Round The World and other travels

Flight Log 1 : BD63

Edinburgh (EDI) - London Heathrow (LHR)

As I boarded the Star Alliance liveried A320, I noted that there were four rows of Flexible Economy - you can tell from the subtly different headrest covers! I settled into 8A and, as boarding progressed and was eventually completed, it was pleasing to note that bmi's seat blocking for Star Golds was once again in operation, with 8B one of the very few seats on board to stay empty. The Captain announced a fast expected flight time of just 55 minutes before we pushed back from stand a minute ahead of schedule, at least according to my watch, and made our way out to Runway 24. The aircraft seemed a little sluggish during the take-off run, but thankfully that didn't prevent us from making it into the air! The bright sunshine made for a stark contrast with the same flight just a few weeks before, which also set in motion my previous big trip.

Strangely, shortly after take-off, we made a slight turn to the right, heading directly westwards towards Glasgow. The inevitable left turn came, presumably somewhere over Lanarkshire, as the cabin crew were already commencing service at the front. Once the sandwich service was finished, the pace picked up and I was very soon able to buy a coffee and a gin & tonic. I had brought one of those nice little two-packs of biscuits on board with me to accompany the former.

The Captain announced high above Manchester that we were at 37,000ft and that we would be starting our descent in just five minutes, making our approach to Heathrow's 27L with an ETA of 2010. The seat belt signs came on ten minutes before eight o'clock, which seemed a little early, except that we were about to plunge into a layer of thick cloud. There was a good view of London City Airport and the Thames Barrier as we turned westwards, but London itself looked rather grey under the high-level cloud. Touchdown came at five minutes past the hour, with a parked Qantas A380 providing a brief moment of interest as we made the long taxi round to Terminal 1's Gate 8b.

In summary, a routine domestic flight.

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