Round The World and other travels

Flight Log 10 : BD56

London Heathrow (LHR) - Edinburgh (EDI)

The scheduled A319 had been replaced by a Star Alliance liveried A320, thus bringing a measure of symmetry to the trip - see Flight 1. The flight looked as though it was going to be full, no doubt thanks to the ongoing strike disruption at British Airways. Everything was going well enough until a father and child - who, incidentally, looked far too old not to have a seat of her own - took up position in 2A. Needless to say, it was only a matter of a few minutes until all the bumps and knocks started. My heart sank as I realised that it was payback time for all the luxury that I had enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. Then - a minor miracle! 2B and 2C arrived and I could hardly believe my ears as one of them said to 2A: "Wouldn't it be easier for you if you took the aisle seat?" 2A agreed enthusiastically and the problem was solved!   (Or at least, transferred to somebody else, who hopefully had more tolerance of children's antics in confined spaces.)

Unfortunately, a bag had to be located and off-loaded as a result of a no-show passenger, which meant that pushback was delayed by nearly 15 minutes. Airport operations had switched around since earlier that morning and I would now be leaving on 27R, i.e. the same runway that I had arrived on, but facing westwards this time. A Qantas A380 made its take-off roll in front of us, demonstrating once again how extraordinarily quiet this gigantic aircraft is. We finally got going at 1300 and, for the second time that day, I was able to give the royal wave to anyone who might be at home in Windsor Castle.

When the in-flight service started, I had a cheese sandwich, biscuit and coffee. It was only at this point that I realised how enormous the Flexible Economy section was - most of the plane, in fact! I thought the obvious explanation was that many of the passengers had been re-booked from BA at short notice. bmi was clearly doing well out of the strike at its main competitor.

The approach into EDI was over the city and the Forth and, sadly, it was all depressingly damp and grey-looking. We landed at 1353 and were on-stand before the hour.

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