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
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