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 ?