Heathrow Terminal 1

Arrived into Heathrow Terminal 1 on an early BA flight from Dusseldorf at about 0745 Friday morning.

• 5 of 6 of the travelators between my arrival gate and Passport control were out of order.
• Only 1 person checking UK passport holders.
• Baggage carousel display system not working to say where bags would arrive.
• all luggage seemed to be arriving on a single carousel.

Welcome to Heathrow !

Deathwish

Couldn't help overhearing a conversation between a lady and her colleague sitting behind me on the landing Southampton Leeds flight last night. They use a small Jetstream aircraft, and as commented elsewhere on this blog, Leeds Bradford's exposed location can make the landings bumpy in strong cross-winds:
Anyway back to the lady behind me - I quote as much as I can remember:
"I would prefer to know I was going to die than having a bumpy landing like that".
Colleague "mmh that's a dark view"
Lady: " It just not knowing whether you're going to crash as it bumps around on landing, I'd just prefer to know I was going to the crash"...........
My immediate thought was she should avoid Leeds Bradford as 9/10 landings are bumpy and she would only get more depressed......

Twickenham

Took my son Chris (13) to Twickenham last Sunday. Great day out we flew down from Leeds Bradford, spent an hour at the Imperial War Museum and headed for Twickenham on the 11:25 to Twickenham.
The train was packed to be the point of being unsafe, but we got there safely. Of course we really enjoyed the game (England won yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!), but you can only describe the crowd (80,000) exit at the game as total chaos.
Just waiting for a free bus to richmond saw a number of near tramplings and car near misses with pedestrians. Police and stewards were trying hard, but any plans they were implementing were swamped by simply the huge number of people exiting the stadium within 30 mins of the end of the game.
Managed to get Heathrow to get our return flight, by an illegal exit from Heston services by our resouceful cabbie and his Sat Nav, encouraged by me waving the cash (M4 was closed because of an accident).
It does not bode well for 2012 or the new Wembley.......I hear the new Emirates is not good either.

Mystery of the on-time Ferry

I had an interesting ferry Journey from Rotterdam to Hull on Thursday night. The ferry normally leaves Rotterdam at 9pm and get to Hull at 7am the next morning
When I arrived at the Ferry terminal the winds were blowing at 30mph and it was beginning to rain heavily.
About 30 minutes after arriving all passengers were handed a handed a letter from PandO staff:

• Due to the high winds the Ferry needed tug assistance to turn around in harbour.
• However the Port of Rotterdam Tug company was on strike for 24 hrs so no tug would be available until 0430 the next morning.
• The ferry would therefore leave at 0430 and get to Hull at 1500.

Some people were very upset, but most (who were British) trooped onto the Ferry anyway at the normal time 1700 onwards. The main conversation was around whether there would enough beer on the Ferry for a 22 hour trip and would lunch on Friday be free ?

In one of the shops at 1830, the staff explained that they had heard the captain was making a decision at 2130 whether he would try and turn around in the harbour or wait for a tug the next morning.

However Captain Tyson is a Hull man, and one should never keep a Hull captain from his breakfast in Hull. At 21.04 he comes on the loudspeakers saying, he was going to the Ferry around under its own power and we should be in Hull in the morning.

With a careful turn-around of we headed into the North Sea, for what was a fairly rough crossing, subdued in my case by copious amounts of red wine !

When I awoke at 7am we were in Hull - I wondered how many people cancelled holidays, Business trips or visits........just because the letter of PandO published 14 hours earlier ?

The next time you fly and the landing seems hard, spare a thought for the customers of Adam Air on an internal flight in Indonesia.

Definitely nil points for technical merit and a sympathy 3 for artisitic impression - well I think the new curve of the 737 is very elegant .

hat-tip - Wikipedia

Passport control

For those of us who travel through Leeds Bradford late in the evening are beginning to become irked by the officious officers of HM Immigration service -

• They seem to enjoy looking you up and down as if you an immigrant from the 3rd World country- remember people are innocent until you prove them guilty.
• They ask stupid questions such "as where have you come from" - Read the arrivals Board people it's fairly clear we have come from either Dusseldorf, Amsterdam or Brussels
• They love swiping every passport through the machine and waiting for another glorious Government IT system to respond quickly (mmmh) to say you are acceptable - leads to queues of several hundred people off 4 planes.

Have to admit sometimes I become a fan of profiling to keep the queues moving.

flybe - keeping people waiting

Scraped out of a foggy leeds bradford at 0700 arrived in southampton an hour later. Looked up at the southampton departure board and the early Flybe flight to leeds due to leave at 0720 was now due to depart at 1100!
Going back through southampton airport to get to brussels tonight and sat next to gentleman who had been the airport departure lounge all day:

• he was due to go on the above early plane but Flybe camcelled it at 11am.
• he was re-booked on the lunchtime flight - but that was cancelled due to lack of crew.
• 12 hours later, he had been put on the 1750 plane to Leeds which was 1hour 10 minutes late when I boarded my plane for Brussels.

I hope he made it - I marvel sometimes at the patience of fellow travellers

Fog

On a Jet2.com from Dusseldorf to Leeds - Plane very full 142 passengers - totally uneventful flight until 3km from leeds, I realised it was very foggy. Big thump as the plane hit the runway, but landing was ok otherwise but very foggy. Whilst taxiing Captain comes overs the intercom - "Due to the visibility being 250m, a computer has just landed this aircraft, in afew years you wont need pilots!"
Passenger reaction was interesting over the next 5 mins: reaction ranged from "Never flying again, wouldn't have flown with these people if I knew they used computers" - to one great comment - "hope they weren't using Windows Vista !"

Absolutely Bizarre

Checking in tonight at London city airport @ VLM Check-in desk - I have just answered the security questions "Have you anything sharp in your Hand baggage etc.", as you do with my hold luggage disappearing down the belt - when up rushes a Gentleman, dressed in full Hassidic Jewish suit with accessories with a 3" blade fold knife in hand and I quote:
"They wouldn't let me take this through with hand luggage"
VLM Lady: "No sir - knives are not allowed"
"Can you reverse the belt and get my luggage back so I can put it in"
VLM Lady "No sir - I can't do that"
"But I don't want to lose it"
VLM Lady keeping calm – “I suggest Sir goes and buys a stamp and envelope from the Newsagent and post the knife to your home address.”
And off he rushed.
Bizarre !

It could only happen at a British Airport

On an early flight to Amsterdam from Humberside International Airport (only international because of the 3 flights a day to Schipol): Plane mainly full of Business people travelling across the world for Monday morning + a smattering of OAPs travelling to see loved ones in far flung corners of the world.
All Boarded ready to go, waiting for the Humberside De-icing machine to clear the ice - after 1 wing it breaks down leaving the operator stranded 30 ft in the air in a cherry-picker type basket! They can't seem to rescue him even with the fire brigade ladders! Engineer to fix the de-icer is an hour away and the sun wont warm up sufficiently for 2 hours - it's going to be a long wait.
People's connections bust, Business weeks and holidays ruined.....thank goodness I am only going to Amsterdam.........hopefully