Round The World and other travels
A frequent flyer's collection of trip diaries
This is: Spring Fever 2008
Flight Log 2 : BA306
London Heathrow (LHR) - Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG)
The screens showed a revised
departure time of 0905, and subsequently 0920. Not too bad, I
thought, in the overall context of the various T5 horror stories
that I'd heard over the last week and a half. Boarding started at
0905, at Gate A13. Once we had everyone on board, the Captain
apologised for the delay, explaining that it had been caused by a
medical problem on the inbound flight from Hamburg. Nothing at all
to do with T5, then! We pushed back from the gate at 0920, i.e.
exactly in accordance with the revised schedule
The hot towels service took place on departure
and I noticed that no fewer than three cabin crew were involved, the
CE cabin extending to a very full-looking seven rows (although I
don't think any 'E' seats were occupied). We made the long taxi to
27R, but luckily there wasn't much of a wait at the holding point.
Take-off was at 0939 and gave good views of Terminal 5 for those of
us on the left.
It's a long time since I've seen cabin crew out of their seats so soon after take-off - clearly there was a lot to be done in a very short time. We passed Gatwick and I noticed that there was a dusting of snow on the South Downs as we approached the south coast of England. The hot breakfasts were handed out at this point, with a choice of tea or coffee and a selection of warm rolls. Again, three cabin crew were assigned to Club and I'd noticed that one of them had used a passenger seat for take-off. Even if the load of Business Class passengers required an extra crew member to be carried, I reckoned that this route must be a real money-maker for BA, even in the age of Eurostar and the Channel Tunnel.
As we crossed the snowfields of northern France - wasn't this meant to be April? - and progressed further into the descent, I was still gulping my roll and marmalade as the crew started to collect the trays. Wow, no time for leisurely enjoyment on this run!
We landed on CDG's 09L at 1117 local time, but we had a long taxi at this huge airport and didn't make it onto our remote bus stand until 1131. Not bad, though, considering that we left Heathrow 30 minutes late.
Date: Tue 08 Apr 2008
Aircraft : Airbus A320
Scheduled dep : 0850
Actual departure : 0920
Scheduled arrival : 1115
Actual arrival : 1131
Cabin : Club Europe (Business)
Seat : 1A
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