It was November 2014. I knew my 18th Birthday was coming up in February and I wanted to do something interesting for it.
I knew a few things that influenced this trip. I loved the Boeing 767, A stay in the 747 Hotel at ARN was on my bucket list & I have always wanted to visit Scandinavia. I had also looked into Frankfurt, Madrid and Athens, Stockholm won me over on price and the Hotel.
With the price for the flights and hotel split between me & my parents (which averaged an input of £60 each). It was booked in Early December 2014.
Some of my friends at college thought I was mad to go at that time. A few of them booked cheap Ryanair & easyJet holidays to places like Tenerife and the Spanish coast, I knew what I was out for.
My plan was simple. Fly out on BA 780 (the 2pm Boeing 767 service from LHR), stay in the 747 Hostel over night, spot around ARN the next day and catch the BA 781 flight.
Xmas & New Year's Day came and went, soon enough it was 17/02/2015. No longer a child.
As this was for my birthday, I got a lot of Krona from relatives which finalised at 750SEK. Plenty for a spotting trip.
I arrived at LHR Terminal 5 for 12:30pm. Nearly two hours before my flight out. This was my first time out of Terminal 5. I have flown from LHR prior, but from Terminal 4.
Passing through security was easy, I went to Gordon Ramsay's restaurant at T5 and had some chips & tea while getting images of aircraft taxiing around and departing Heathrow until 13:40 when the gate number came up on the departure board. It was time to board.
Looking through the glass I could see that my Boeing 767-300(ER) for this flight was G-BNWA.


We taxied down to the runway and during that time I filmed & photographed some departing aircraft. As we waited to go I got a nice view of the United Airlines Boeing 787-8 that was preparing to follow us out to Houston.


We departed around 14:20pm and flew out toward Stockholm. The weather was nice and so was the view for a majority of the journey.
Snack service began about 20 minutes into our flight. I wasn't that hungary and didn't fancy the options (BLT with mayo or a salad). SO I had three drinks to keep me going. A tea with milk, a coca-cola & a Ginger Ale.
The flight was pretty smooth and I got a few shots of Denmark, including this one:

As we neared Stockholm, the sun began to set. I took some pictures out the window as this was too good an opportunity to miss.


We arrived on schedule at ARN around 18:20pm. As with my last two flights I asked for a short Flight Deck visit and came away with a picture of a Boeing 767/757 Flight Deck!
Getting through immigration was pretty quick, been an inter E-U flight. There was a slight que, which is pretty standard.
I went to McDonald's for dinner and to use their WI-FI to let everyone know I was in Stockholm and to respond to some birthday messages that arrived when I was in flight. The link below is the video for my Flight Review.
After I caught a BETA bus outside Terminal 2, I found myself at the Hostel. It look beautiful (Image taken next morning).
I found the place to be a nice little hotel. I would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Stockholm. The rooms were nice and clean, the facilities are 3 toilets/showers which are communal and the wing was open to walk on. I got some pictures while enjoying a bottle of Heineken.
Overall, a good flight and a nice night. I will mention my spotting trip & return flight in the next review.
Fantastic FR! Thank you for sharing it :).
Nice spotting shots from LHR.
It's great that you had a nice flight with BA! My family have flown BA a few times and always had a great experience with them, flown with them once but was only 3 at the time.
It's really nice that we get the 763 daily, unfortunately it will probably be replaced by A321s when they retire these.
See you on the next one!
Thank you :) I am going to do the return flight soon. Not a lot of pictures as it was at night, but the video will provide a great section of London at night- which is a sight to behold!
Thanks for this FR.
It's really nice to be able to fly on a wide body on a European sector, too bad there's only BA offering that.
Too bad you were not hungry anymore and we can't see the snack offered. Btu the 3 drinks are nice & original ;-)
Thanks for sharing the FR.
Your plane was an old lady, 25 years old. I like how the middle seats have a different seat style from the aisle seats. You can really see that BA is going to run these into the ground until they are replaced with narrow-bodies.
Your hostel was an interesting repurposing of an old Queen. It's nice to know she was put to good use to continue satiating the hunger of aviation enthusiasts instead of becoming scrap metal.
Awesome! Talk about an #AvGeek birthday! Ride on a BA 767 and stay at the 747 hostel!
Love the BA 767s. It's nice that BA still flies widebodies on intra-European flights.
Happy belated Bday by the way.
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the birthday wish. Will do a report on the BA 767 flight home & some of ARN spotting. Stay tuned :)
Thanks for this awesome report!
Widebodies on short flights are always a pleasure!
That hotel looks nice! I would love to stay in the upperdeck suite and sleep in the coskpit. How are the other rooms?
Thanks once again :)
Glad you liked the report, the room I stayed in was comfortable. Beds are quite big and they are bunk beds. There are no bedrooms in the upper deck, its used for a meeting room and weddings I think. The Flight Deck suite is really expensive in comparison to the other rooms, but worth it- when I went they said that they were fully booked with the Cockpit bedroom for 3 months straight!
Great FR! please link your youtube channel as the embedded vids are not working....
thanks!
Sorry for late reply. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheHillbillyHermitt1/videos