Gossip

Had one of those "people watching" or should it be "listening" experiences at the Brussels airport sheraton this week. 3 middle aged ladies - they all tend to be of a "certain age" on Amercian airlines long haul spent 90 mins gossiping about all their crew mates and Pilots. My favourite comment was:

" Last week I went to Mexico with a Captain who had never been there and neither had the co-pilot... I would never fly with captain, as a passenger, if he didn't know where he was going"


mmmh How as a passenger are you going to find out - "good morning ladies & gentleman this is your captain speaking for your flight to London, unfortunately I have no idea where I am going............ ?

It's those middle east stamps again

Well I had my second dodgy passport check today - coming off a Leeds Bradford to Southampton flight i.e. domestic, I was asked by a zealous immigration control officer to show my passport. His hair nearly stood on end when he saw my 25+ UAE (various)/Oman stamps in my passport + 2 chinese visas (expired) + assorted SE asian stamps + 1 from Canada and 1 from US. Demanded immediately to know what my job was (still not plucked up the courage to say more than Chemicals), who I worked for, where their head office was and why was I travelling.
of course when you say travelling to our HQ in Lyndhurst (the truth).....he gets really suspicious.......but then just waves you on your way !
they really amuse me..........................you could see him itching to stop me.....but then the story was so incredible it had to be the truth! They're going to be far worse when they all get uniforms !

Where have people been ?

As the nation heads to the airport for the annual summer exodus, it still stuns me the amount of hand luggage and "banned" articles people still try and take on planes. It's over a year since the 1 hand bag + plastic bags of liquids & gel came in yet it seems so many people have not learnt the rules. yes your water bottles, coke bottles, bottles of perfume, flasks of tea, picnic cutlery,suncream etc etc will be taken off you Culminated tonight with some reporter on BBC tv tonight explaining the rules again.
please can everyone wake up - last year's regulations have not gone away and still apply and now following the latest attacks, you will need to park your car a long way from the terminal.
OK so please concentrate, so us regular travellers can try and get our flights ! Sorry for being so grumpy !

Oslo airport

As part of my company's latest acquistions in Norway, made my first trip through Oslo airport- a couple of observations:

• be prepared to walk, when you land they make you walk all the way to the fruthermost part of the airport to go through passport control and then walk the complete length of terminal to get to the exit.
• the train service to and from Oslo is great.
• Don't try and catch a plane at 6:30 am on saturday morning in late May/ June - It's complete chaos. I may have not slept for 48 hours but my perception was if I'hadn't been able to check in using a KLM e-machine- I would not have made made my flight.
• It wins my award for Airport with most unpronounceable destinations - any Norwegian internal flight !

Eastern Airways

Sorry for the lack of posts over the last month, I have been working hard on a project in southern England and Brussels. This means except for one flight my last 9 has been on Eastern Airways. I guess it is testament to their steady, on time services that Eastern run that I have had very little to post over past month. I could start writing horror stories about FlyBe delays and cancellations, frustrated tearful passengers etc. ; but actually I have spent every little time in airports because I have been arriving closer and closer to my Eastern departure time, and so I spending very little tome in departure lounges. That now means next Monday's flight will be a disaster !
One thing about Eastern they fly Jetstream 41s - I always try and sit in seat 6c next to the emergency exit (most room). Every time they brief us it's the same -pull the door in, turn the door on its side, throw it out FORWARDS, no other airline to my knowledge has ever specified FORWARDS, but no one can tell why.........

BA Crew standards

Went to Abu Dhabi for the 5 days this week using British Airways - I was stunned by the difference between the 2 crews.
Going out on the Monday, we were an hour late due technical difficulties, but the crew from the purser downwards were incredibly helpful - they regularly explained what was going on and did their best to make everyone comfortable. As a Goldcard holder travelling further back in the plane than normal, I was still picked for exemplary service including extra G&Ts, but generally the service was excellent, particularly to those travelling with younger children.
Coming back to London overnight last night, the crew were from the other end of the spectrum - zero service ethic and treated us like cattle.
BA will never succeed with such inconsistent approach to customer service.

Marked man

Interesting experience at Southampton airport @ 0615 this morning - boarding my flight to Amsterdam, a person from immigration control asked to see my passport- I was then questioned as to whether I was flying onwards from amsterdam and what my business there was?
Having flicked through my stamp pages he then commented - "you have a lot of Middle east stamps in your passport sir" - why is that and what is your line of business ?
I have to admit all sort of answers that would not have got me on my plane, so I simply said - "I like visiting there and I work in Chemicals" to see whether I would get further reaction. He grunted a thank you and moved on to the next passenger.
So perhaps I am "a marked man" because of passport stamps ?

Change of carrier - can other countries keep track?

Those of us ex BA Connect travellers now with flybe are becoming increasingly confused as to actually which airline we are travelling.
Last Tuesday caught the flybe flight to Dusseldorf fromSouthampton - this route was announced before the BA Connect takeover. They have used mainly Dash 8 sprinkled with BAE146s on the routing, so I was somewhat shocked to suddenly find myself on a BA embraer 145 with obviously a BA crew on board; despite their uniforms, confirmed by the "why don't you check out our cheap flights on http://www.ba.com..... www.flyba.com.......I mean wwww.flybe.com ....",well she got there in the end.
( I actually asked the hostesses what it was like now they had crossed over to the "dark side" - they said it was ok but were shocked at the lack of attention to detail and disorganisation - they seem amazed that Flybe managed to operate a service at all).
Anyway on arrival at dusseldorf, it was the ground crew that amused me you could see all these Germans trying to work out what BA plane from Southampton was doing in that slot. Much shrugging of shoulders, mystified looks at paperwork, should they provide a valet service etc. anyway they figured it out in the end and got us on the bus without too much delay.

Update 21/4 - since I wrote this the last three domestic flights I have taken with Flybe have all used BA Connect Embraers - the crew still remain amazed at Flybe's disorganisation.

Diverse Paths

Now my kids are teenagers, the conversations we seem to have are far more interesting - this evening over family tea I was trying to illustrate though we may go through the same experiences in life we turn out in very different way.
For example I went to school with George Monbiot, probably one of the leading Green activists in this country, well known Guardian columnist and TV pundit. George and I won the natural history prize at our boarding school when we were aged approx 11. To procure the prize, we managed to turn an old 1940's enamel bath (recently saved from the destruction of the communal bathroom I used for the first 2 years of prep school career) into a faithful reproduction of our school pond, complete with lillipads, tadpoles, mud etc. I remember George being very disappointed by the fact that he could not keep fish in the bath, because a science teacher said the water was not oxygenated enough.
So George grows up, travels the world, nearly dies at least twice in pursuing his quest to show us the true green agenda and how we are destroying our planet through Global warming etc. Meanwhile yours truely, grows up , travels the world for the 3rd biggest oil company in the world for 15 years and now I work for the second biggest chemical company.........it must be worth a Channel 4 documentary...........

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

How good is your Chinese?

Travelled Flybe back from Southampton. Surprisingly it was an ATR42 plane (flybe normally use DASH8s) with emergency exit signs in Chinese! When you looked at the safety card it was in German, & Chinese and finally English.
The plane actually involved did not belong to Flybe but an airline called Air Atlantique. When I looked them up on the internet depsite their French name they are actually based in Coventry. Still does not explain the chinese emergency exit signs......

Airplane lottery

Sitting in Antwerp airport to catch the early plane to London city, watching the ground crew preparing two aircraft: one is 0700 to London City & Manchester the other is 0700 to Nuremburg (standard passenger dress: walking boots and leiderhosen - I do not exagerate). From the body language of the groundcrew, I would say one plane is bust and the other ok (cue growing number of little white vans with flashing lights around an aircraft - man in cherry picker looking at wing - mystified men with torches and manuals)- but which flight will go.....anybody got a coin ?

This is standard fare in Belgian Politics

For those who work and travel in Belgium, this story is not quirky but standard Belgium Forbids 18 and 88 | The Brussels Journal

Disaster at Marseilles airport again !

Air France & Marseilles airport strike again – tricky flights to make happen Marseilles Lyon followed by Lyon Dusseldorf with an hour to change. Boarding the Lyon flight called to the gate on time then disaster:
17:30: boarded to Bus
17:40: Bus arrives at Plane – ground agent seeks permission to Board us no response from stewardess.
17:50: ground agent announces problem with aircraft steps – should be fixable unquote !
17:55: hassled engineer appears from plane – new announcement from plane it’s not the steps it’s an electrical fault in cockpit. Bus returns to terminal.
18:05 more info at 18:15 whether they can fix.
18:15 an honest ground agent – no info next update at 18:30 but he is pessimistic. Everyone leaps forward because they all have tight connections at Lyon.
18:20 Manage to get early in queue – connection to dusseldorf blown, no other way there tonight via Paris etc. Bail will have to try and reclaim 50% of large sum of money via internet sales.
18:22: Plan B – no other options via Frankfurt or Munich with Lufthansa so it’s Ryan air to Eindhoven from terminal 2.
18:30 find my way to terminal 2 – used to be the old freight sheds @ Marseilles airport now with it’s a minimalist conversion to a terminal “MP2”. Wow that man Ryan is clever – a bit of internal steel girdering, lots of chipboard and corrugated thick plastic and you have a terminal.
18:32: arrive at Ryan air ticket desk to buy 1930 flight ticket to Eindhoven. Don’t take amex or maestro, so it’s cash.
1837: no cashpoint that works in MP2 so back to terminal 1.
1845: back to ticket desk – a ticket is fine but no change for my cash. Argument then follows if my ticket is 194.40€ the how much change from 200€? 3 ticket sellers cannot work it out and don’t have the change.
18:50: still arguing about change.
18;54: finally check in
1900: thru security to join the “cattle herding” for boarding.
1910: officially boarded but no plane yet – in cattle queue No 2
19:12 Plane arrives it’s a Ryan air legendary turnaround.
1925: Boarding – otherwise known as a “sprint for seat”. Manage elbow my way to get an emergency exit seat (without paying more) so better legroom. Interesting use for Sick bags – double as postal envelopes for film developing – I wonder how many bags of sick the developers have received instead of film. That man Ryan is brilliant at cost saving !
19:45 taxi past broken down Lyon plane.
1952: take off behind the BA flight.
20:30 – Final straw did you know a Ryan Air sandwiches are made from 3 slices of bread not 4 – what a rip off (and more expensive than BA Connect and that is saying something !)

Paris CDG

Travelled through the World's worse airport tonight - Paris CDG. It's such a maze with no space for actual departure gates and the world's only airport where tannoy announcements talk across eachother instead of being sequential. At one stage I suspect there were no less than 4 simultaneous announcements for leaving flights - combined withe its maze features I am amazed they get any passengers to the right gate.

Air France Website

Booking my travel for next week 6 flights + 1 ferry journey - took 1 hour to book 4 flights on Air France. Could not crack it.......to book flights from Germany to France and back, it would only allow me to do it on the German website of Air France, which not being fluent in German was really tricky. Could not find a way to do it English ..unless one of you bloggers knows best.
It also offered me a great connection with 45 mins to get from Paris CDG to Paris Orly ...mmmh.....you have been warned of Air France's sense of humour
And the cost for the price of Dusseldorf Paris Marseilles 24 hour return - I can fly 2 people to Australia and back....sacre bleu!

What happened to the British stiff upper lip ?!?

Travelled back on a Jet2.com flight from Dusseldorf to leeds tonight. very windy as we crabbed our way on the runway @ Leeds, which being on hill is well exposed to crosswinds.
As we finally landed and straightened up the runway, people started cheering & clapping - this is a new behaviour for me in Europe as I have only encountered before in the Far East on Korean or Japanese planes - the first time I was on Jumbo with 400 japananese tourists + me, who clapped and cheered when we took off form Singapore and landed at Djarkarta. It was very unnerving that
A) they all started and stopped clapping at the same time
B) What happens when the Captain doesn't make a text book landing - perhaps another Blogger will tell me
Any way I digress What happened to the British stiff upper lip ?!? a bit of a breeze off the port wing....pass the G&Ts and leave me to read my paper quietly !

Low pay ?

2 flights so far this week, second of which was Southampton to Amsterdam. The flight nearly didn't go because of no crew. In the end a Hostess had been volunteered by the company. She was due to finish at 1400, on her flight into southampton from edinburgh arrival 13;30, she had been told she was on the 1400 Amsterdam. As she has a monthly salary she only receives an extra 1.70 an hour she is the air. There was a possibly an extra £30 payment but when she left Southamptoin the Captain of her previous Edinburgh plane was still arguing with Fly BE HQ about whether she was elligble for payment.
mmmh I wonder what BA Connect staff are thinking - my impression is they are voting with their feet.....

Talking of Crosswinds

Not to be watched if you are scared of flying !

Test via Email

I promise I will try and keep a more regular blog, if I can get this to work.

Bristol Airport

Took the family through Bristol Airport. Travelling AirSouthWest on Dash 8 no real trouble with runway, but it was very rainy & a very bad crosswind. Easyjet + continental planes were parked and everything seemed fine. very surprised by all the whoop-la that causing all the cancellations.