Round The World and other travels

Flight Log 1 : BA2945

Edinburgh (EDI) - London Gatwick (LGW)

Boarding started in good time at EDI's Gate 10, conveniently situated just opposite the BA Lounge. It soon became apparent that 1E was going to be unoccupied - an unexpected bonus, as it had been shown as taken during on-line check-in. I thought that the aircraft seemed to have been spruced up a bit compared to recent memories of the 737-400s. These are now destined to remain in the fleet for longer than previously planned, assuming of course that BA does not take any drastic decisions about its Gatwick base in its self-proclaimed 'fight for survival'. Doors were closed well ahead of the scheduled departure time. The safety demonstration was completed at the gate, however, and in the event pushback occurred one minute late at 1911.

After a short taxi with no need to hold, we took off from the westerly runway at twenty minutes past the hour. Conditions were relatively clear, with just some light cloud cover as nightfall approached completion. The seat belt signs were switched off fairly quickly, before our turn towards the south, just east of Glasgow.

As cabin service commenced, I asked for a gin & tonic and a coffee, which were presented together with the standard bag of nibbles. Dubbed skybitesgold and described as Mixed Cocktail Savoury Bites, Sultanas & Sunflower Seeds, this nourishment-substitute is better known in the frequent-flyer community by the disparaging nickname Birdseed. And curious stuff it is too, the vaguely salty nibbles sitting somewhat uncomfortably alongside the sweet sultanas. Meanwhile, the seeds always seem to sink to the bottom of the bag, which at least makes it easy to leave them behind as the least desirable of the three components. The bag also carries the seemingly web-inspired exhortation fly.nibble.enjoy which, I mused, seemed to be arranged in increasing order of optionality and decreasing order of probability. Anyway, I had eaten my fill in the lounge prior to boarding and I enjoyed my two complimentary beverages, so it wasn't all bad news by any means.

When we finally cleared the uppermost layer of cloud, it was as though we were making a futile attempt to grasp onto the final, dying moments of daylight. However we were headed in the wrong direction for that, as the skies ahead of us were a good deal darker than those we were leaving behind. Ten minutes later, the varying shades of grey had been replaced by a fiery red glow to the west.

At 1950, the First Officer announced that we were just north of Birmingham and that our routing would take us over Oxfordshire and west of London towards the South Coast, after which there would be a series of left turns as we positioned ourselves for a westerly landing at Gatwick. The expected landing time was 2020 and indeed, the rest of the flight went exactly to plan, the anticipated touch-down time being achieved with 100% accuracy. Eight minutes later, we were on-stand at one of the domestic '57' gates.

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