Friday 2nd March

Waking up that morning, I was excited by the prospect of a weekend off, but more so that it would be spent in the capital city of the UK, with a bunch of random A.netters.

I made my way to the train station for the 09:37 service from Hull to Manchester. While waiting for the train to arrive, I noticed the departures screen was showing a few delays on the line, but nothing too trivial. At 0940, I decided to check with the station manager regarding the train status, and he told me it would be a few minutes late. Not to worry, I thought, I'll grab a coffee from the crew room.

I met the Crew for the train, who I knew, and they told me it was likely to be around a 10am departure. Fair enough, I could live with that, I thought. Doing a quick calculation, the current train (delayed) departure time would get me into Manchester airport at around 12:15 - 12:30, giving me an hour to check in before flight departure. Unknown to me, the trip was about to go from bad to worse!

My train finally arrived at around 10:20, and we departed at 10:25, much to my annoyance, but I would just live with it. I was now faced with a seriously slim chance of arriving into the airport before 13:00, the latest time I could check in. A quick call to Alex (myt332) who I was flying to London with, updated him on the situation. He was in the bar, having a beer, unlike myself, sat on a 1 hour late train, drinking coffee.

Alex decided he would go to the bmi desks in terminal 3 and advise them of my situation, which he later told me that I could in fact check in as late as 13:10, ok so now I had a decent chance! However, later, my train arrived into Huddersfield, and was cancelled, ouch. I then had to wait there for the next service, which would be 25 minutes later.

I now had a very slim possibility of arriving into MAN before the departure time of the flight, so another call to Alex, to let him know, eventually came back with good news. He managed to speak to a "nice lady" at the bmi desk, who offloaded us from the flight (BD589) and moved us to a later flight, the next one, at 17:00 (BD591).

A text to Hannah (Speedbirdie) to inform her we would not arrive at 14:30 as planned, was also a must.


I eventually arrived into the Airport at around 13:15, to find Alex waiting on the station for me. I'm guessing he was amused at the thought of me being held up by my own company's train service, and therefore us missing the flight we were supposed to be on, but anyway, kudos to him for rearranging everything. If he hadn't we may have been stuck in MAN!

Check in using the self service system soon followed, and after clearing security, we made our way to the bmi Diamond club lounge, where I flashed my Star Alliance Gold card, to get us both in, Alex being my "guest". The lounge staff were cheerful, and made us welcome straight away, even getting us 2 beers while we sat down on the sofas that were available.

The lounge in Pictures.







The lounge was right next to gate 17, so literally a 1 minute walk to the jetway, if that! Our original flight was parked there, doors closed, awaiting pushback, and the aircraft was G-MIDP.

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Photo © Mark McEwan

Relaxing in the lounge, we helped ourselves to beers, snacks, etc, and just chilled out on the sofas, listening to music. We were soon joined by a Canadian guy, who seemed to have a passion for beer drinking, and was on his way back home to Canada. After a couple of hours sat in the lounge, and having drunk a few beers, our aircraft arrived, and it was G-MIDY  


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Photo © Nacho Piédrola - Iberian Spotters


Boarding for the flight took place about 20 mins before the departure time, and we found our seats in row 6. We pushed back more or less on time, and then myself and Alex watched the safety video, whilst having a low volume conversation between each other.

What happened next was unreal, a female FA came to our row and looked at Alex, then simply said "Shut Up", and walked back to her post. How utterly unprofessional, she could have at least said "please"  

The flight from takeoff to landing was nothing special, we didn't partake in any of the buy on board, instead just chilled for 30 mins  

Here is the takeoff and landing vid below. This is my first video, filmed on the new camcorder.




Arrival into LHR was ontime, and we disembarked the aircraft more or less straight away. Alex walked to the front of the aircraft and asked the previously mentioned F/A for her name, I could only stand there and grin, while she gave him a dirty look. Baggage claim was reached in a few minutes, where we bumped into the Canadian guy again, and stood there chatting with him while we awaited baggage belt info to show up, which it did eventually. After that, it was off to the freezing raining outside world to meet Hannah.

Thats about it really, just another basic bmi flight yet again, and for me, the first one I've taken since 2005.  




Sunday 4th March

After a weekend in London, see the Alex, Lee, Ben And Declan! (by C-GRYK Mar 7 2007 in Non Aviation) thread, it was time to head back up north, but this time by train  

We arrived into Euston Station, London, at roughly 12:30 for a 13:30 departure. After collecting the (1st Class) tickets using the fast ticket machine, we proceeded to the 1st class lounge, only to find it closed. Not a good start really! I would at least expect a 1st class lounge to be open at around lunchtime, especially when there were at least 6 other people who wanted to go in with us at the time, and were all disappointed, like ourselves.

So, back downstairs we went, to find a place to gab a drink and a snack. We sat in the cafe until about 13:10, when the train we were traveling on became available for boarding. Off to track 15 we went, to find our Virgin Pendolino train, then we took our seats, and just relaxed till the train departed.

Here is a video from my seat as we passed thru North London.




At the weekends, there is no "at seat service" so I went to the on board shop, to collect my free drinks, snacks, and returned with them to my seat. Plugging in my ipod, I soon fell asleep, and woke up around Stoke On Trent a couple of hours later! Thats what the nice smooth ride does for you I guess  

Arrival into Manchester was ontime, and myself and Alex parted ways.



My review....

In comparison, both methods of transport had plus points, the flight bit being the lounge, and the fact that the staff were willing to change our flights when we had non changeable tickets. The train is commended for the perfectly smooth ride, and the onboard service too.

The minus points of this trip were the f/a on the flight, plus the closed lounge at the train station in London.

There we go, a fairly short trip report from me, hope you liked it  




Lee

[Edited 2007-03-07 15:23:31]