Despite my impression that there was no way that British Airways Flight 84 (Boeing 747-400 G-CIVP, seat 53J) would be full, it was so and with a lot of families with kids as passangers. Despite this, boarding took place in an organised and timely fashion. We pushed back exactly on schedule at 8:35 PM, and after a twenty minute taxing we were in air taking off towards the west. After a minute or two the plane veered sharply to the northeast on which course we remained most of the flight. Anybody who has ever flown on a 747 knows what I’m alluding to when I say that flying on a 747 feels like flying in a living room – I just LOVE that feeling!
About an hour in air, we were served drinks and a bag of salted pretzels as appetizers. As I mentioned in my previous post, I ordered a gin and tonic as I always do on British Airways (it’s a long yet almost embarrassingly funny story; remind me to bring this up at some time). We had a choice of beef or chicken for supper, so I opted for chicken. It turned out to be a variation of sweet and sour chicken, and although it may not have been the most delicious sweet and sour chicken ever – and I dropped some of it on my sweater (great!) – I quite liked it. Fortunately I had brought some Splenda with me so that I could have something else but sugar in my coffee.All this time, I enjoyed the channels on the IFE. Among the dozens or so channels, I focused on the comedy channels, and I watched an episode of Will and Grace (where Will and Vince kissed each other!!!), Family Guy, and Friends. Reruns, I know but it was funny to me…! Towards the end of the flight (after my 1.5 hour sleep) I watched two episodes of Ugly Betty, and I think I’m hooked on it now!
I’ve been able to sleep on only very rare occasions on planes – I mean, why waste your money of being on a plane by sleeping – and this time was no exception. The seat was comfortable and all that, except for some reason the foot rest was pressing against my shin. The seat pitch must have been an inch or so tighter than before, so I had some difficulties stretching out my legs. All in all, though I’m 183 cm (6’) tall, at least I had no problems fitting in terms of width, and the pitch issue was not that much of a problem because I wouldn’t have slept very much even if I had been on one of the superduper seats in business class, or Panda Seats as Dave refers to them (thanks to a Finnair ad a couple of years ago!).
Breakfast was served about an hour and a half prior to landing. It felt good to be able to slide open the window shield and let the sun shine in. Sun had risen above the horizon less than four hours after departure somewhere above the northern parts of Hudson Bay. Blasting my brain cells with some photons of pure sun shine made me feel quite freshened after only very little sleep. As for the breakfast, it was heavy on carbs (a ham and cheese croissant, lo fat berry yoghurt, and a trailer bar), but hey, I ate it all! :-)
As we started to descend, we were a good twenty minutes ahead of schedule, but this didn’t go well with the Heather ATC – oh noooo, we had to circle around for a good twenty minutes before the descent proper started. In the meanwhile we circled around a landmark somewhere to the northwest of the greater London area that I decided was a farm for mutant chickens…
So at last we made it to the notorious Terminal Five… By the time I got out of the aircraft I had like exactly two hours to make my connecting flight. I started to follow the signs: first down some escalators to a platform where I got a shuttle train that took me from point A to point B, then up some other escalators, and then immediately down to a depot where I got on a shuttle bus that would take me to Terminal One. During the ten-minute drive that involved going through now more than two tunnels and a video presentation on how to clear security check points without stress (i.e. keep the amount of liquids minimal yadda yadda yadda), which, ironically, made me stress out even more rather than calm me down! Once in Terminal One, once again I had to go first up some escalators, then down until at the end of a log winding corridor awaited the dreaded security check point. Except I didn’t have to remove my lap top from my back pack (let alone the other electronic equipment I was carrying…), and, probably due to a lull in the daily flow of millions of transiting passengers, there was no lines/queues whatsoever…
Then I suddenly found myself in the transit lounge where you have to wait until the monitors tell you when you can proceed to your gate, usually 40 minutes prior to the scheduled boarding time. In other words, I had made it to my destination with 45 minutes to spare before I could go further to my gate. All jet lagged out and trying to keep myself awake, I spent my remaining time browsing the numerous duty free stores and being perplexed by the prices in a currency that didn’t make immediate sense. Except that when it was time to find out where the gate for my connecting flight was, the monitors remained unchanged for another 10 minutes or so – only to find out moments later that the flight had been delayed by an hour! Yay!!! :-(
At last it was boarding time for AY 840 (I had started to nod off in the lounge so I had to keep on moving to keep myself awake), and the boarding started within minutes that the gate number in the transit lounge had been announced. No pre-boarding for families with kids or business class passengers first – just first come first served! I couldn’t help noticing how the seats for some reason appeared bare and even sparsely spaced, but I guess that’s the beauty of the Airbus A320. My seat 23F on Finnair’s OH-LYL was very comfortable, and even though I was in economy class, it felt as if I had more leg room than on the 747. Once everybody was seated, I was glad to notice the seat next to me was empty so that I wouldn’t have to wrestle for arm rest space. Then the captain made the dreaded announcement that we’d have to wait 25 minutes more before the ATC would allow us to push back and start our trek towards the runway… I kept myself amused by working on a sudoku, and let me tell you: it’s fun especially when you can’t keep your eyes focused… :-)
We took off pretty much exactcly two hours behind schedule. We took off to the east and somewhere over Kent veered towards the northeast and the North Sea. The flight attendants were courteous yet inherently stiff – well, they were Finns so what would you expect. The meal consisted of gnocchi pasta (I doubt these even were gnocchi) with what must have been tuna sauce; by default, this could’ve been delicious, but unfortunately the result was not very appetizing as if the meal had been reheated one time too many. Nevertheless, I cleaned my plate (to date, I have not refused to eat my meal in a plane), and probably out of sympathy I dropped some more sauce on my shirt. :-)Two and a half hours later, we touched down while an almost full moon shone in the sky and created a beautiful moonbeam over the Gulf of Finland. By this time, the sun had set, and it was dark again (again?!). I approached the baggage claim area with a lot of apprehension: would I find my suitcase or would I have to claim lost luggage before I could get to go home and finally get some sleep? Lo and behold: there it was – and it was even among the first ones; in fact, I left plenty of other passengers behind waiting for their luggage.
My folks were there waiting for me. As for them, they had seen on TV that, after first no information on flight AY 840 having even departed, that it would be 30 minutes ahead of schedule! It wasn’t until they got to the airport when they learned the true nature of things, but they took it with stride and sat down to have a cup of coffee.
After a small snack of Finnish rye bread (yum!) and a quick shower, I was ready for bed and some serious shuteye. The lights went out at 1am, and I was blissfully in slumberland moments later. Ahhh…
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