#12723 by Howard Long
11 May 2006, 13:47
I noticed that recently there was a comment about not many BMI TRs. So here's mine!

I did LHR-GLA-LHR on BD16 (0700-0820) and BD13 (1925-2040) yesterday in Business.

Unusually I was bright and breezy at 0515 as I headed to the airport. I had been in a telecon to the US between 0200 and 0400 resolving some problems, and decided I might as well stay up. There were no delays, dropping my car of at the T1 valet at 0540.

On this occasion my customer pre-payed for a full fare economy through their TA (£360) and I upgraded at the airport when I arrived at 0545 both legs for £25 total. I have tried upgrading with this customer's TA, Amex, using my Amex card, before and it won't work. Since BMI moved their call centre to India a year or so ago I have not been able to do it that way either. These days an upgrade apparently can only be done at the airport - or so I'm told.

Upgrading at the airport this turned out to have huge time saving benefits. There was no queue at the ticket desk, but there were huge queues for the self-checkin machines. They checked me in manually at the ticket desk for outward and return as I only had hand baggage.

At 0555 I headed to the security and that took ten minutes to clear, better than it can be at this time in the morning. As always only three out of five xray machines were open for the hoi poloi. One other was available for staff only, and of course had no queue unlike those available for the general public.

Sat in the business area of the BMI lounge until the flight was called at 0650 and had the opportunity to do tons of work on the lappy as well as taking in a couple of caffeine hits.

Boarding was fine, although there's a bit of a hike these days on some flights to the new gate area. The benefit of this extension is that you're much less likely to get bussed like you you used to with BMI. However "Gate 8" now covers a large number of gates at some distance apart. 8a is right outside the lounge, but 8e that I used was another few minutes away. At the second flight call I exited the lounge right away, but before I could reach the gate I got called by name [:w].

The 2-3 config is still welcome. The cooked brekkie tasted OK, consisting of a tiny omelette, fried potato cubes, a couple of button mushrooms, some tomato based puree thing, and a tiny rasher of bacon. But let's be honest, no better than BA's economy except you get china cups and a glass for your OJ. Presentation in the cardboard box is (as I harped on about two or three years ago on airlinemeals.net when they first introduced them in Business) appalling for an alleged business product. They also seem to have given up on the suggestions they made at the beginning that the money they save on the presentation is made up by the quality of the items, when clearly it isn't.

Barely had twenty minutes to do any more work before the seat belt signs came back on again.

Came into land into Glasgow where it was a beautiful sunny morning. Of course, I had umbrella, hat and a heavy coat.

The taxi trip into town for this time in the morning was a record for me arriving twenty minutes later at 08:40.

On the way back I had another record journey to the airport from the middle of town at 5pm - thirteen minutes! There were no delays at security at GLA. I had two hours in the spacious lounge where I wrote an entire presentation for a forthcoming conference next week in the US as well as a bunch of other work.

Once boarded, we pushed back but we waited on the tarmac for fifteen minutes or so, I assume for our slot into LHR. Again these appalling cardboard boxes came out with a selection of either macaroni cheese or 'roast beef'. The roast beef turned out to be some sligtly more spicy Moroccan thing with cous cous. OK, but let's face it, cous cous is possibly the world's most boring carb.

Had a small sip of some Chilean cab sav. There's sadly no more Champagne on BMI Domestic Business. Yet another drop in standards since they dropped Business from 80%+ of their routes.

The service itself is still OK, with hot towels at beginning and end of the flight. The old boiled sweet thing is welcome despite being a bit 70's!

We arrived at the gate about five minutes late. Before the seat belt signs came off, two pax from the back stormed down to the front so that I could not get out of my own seat to get my stuff down from the overhead lockers. The crazy thing was that when we finally deplaned, they were in no hurry for anything, not even a fag break.

Headed straight for the valet parking, picked up my car, and even the M4 was still open back into town (they seem to love to shut it just when I get in from these short hauls at about 9pm). Back at home 40 minutes after landing - another record.

In short, BMI standards in their limited short haul Business offering is still dropping. Service though was still good. Was it worth the extra £25? Yes - for the guaranteed extra room, especially if you can get an A or C seat, free food and beverage, a seat at the front, 2 more tier points on VS, and 2,400 miles on VS, I'd still pay £25 every time.

Cheers, Howard
#117253 by slinky09
11 May 2006, 15:24
Cool, called by name! That's awesome. Good to hear more from BD, I too missed that champagne recently. EDI and GLA airports are quite nice and efficient aren't they?
#117266 by Howard Long
11 May 2006, 16:40
Originally posted by slinky09
Cool, called by name! That's awesome. Good to hear more from BD, I too missed that champagne recently. EDI and GLA airports are quite nice and efficient aren't they?


Oh I only got called by name because the gate was about to close (allegedly).

I noticed that 200ml Champagne is available by the bottle for GBP6 from the Y menu, so I am sure this is cost cutting.

I find EDI goes through phases. The security can be quite a chore. GLA I find a lot better in this respect. Comparing the BA and BMI domestic lounges at GLA and EDI, the best lounge of the lot is BMI's at GLA which has never been over-full in my experience. The rest are heaving at peak times. The BA domestic lounge at GLA is tiny.
#117545 by VS045
12 May 2006, 19:38
Suprised that you managed to sqeeze a TR of such good length out of those short legs - great though:D

VS.
#117599 by JAT74L
13 May 2006, 09:43
20/13 mins drive to and from the City centre to GLA is indeed a record Howard. Especially at 0820!

Regards

John
#117601 by Howard Long
13 May 2006, 09:57
Originally posted by JAT74L
20/13 mins drive to and from the City centre to GLA is indeed a record Howard. Especially at 0820!



Yes, quite something. Here's a spooky thing. On the return, the cab picked me up at 16:58, two minutes early - I was waiting already, and you know how we all clock watch when waiting. When we arrived at the airport, I looked overhead to check the price but I couldn't locate the meter, I thought he had two clocks, both saying 17.11. Turns out one was the clock, the other was the meter.

They have a interesting cab fare structure in GLA where there often seems to be an odd penny added on.

Howard
#117603 by JAT74L
13 May 2006, 10:49
I very recently paid £7:58 (rounded it up to £8) for a cab in Doncaster. It wasn't until the next morning when I returned to the station in another cab costing less than 4 quid I realised my mistake...

Matey was quite happy to take my 8 quid at 8pm!!!

What an eejit.

John
#117882 by Howard Long
15 May 2006, 13:05
Originally posted by JAT74L
I very recently paid £7:58 (rounded it up to £8) for a cab in Doncaster. It wasn't until the next morning when I returned to the station in another cab costing less than 4 quid I realised my mistake...

Matey was quite happy to take my 8 quid at 8pm!!!

What an eejit.

John


LOL! That's the sort of behaviour of someone South of the border (the Watford Gap border that is), not North!

Cheers, Howard
#146429 by Guest
07 Nov 2006, 00:20
Hi Howard

Thanks for your repsonse to my previous post. What are the lounges like at LHR and GLA? Are there two lounges at GLA or just one combined DC / Business Lounge? What food/drinks/facilites are on offer.

Cheers!
#146450 by pjh
07 Nov 2006, 09:12
Howard

Thanks for the TR. The tip about the upgrade price and the VS benefts are worth knowing for me as (a) I'm more likely to have short than long haul travel for work and (b) we get more flexibility about booking short haul..

Paul
#146526 by Scorpio
07 Nov 2006, 14:30
Hey Howard, Liked your Trip Report!

Yes i am amazed it didnt take you long to get into Glasgow at that time in the morning especially during the week.

I used to work at Glasgow Airport and i even i must say it is a very efficient airport and the security staff are really friendly too.

djmatthews - Which lounge are you enquiring about at Glasgow airport? As there are a few.
#146612 by Guest
07 Nov 2006, 20:33
Hi motherger

I'm enquiring about the bmi lounge. I'll be flying GLA-LHR with bmi on a business reward ticket shortly.

Thanks
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