Archive - LHR-MAD-JNB-DUR on Iberia and British Airways (Comair)



The next few posts will be from my archive of previous trip reports.

Booked:
LHR-MAD IB3167 B752 13/12/07
MAD-JNB IB6051 A342 14/12/07
JNB-DUR BA6209 B732 14/12/07

Actual:
LHR-MAD IB3171 A321 13/12/07
MAD-JNB IB6051 A342 14/12/07
JNB-DUR BA6209 B732 14/12/07

After getting married this year, my wife and I decided to spend Christmas with her parents in South Africa. She departed the week before me, going NWI-AMS-JNB-DUR and back, my ticket the week later being so much more expensive that it worked out over £300 cheaper to go via LHR and Iberia.

The first flight was due to leave at 18.50, a 757 operated by Gestair, so I put in a morning's work in the office before driving to London, and leaving my car at my sister's house in Wapping, knowing she'd take good care of it for the 2 weeks, and took the tube to Heathrow. (Route for anyone interested - Wapping-Canada Water-Green Park-Heathrow 123. Since then, the East London Line is closed permanently, for conversion to Overground service). 1h25 mins from door to checkin - impressive for the "slow" service!

Terminal 2 checkin seemed as crowded as usual, but the Iberia desks were more or less empty, so I was soon at the desk. I'd booked separate Iberia tickets to Johannesburg, and a BA ticket on to Durban, and thinking that as Oneworld partners I'd be able to check through (mainly to secure recourse in case of delay). However the checkin agent said that this was not possible here, and to try in Madrid. She also mentioned that as I was early, I could be put on the earlier LHR-MAD flight, which I was ok with, as I was offered an emergency exit seat. I received my boarding passes and preceeded to security.

To say that there was a long queue was an understatement. The queue went through the snake system, along the front of Terminal 2 right to Arrivals, then back to the departures security entrance. All passengers had to join, and individual flights were called to the front as they approached. So I joined the queue. From that moment to departure time there were 45 mins. I'd moved along some way when I noticed a man subtley sneaking his way forward - he had an Air France boarding card, so I asked him (in French) if he was in the queue. His reply was that he had a flight to catch soon, I noted that his departure time was the same as mine and pointed this out. A few moments later our flights were announced and so we moved to the head of the queue. A group of Italian businessmen's laptops delayed us at the x-ray, so by the time I was through I literally ran to the gate - the furthest on the left pier of T2. I just made it, and was last on. To make matters worse, the emergency exit seat was the one in front of the extra leg room seats, so no more room, and a space between me and the door - so couldn't look out of the window And Iberia charge for drinks and snacks.

Flight landed at Madrid, at T4, and as the MAD-JNB flight operated from T4S, those of us on that connection, along with some others bound for Latin America disembarked from the rear door onto a bus, while everyone else exited from the front door directly into the terminal. The bus drove around and used the tunnel to drive to T4S, so couldn't spot any other parked aircraft I made my way straight to the Customer Service desk, to ask if I could check in for JNB-DUR - this still wasn't possible. I explained that it would help in case of delay, but not to worry - the agent then tried to phone the BA desk, but they'd gone home as there were no more BA flights that day. Oh well, I'd have to take my chances at JNB.

I now had 6 hours to wait in Madrid, as I'd received emails saying that the flight time was put back first by 30 mins, then another 1 1/2hours. If it was daylight, I'd have considered a quick trip into the city on the metro, but as it was 8pm to 2am, I just waited at the airport. There's not much airside in T4S, so I had a sandwich and a beer and read a book (The Long Walk by Slavomir Rawicz if you're interested).

Boarding started ontime, I had an aisle seat in the middle block near the back of the A340 where it tapers to 2-3-2. Took off and settled down. The seat behind me had an Irish teenager, part of an extended family of about 10 people who were dotted about the flight. Anyone who knows what "chav" means in the UK will describe the lot - from the kids to grandparents. Only difference was that they'd slip from Irish-accented English to Gaelic occasionally. Funniest thing was that the father would wander up to his daughter, stand by her seat for 30 mins or so without saying a word, then leave. Bizarre.

The meal was a chicken paella - by the time the stewards (4 20ish year old male stewards in our cabin) arrived there was no choice. It tasted ok, just as well I'd had a sandwich earlier as it was 3am by this time, and all I'd had since breakfast of toast and lunch of a pork pie. I settled down to sleep, or rather try to - I can never really sleep on planes. It was quite warm, so I used my blanket as a neck pillow - seemed to help!

All of a sudden the lights were swictched on, and the crew stared to serve breakfast - half a tinned peach and 2 slices of ham. Nice.

Now, remember that the flight is delayed for a few hours? When we started our descent, a British woman across the aisle asks the steward if she can go to the front so she can be first off, as she has a connecting flight. She starts getting aggitated, shouting that she will miss her flight - she has 1h10 from landing to take off (anyone knowing JNB will know that this is impossible! My revised time gave me 2 1/2hr, when I'd originally planned on 4h). As descent was well under way, she stood up and again demanded the steward - his response was "please sit down and fasten your seat belt". I was chatting to the (South African) guy next to me - I mentioned that chances are, if you're polite, people will help (note the agent in Madrid who tried to phone BA for me) but stand up and demand, you'll get shrugged shoulders and no sympathy. Turns out her connection with with 1time anyway, a local LCC. Good luck on her connection!

We landed and taxied to the gate, the furthest one on the new pier. As usual there's a mad scramble to get off, we disembark eventually (the earlier irate woman pushing her way down the plane in front of everyone) and head to passport control. There's a bit of a queue, 20 mins or so, but not too bad - but it should be airconditioned, especially in an African summer! Once through, I go to the carousel indicated, but there's nothing there, it's not even moving. Most people then head to the carousel that is turning - from the bags that start arriving, this is the one. Bags start coming out very slowly - one every 5 mins or so. Being quite tall, I had a peer down the belt - at the bottom it goes around a corner, and ever other bag it seems is getting stuck at the bend. Then a guy wanders over, frees it and disappears. A few bags later it's snarled up again. I go over to the baggage enquiries desk, as I'm running out of time - I'm told Iberia agent is around and to ask him. I find the guy and explain my predicament - including the fact that I'm yet to check in for the BA flight. He has a list of connecting passengers, which unsurprisingly I'm not on. He says not to worry, as BA and IB are partners, I'll get put on a later flight if necessary. This is the assurance I wanted! Just then my bag arrives, I grab it, tell the IB agent and start running. Again. (2nd run in 3 airports, and more exercise than I normally get in a week!) By this time I've 25 mins until scheduled departure time.

As an aside, in the newspaper that week, someone for a "joke" changed the arrival monitors in JNB to say "f*** off" - the airport is conducting an investigation, and say that the culprit, when (if) found, will be fired. Personally, I think that the culprit already was fired and did that on finding out!

The walk to Domestic currently goes through a building site then through the multi-storey car park, and signed as taking 15 mins - I do it in about 6, and arrive, puffing, at the BA checkin desk. I tell the agent at the end of the queue that my connecting flight was delayed, and my onward flight is very soon - I'm moved to the front to check in. After leaving my case, I run to the security, and then on to the gate. 10 mins to departure, there's no one there! I ask the agent, but boarding hasn't yet started - phew. I wait 2 mins then we are called forward. I get on, and have the window seat in the 1st row of economy. It's an old 737-300, the same type as the Nationwide aircraft that recently lost an engine. Take off is smooth, and we level out above the clouds. Flight attendents bring round chicken or vegetable wraps - very tasty - and drinks. I opt for maximum liquid, water as well as OJ. The Afrikaans guy next to me takes rum, and promptly spills it! Well, after the crew had moved on, at any rate.

Landed smoothly, especially noteworthy as most JNB-DUR flights are quite bumpy. Got my bag back and went through the door to the welcome sight of my wife Before heading to the car, I spoke to the BA desk to see if I could link the two bookings for my return - I was told that this was impossible, but unlike LHR and MAD, they could check me in for all flights (this was the case indeed on my return). What is it with IB in LHR and MAD, this should be possible everywhere - in the past I've checked through from HKG-BKK-LHR with China Airlines and Qantas...

All in all, not a bad service from Iberia, who 2 out of my 3 trips to SA have been the cheapest option. No personal in flight entertainment, but that's certainly not worth paying £100s for! Total fare about £580, over Christmas not bad, and 1/2 what SAA, BA and Virgin were charging for nonstop LHR-JNB flights.

New York April 2011

Background

With our son nearing 2 years old, we knew that from that point he would have to pay a child's fare whenever we flew, but before then he would be eligable for an infant fare. Therefore we wanted to go on a last long-haul trip before this. We had thought Australia, but available annual leave, and finance (and the necessity to have the child on our laps!) we decided to go somewhere closer. Added to this, was the fact that I had sufficient Air Miles (www.airmiles.co.uk) earned from my last 5 years' shopping at Tesco, and petrol purchases from them, for a completely free flight as far as zone 5. By free, they do mean free - all taxes and fees are taken care of. Zone 5 is as far as the northeast USA, Moscow, North Africa and the Middle East to Dubai. As my wife has never been to the USA, but has always wanted to go to New York, we chose there as a destination. I booked both my ticket (free), baby Matthew's ticket (half the regular infant fare, half miles) and my wife's fare (cash) on the Air Miles website. Total cost was 5250 miles, plus £375, for the 3 of us. I also entered our BA Executive Club numbers, but the booking classes were too low for any BA miles at all.

We then found that hotels in Manhattan are ridiculously expensive, so we decided on a rental apartment in Brooklyn, both for space per $, convenience, and having a more quiet area to stay in. We also booked a night at the Heathrow Central Travelodge the night before, as we needed to be at the airport at 8am the next day, and we live 2.5 - 3.5 hours away depending on traffic. We also arranged to leave our car at my brother in law's flat, in Earlsfield.

Our day of departure (from the house) arrived, and we spent some time packing cases and loading the car. We had wanted to leave after lunch, when Matthew would be having his afternoon sleep, but we ended up not leaving until 4pm. We picked up my brother in law from Hounslow West tube station, and proceeded to Nandos in Feltham for food, especially late in Matthew's case! Then on to the hotel to unload, and put the boy to bed. Unfortunately they had no baby cots (despite them telling me on a previous visit not to bother booking one, they always have plenty) so we set up the spare mattress on the floor for him. He eventually slept on the floor itself on a duvet, between the bed and the mentioned matress! I took Blake (the brother in law) home and left the car there, and came back by train and bus, and we had a good night's sleep. We were woken at 6 by an alarm, as we wanted to catch a bus to the terminals just before 7 (we spashed out on the Hotel Hoppa bus, so we wouldn't have to carry our cases to the local bus stop, and irritate regular passengers with them). Outside, Matthew looked in awe at the heavies landing almost directly above us on 27R - he looked frightened for the first one, but then loved it, saying each time "Big plane! Big plane!" Unfortunately we just missed the desired bus (H7) and were resigned to wait there for another 30 minutes, but 10 mins later another arrived, that went directly to T4 and T5 (H54), that was not advertised on the posters! This would save us the shuttle train to T5 so we boarded it, and the driver was happy to accept our ticket to T5 (our ticket was to T3).

Outward flight
02/04/11
BA175
LHR-JFK
G-BNLE

On arrival at T5, we tried to use the kiosk to check in (I'd tried to use mobile checkin but it failed), but this failed so we had to queue at a manual desk. This appeared to be because we had an infant with us, so we had been allocated a bulkhead seat with a little extra room. We left our luggage there, and proceeded through security. After buying some food in Boots, we took the shuttle train to T5B, to wait for the flight. We were approached by a gate agent, along with another family with a small child, and an elderly lady in a wheelchair, to be pre-boarded. My wife was "chosen randomly" for extra security screening, so she went downstairs towards the gate with the agent, whilst I waited for the lift with Matthew's pushchair. It arrived, we descended, and met my wife who's screening had already passed. Can't have been more than 30 seconds! We then proceeded down the jetway to the aircraft, picking up a newspaper on the way.

We settled ourselves into our window, bulkhead seats and gave Matthew some toys. We had lots of toys in small cloth bags, a few in each, that we could give him as he became bored with each, which hopefully would last the flight. We were also given a small plastic suitcase containing a colouring book and crayons, by the crew. At this point though Matthew was more interested in looking out of the window. Eventually everyone was on board, and with a full load we pushed back. It was a long taxi as we took off from 27L, climbing slowly and headed westwards. Matthew was fine, sitting on my lap, and once the seatbelt sign was switched off he sat on the floor and played with his toys. Food came round fairly soon, my wife's gluten free meal came first, a gf-pasta dish, followed by the regular meals. I chose pasta, with a spicy bbq chicken,
which I was pleasantly surprised by.

At one point turbulence became quite bad, my wife was sick (which lasted a few days into the holiday, when combined with morning sickness which she was free of for the week before we left). Matthew sat on my lap and watched some TV on the miniature screen, Cbeebies, the BBC channel for toddlers. He reacted angrily though to the headphones to hear what the TV characters were saying, but he seemed happy to watch in silence!

We kept ourselves hydrated, and especially Matthew, so we took his empty Fruit Shoot bottle to the galley and filled it with a mix of apple juice and water. I had a chat with the steward whilst there, with him saying New York is one of his favourite destinations.

Soon after, the pre-arrival snack was brought around. My wife's arrived first (as usual) and consisted of a gf-roll and a bowl of fruit salad. Mine came, and was a sandwich and mini KitKat bar. This too was very tasty. It has to be said, that no infant food was provided, not that we expected any (the only airline to provide infant food was SAA, which provided two jars of baby food and a carton of fruit juice).

By now we were descending, so back on my lap for Matthew. As well as looking out of the window of the views of Long Island, he played with the plastic suitcase from earlier, and a sheet of animal stickers, which we stuck on the case. We landed smoothly on 31R, and the taxi to Terminal 7 was very quick.

Unfortunately, the pushchair was not in the jetway on exiting the aircraft - we had let everyone else off first was we knew we would take some time to arrange all our stuff. Staff there told us it would be on the carousel (which it was, eventually). We walked down towards the immigration desks, but then Matthew had a meltdown. He cried and screamed, and nothing we could do would make him stop. We tried food, drinks, toys, I held him but he wanted his Mummy to hold him but even then he cried (and she couldn't hold him for much time as she was still feeling sick). After moving about 20m in the very long queue in about 20 minutes, we were asked to come forward to the front. We apologised to the staff, they were ok with it and took our fingerprints (our ESTA visas approved online the week before they started charging!) We exited these desks to the baggage reclaim, where we saw one of our cases and the pushchair. The airport was asking $5 to rent a trolley, so we decided that to walk the short distance to the taxi rank we would cope. We had 2 cases, one large rucksack, hand baggage and a pushchair with a boy. I had the large rucksack on my back, a bag on the pushchair handle, boy in it, and pulled one case, my wife had another small rucksack on, pulling the 2nd case and holding the 3rd hand luggage back. We exited and got a taxi to the apartment in Brooklyn we had rented. (Very impressed with the hybrid taxis in New York, gliding to the taxi queue in silence!)

After a great week in New York, it was time to come home. The owner of the apartment gave us the phone number of a taxi firm, so we booked a taxi for the following morning at 5am, in time for our flight at 8.

Return flight
09/04/11
BA178
JFK-LHR
G-BYGC

We checked in at a kisok, no problem this time! Again we didn't spend $5 on a luggage trolley to move our bags less than 50m from the kerbside, to checkin kiosk, to luggage drop. Matthew was very tired, and starting to get antsy, so when we went through the security checkpoint (my first and so far only experience of the infamous "TSA"), he started moaning. We passed through ok, but my wife had to explain the baby foods and bottles, and despite carrying a crying baby we were not allowed to give him his milk until the agent had checked all the bottles (annoying as he had already checked the milk!) Anyway, once they were all checked and cleared, we gave Matthew the milk and he was happy. It was only 6am by this time, 2h to departure, so we went to find some breakfast. Not many of the open cafes had anything gluten free (for my wife), not least Starbucks, as their UK operation has at least 2 GF cakes, and some other snacks, whereas here nothing, and nothing on the labels saying their allergens (but they did say the exact number of calories per cake!) So, McDonalds got our business, for my wife a bacon and egg sandwich minus the bread, the same for me with. Their hash browns are ok. We fed Matthew with some cereal with made up formula milk.

My wife went to the duty free shop to buy some perfume, and was surprised when they didn't give it to her but said they would deliver it to the gate. They did so, so she was relieved. We, along with the other few parents, were called forward first to board, and we went down the jetway to the aircraft. After asking to confirm if we would get the pushchair back on exiting the aircraft or on the baggage carousel, we were told we could take in on and use an overhead locker - as the flight was far from full there would be room. This eastbound daytime flight was clearly not the busiest for BA! Again we had a window side bulkhead seat, with an older Yorkshire gentleman next to us. The checkin agent had said there were 60 spare seats on board, so we offered him the chance to move, but he was happy - there was a little extra legroom, and he had grandchildren so wasn't worried about Matthew. He was travelling with another 4 guys (including his son) who were in the middle section accross the aisle. I did notice that the bulkhead curtain rail was stuck together with gaffer tape - not exactly a good impression! There was no child gift this time, but we buckled up and got ready to depart. There was a long taxi to runway 04L, where we took off. We followed the coast of Long Island, where we got some nice shots of Fire Island except the dirty windows smudged them somewhat. After spotting Nantucket, we headed out to sea. I forget what my wife's meal was, but I was offered omlette or vege lasagne - I took the lasagne as I'd already eaten breakfast. It was surprisingly good! Although there was more turbulance - enough to make the drinks spill from the table, my wife didn't feel sick this time.

After an hour or two, Matthew started getting overtired, and he cried for 5 minutes until he finally fell asleep on my wife's lap, where he stayed comatose for 3 hours. He woke shortly before the pre-landing snack was distributed - my wife had another fruit salad, and a muffin for the rest of us. Matthew continued to play, and we landed on 09L on time. Overall a good flight, once we left the US coastal turbulance.

We deboarded the aircraft and made our way to the little train shuttle to the main hall of T5, passed immigration without a problem and picked up our bags. I left my wife with the luggage (on a trolley!) to sit in a cafe whilst I took Matthew to the bus stops to catch a bus to Feltham, the train to Earlsfield back to my brother in law's to pick up the car - he was in Paris himself, running his first marathon. We returned to T5, picked up my wife and drove home, getting in at 2am, but this was only 9pm on our body clocks. A good holiday, a first time change for Matthew who has taken about 4 days to get back into his normal routine, and my wife enjoyed her time in New York.