Round The World and other travels

The flight was showing as 'Delayed 1330', but in the event we boarded the bus, in pouring rain, for our remote stand at 1300, which didn't seem too bad at all. It turned out to be an incredibly empty flight - they certainly wouldn't be making much money on this one! Having said that, there were eight Business Class passengers aboard, nicely spread out among the 11 or 12 rows. This was a much older aircraft than the A321 that had brought me out to Frankfurt, but the standard of cabin presentation was still good, especially considering the short turnaround at Munich.

We left our stand at 1325 and, with no holding or queuing at all, took to the air from 26R at 1330. With an expected flight time of just 1hr 25mins, the schedule was once again looking healthy. The meal was nice enough, but if I'm honest I was just a tiny bit disappointed that it was a veggie mushroom salad - a way of saving some money, I wondered? I drank apple juice and coffee and had both topped up as required.

Our routing was via Frankfurt and Brussels and - wonder of wonders! - there were no ATC delays at all on the approach to LHR. Even after the extra flying time required for an approach from the west, we managed to touch down on 09L at 1405 and made it onto stand at Terminal 2 just six minutes later - ahead of schedule, despite our delayed departure.