for the airport transfer that I'd booked for 0645. Soon I was sitting in the back seat of the Range Rover, cruising along empty streets.

The airport was busy, but there was no queue at all at the dedicated BA First desk. It took a lot of walking to reach the Terraces Lounge, but I was glad to find it fairly quiet. It certainly filled up, however, as time progressed. By 0830, although there had been no announcement and nobody seemed to be making a move, I decided to head for the gate. This proved to be a good idea as there was no queue and it was marked as 'Closing'   I managed to be among the first to board, as is my usual practice.

(Link to flight log in side panel)

On arrival at LHR, I suddenly realised that this was turning into a tight connection. As ever, there was quite a bit of messing around : bus to the terminal, walk through the terminal, bus to Terminal 1, clear Security (thank heavens for the BA Fast Track ), clear immigration, walk to the Domestic pier and finally - but all too briefly - enter the relative sanity of the Domestic Terraces lounge.

(Link to flight log in side panel)

It took over 35 minutes for all the luggage to appear at EDI   Bad enough, but actually it was worse than that. You see, when I say "all the luggage", I really mean all that was aboard the flight. This did not include my suitcase, and I was far from alone in this respect. I had to visit the Baggage Office and file a report, making sure they understood the urgency of the situation, as I was due to be Hong Kong-bound in less than three days' time. By the time all this was done, I'd been at the airport for more than an hour, but then it was a relatively easy matter to pick up the car and drive home, making a short stop at the supermarket for a few essentials.