Intro
The second portion of my connecting ticket on British Airways would see me flying on an Airbus A319 in Club Europe/Business class from London to Edinburgh. If you haven’t read the previous post, I was originally supposed to be on a Polaris flight from Frankfurt to Chicago, but due to a last-minute family emergency, I had to change my ticket during boarding to head up to Scotland.
British Airways once again proved to showcase a nice flight on this very short flight up to Edinburgh. Due to the computer system glitch, there was a slight delay, but once airborne, a light snack and some lovely drinks were served. As previously mentioned, the one thing you can count on with British Airways is consistency.
Routing
Enchainement de vols
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- 15BA1440- Business- London- Edinburgh- Airbus A319
How I Booked
As previously mentioned, as my flight to Chicago was almost in the process of boarding, I was asked to head to Scotland. Booking at 12 pm and having to get to another destination the same day during summer travel in Europe is going to be expensive. With economy tickets upwards of 700$, I was lucky to secure the last seat on BA Avios from Frankfurt-London-Edinburgh for 15,000 Avios and 189 GBP.
BA prices tickets individually when on a connection. Thus, if I had solely booked the Frankfurt leg, it would have been something around 7.5K Avios+110 ish GBP.
Around LHR
Upon arriving at Heathrow from Frankfurt on a BA A320 in Club Europe, I made my way through transit security and off to the lounge. British Airways operates 3 business-class lounges in Heathrow Terminal 5: one in Galleries North, one in Galleries South, and lastly, one by B gates.
Usually, I tend to go to the lounge at B gates since it is a lot less crowded, but as I was exhausted (I had basically been traveling for over 28 hours straight, including the Swakopmund to Windhoek drive), I opted to just head over to galleries north. During most of the day, the lounge is relatively busy, but at this hour, there was plenty of space to kick back and watch the England game.
The BA Galleries North lounge is a nice spot to relax before your flight when it's not busy. Usually, I would review lounges properly, but I was just so knackered, mate, that it wasn't possible.
Bottega Collab
Once the football had finished, I headed off to my favorite spot in Terminal 5: Wagamama. It's pretty much impossible to miss, as once you clear security, you'll see the wags right there across from WHS Smith (on the upper floor).
I'm a simple man, chicken and rice for me. Something about the breaded chicken is just exceptional.
This is nostalgia for me. Back in the day, I used to fly out of Heathrow with BA 30-40x a year and would always, without failure, get this exact dish.
Boarding
Checking the departure board on one of the screens, I realized that our flight had been delayed. It's always such when there is an issue with the systems, but this backed up a lot of departures, in turn affecting the flight up to Scotland.
With our scheduled departure time of 9:15, it wasn't until 9:23 that boarding finally began. It could be worse…. I have to look at the scenario as the glass half full.
It's still light!
Can I just say how weird it is for it still to be light at 9:30 pm? I don't go back to England very much anymore, so I completely forgot that this is the case during the summer.
Stepping onboard, we were warmly greeted by the friendly cabin crew, even with the horrific delays.
The Flight
I touched on most of the hard product details in the previous post from Frankfurt to London, so for this review, I'll just keep it about the flight. As a quick recap, this hard product is as follows:
Business Class (Club Europe) seats are laid out in a 3-3 configuration, with the middle seat being blocked. The business-class cabin can be altered depending on the demand, ranging from 3 rows to a whopping 12 rows!
Wifi is offered on most of their narrowbody fleet. I am unsure about the A319s, but my plane did feature Wi-Fi at the same cost as the previous flight.
Boarding ended up being wrapped up by 9:40, in which the captain came on to announce our flight time of 55 minutes up to Edinburgh. He apologized for the delay and informed us that he would attempt to make up some time in the air.
Sure enough, 5 minutes later, we pushed back 30 minutes late.
Due to the rare runway patterns at Heathrow that day, it was a realtively long taxi out to 9R this evening. We ended up being wheels up to Edinburgh at 10:06 pm local time, quite a bit behind schedule.
I still find it odd that there was light at this hour…
Once airborne, it was time to get some rest. Having extensively eaten at Wagamama and the Galleries North, I took a picture to showcase the menu for the flight, but chose not to indulge.
I am extremely impressed with what BA offers on this short of a flight. In hindsight, a smoked salmon tartare and a glass of white wine would have terrific.
I managed about 35 minutes of rest before I woke up on final approach into Edinburgh. After a flight time of 53 minutes, we touched down onto Runway 6 at 10:59 pm local time.
We pulled into a remote stand (apparently due to it being late or something if I remember) and were bussed off to the arrivals hall within minutes. This is the only time that I have ever gotten a bus gate at EDI, and hopefully the last…
Just like that, I was on my way to deal with my family emergency. With no flight to Paris booked, and a confirmed flight in Polaris out of CDG 36 hours later, would I make it?
