LHR-JTR August 2022

[ontimeexceptacars]

Not exactly a Scottish trip, but thought it might be relevant to those interested.

My wife and I had booked the Greek island of Santorini for one of our 2022 holidays, staying at a cave hotel on the famed island, which features on most postcards of Greece (who sends postcards anymore?)

Living in Wiltshire, our closest airports are Bristol (1hr), Birmingham (90 minutes) or Heathrow (75 minutes). Having had two holidays cancelled due to Covid in the last couple of years, we had BA vouchers and Avios to use, so despite our national airline having its reputation pummelled over the last few years, we plumped for flights from Heathrow.

Like everyone else, we read about the cancelled flights, the capacity restrictions at LHR and the stories of lost or delayed baggage, with horror stories appearing almost daily through May and June. It was with trepidation that we set off from home on 9 August just before 0400, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. Many motorways in England have overnight closures for roadworks, so that had to be built into the travel time too. In the event, there were none, despite a local closure that delayed us by five minutes or so near to home, before we reached the M4.

With a departure time of 0800 from Heathrow, we felt we needed to be at T5 by no later than 0600. In the event we arrived at our parking place, a private arrangement with a local guy in Harlington, at 0505. He charges £80 for a week including transport to and from the terminal, though if you are fit enough its a ten minute walk from the free buses on Bath Road, to all terminals. We were in the terminal by 0530.

As my wife needs assistance with long walking distances, we were helped after checking in, but elected to push her in a chair without help, as being Scottish a full breakfast was required. That was duly supplied by a Mr G.Ramsay for an eye watering £80 for two, tasty though it was. We could have waited longer for passenger assistance to get us through fast track security, but you can be waiting up to half an hour for someone to take you through, so despite committing to the security queue, we set off on our own. The horror stories proved to be unfounded in our case, as we were through inside fifteen minutes.

According to FR24, we were due to be on Airbus A320 G-EUYU showing 0645 dep from MAN and 0755 arr at LHR, meaning delayed departure EOBT of 0826. Fortunately, there was an aircraft change overnight, to Airbus A320neo G-TTNL, which had landed the previous evening from Larnaca in Cyprus.

Having had breakfast, we set off for the gate, 522, at 0730, maybe a little tight, but I knew the aircraft was at the main terminal, not a satellite gate. And as it was on an airbridge, my wife could walk on without help.

True holiday flights are a relatively new thing at Heathrow. Whilst there have long been flights to destinations in the past such as Nice, Larnaca, Lisbon, Athens and the like, BA have added proper ‘bucket and spade’ destinations more recently from Heathrow, as well as Gatwick and London City. Indeed, Santorini is served by all three from London by BA.

We pushed back five minutes late at 0805, but soon realised after a captain’s announcement that the reason was to free up the gate, and we stopped on Taxiway B at link 60 at 0820 and shut down engines, awaiting a slot, apparently due to capacity restrictions over Benelux and Germany. No improvement was forthcoming, so engines were restarted at 0841, and we taxied to 9R and were airborne by 0851.

I suppose we can all complain about BA service these days, and how the old days of everything for free are long gone, but to be fair, every airline, at least on short haul, does something similar. Having had breakfast, we didn’t want to eat again - we would have had to pre-order anyway, as there was no option to buy on a whim. A bit frustrating that their reasonable price for duty free gin was also only available for pre-order.

Wifi on board was £4.99 for an hour, or £11.99 for the whole flight. I tried the one hour version, and was surprised to find that it was pretty fast and reliable, unlike the hopeless Emirates version from a couple of years ago.

I expected a holiday flight from London in August to be rammed, but the flight was maybe 70% full, I'd guess maybe 110-120 on board, with perhaps 15 seats reserved for Business Class, a poor deal as seats are the same, and benefits are sparse. We saw a mix of regular holidaymakers, and some Americans connecting from London.

After a beautiful view of some of the islands in the Aegean, we landed at 1414, and were on stand two minutes later, so just over 15 minutes behind schedule. There was no airbridge of course, but no ambilift either, so the crew quickly requested one, and, very unlike Greece, it appeared within five minutes. We were barged through the immigration melee and were in the baggage hall in another ten minutes.

Reverting to type, the baggage appeared 55 minutes after the aircraft got to stand! Worried about all the recent horror stories regarding lost bags, I had invested in a couple of AirTags, to ensure we could at least see where the bags were. I was relieved to see that both had made the flight and as we waited in the baggage hall, they were out on the ramp awaiting unloading.

The taxi driver was hilarious, repeating ’so busy, so busy’, whilst finding a rat run for his E Class to get us to our destination. Visitors to Santorini are boosted by daily cruise ships, up to four every day, which appear at dawn and disappear after dusk. The town of Thira is very hilly and cobbles abound, so its a slow walk for us, especially after a few G&Ts. The sunset views are spectacular though.

For the return, we elected to take advantage of the hotel’s taxi service, at 25 Euros, which included transporting two 20kg cases up 100 or so steps, as our hotel really was that much built into the cave system, beneath the town! I really felt for the porter, but there is no other solution available, no lifts or other transport up the narrow paths. A short 20 minute transfer in a Citroen Berlingo, or something similar, deposited us at Santorini’s small, but recently renovated terminal. The BA queue looked maybe 30-45 minutes long, though we’d arrived 90 minutes before departure. We went to the assistance desk, and were offered check in assistance as well as gate/ambilift help. A little embarrassingly, we sailed through check in without queuing, and were then escorted through security, though to be fair that line was no more than 5-10 minutes.

On the ramp were a Qatar A320, an Aegean A320neo, and our BA A320neo, G-TTNG this time. BA seem to alternate A320 classics and neos with no real pattern on this sector. I can’t get my head around the Qatar and Gulf Air services into here - but both seem to be busy, using narrowbody A320 series. The Qatar check in seemed to be regular holidaymakers from the Middle East and Asia with little sign of traditional women’s garb on view - I am told that Santorini is hugely popular with Asian couples, seduced by the romance of the island.

We went through the gate about 25 minutes before scheduled departure, but were held for an ambilift before going outside. The gate staff told us not to worry, as the 1455 departure time would not be met, and we had a slot of 1521. This did give me a chance to nosey at the passports as they went through the gate. There were large numbers of Americans, I counted at least 20, presumably connecting at LHR or continuing their vacations. In the end we were last to board at about 1505, and the aircraft pushed at 1517, departing runway 33 at 1526.

Service on the return wasn’t as good as the outbound, though the load was a bit larger, at 143+4 infants. We still had a spare seat beside us, which was great. Although we had eaten in the terminal, there was no drinks service other than water and a packet of crisps. We not only had to ask at the back of the aircraft for a couple of drinks, but go on to the wifi to order them! A stupid system. We landed at 1701 and pulled on to stand 509, at the main T5 ramp, at 1711, a few minutes behind the 1655 schedule. A quick Airtag check revealed that our bags were indeed in the vicinity of the arrivals hall too.

We were met by an assistance person, and escorted through passport control, which wasn’t busy, and then collected our bags about 35-40 minutes after arriving on stand.

The general gist is that, in our experience, the mighty ‘Row isn’t as bad as the press would have you believe. BA continues to be less distinctive than previously, a shame as it should be palpably better than the low costs.

Thanks for reading.
OTEA

[atuk]

Good, unbiased and factual report. Santorini is stunning, had a week’s holiday there in 2004 as well as visiting from a cruise ship.

BA leisure flights from LHR have been commented on in the past; especially in relation to slots when they were a scarce as hens teeth! The truth is that bmi andBritish Midland beforehand operated many charter flights at weekends for specialist, many upmarket, tour operators. All that has happened is that after buying bmi BA has continued with this business over time converting the charters to schedules and adding the option as a BA online booked online in their website.