This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin
Ground Staff
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I arrived at the airport almost 6 hours in advance of the flight for a couple of reasons:
1. The journey to JFK was only 35mins but the concierge said to allow at least an hour, this 35mins included very slow traffic on the way.
2. A family member was flying BA [xx(] (poor soul) and his flight was earlier at 21:30.
3. I thought we should give plenty of time for security in case it took a long time.
We took a minicab to the airport as we did not want a crazy NY taxi driver to race us there in a go-kart (Earlier in the day I even saw an accident of a taxi less than 5m from where I was standing!) Thankfully our driver was sane enough to not jump on the accelerater at the sight of a car moving away and brake so late and hard your thrown from your seat. Anyways, we arrived ahead of schedule, at least it is better than arriving late I guess but when you have no CH to go to it can be a bit of a drain.
I had completed On Line Check In the night before so I could miss the queues at the aiport. When in line for the fast bag drop we were told to check in at UC since it was clear. Check In was excellent and I managed to get seats on an exit row - oh the legroom!
We then had to haul our bags to the TSA screening point - there was not a long line but it took ages for it to move, when we got to the front the TSA employee took our bags and placed them to one side saying we could go. How were we to know then if our bags were going to arrive [}:)]?
After leaving our luggage we walked downstairs to the shopping area. I hadn't been to JFK in a long time and thought that there would be shops after security so we joined a line so long it stretched almost to the other side. Despite its length it was not too bad as a TSA lady took the rear half and brought us forward to use another entrance. We had to do the usual: take shoes off, shuffle through the detector, find shoes and try to put them on with another ten people crowded around you - very pleasant [xx(].
To my amazement though there was only a newsagent and a tiny cafe! So we walked to the end of the gates and walked back to lose some time and then went back out to the shops to have something to eat.
After spending some time looking at the shops and eating we decided to fo through security for the second time. However it was much more civilised with very few people in the queue - this was at about 20:30.
I bought a magazine and read until boarding was announced at 22:40. There was some confusion as a notice saying boarding had now started was played over the loudspeaker then a couple of minutes later when everyone was inline, seats 65 to 55 were called. No-one took any notice though and stayed in the queue.
Once on board the usual safety briefings were carried out and then we took off.
V-port was excellent but the news and intro can be a bit tedious. I watched 'Hotel Rwanda' as I had missed it at the cinema.
The food was ok, I chose the BBQ beef - it was served with mashed potatoes, carrots (which were very hard) and broccoli. Dessert was cheescake - yuk!
Drinks service I thought was poor - only wine with the meal no offer of anyting else eventhough the trolley was packed with other drinks. Later only water and juice was offered as the cold drinks.
I must have missed breakfast as I was very tired and had fallen asleep with and hour and a half to landing.
The cabin crew were very good but I would have appreciated more to drink like my flight on the way out. Other than that they were faultless.
We landed ten minutes early having left behind schedule - our crossing was under 6 hours.
Immigration was a breeze but had to wait a while for our bags to come out. Very tired we took a cab home and slept but as you can see by the time at which I am writing this I haven't quite got used to British time just yet [:D].