This trip was booked as a day trip to meet up with some friends who i havn't seen for ages.
I woke up early on Friday morning to check in online and managed to get myself a window seat and SEQ1 for both my flights on Saturday.
as i had managed to get Friday off work i decided to make a long weekend of the trip and mid morning made my way to the Terminal 5 business car park (pre booked) and made use of the new PRT Pod system to terminal 5 and then the HEX to Heathrow central
(picture of a Pod)
the pods are controlled by a touch screen display in the station asking you where you want to go and then the doors open to a four seat car with a button to close the doors and one to start.
(picture of pod in station)
(inside the pod)
the trip takes 5 mins from the car park to the terminal and on the way the screen on the roof of the pod gives stats suck as the pod takes 50,000 bus trips off the roads at LHR each year.
after arriving at the central bus station i went arround to the Travelodge on Bath Road to check in for the night and to drop my bag before returning to LHR to make use of a HEX upgrade voucher (thanks to Chumba
) to visit central London and get some food.this was my first trip in to London on the HEX and is a vast improvement from the Piccadilly line at rush hour.
once i had walked Oxford St and visited M&M's World @ Leicester Sq I made my way back to the Travelodge on the HEX and 111 bus and found that LHR had swapped runways and i now had a great view of aircraft passing my window every couple of minutes on approach to the northern runway which was good for a while but not when you are trying to sleep. that said this is the first time i have had any issue with aircraft noise in this Travelodge so it wouldn't put me off returning for a cheap night hotel room.
Saturday Morning i woke at 4:15 to get the bus around to Terminal 1 in plenty of time for my 6:55 flight I arrived at the airport at 5 am.
The line for check-in with BD went from zone A (economy) around Zone B (business) and joined with the united/continental Que in the next zone so i used my mobile phone boarding pass and went straight through security.
the lines in security were quite long but in the absence of any BAA staff everyone was going to the same Que so i went the other way and was through in 3 mins after removing my iPad from my bag (is this just a BAA thing??)
entering the departure lounge this early there are not a lot of shops open but on the plus side there were lots of seats and very few pax in the departure lounge so i sat down and started to draft this on my iPad to type up later.
after a while BD050/LH6510 flashed up on the screen as 'go to gate 8'
on arriving at gate 8 going through boarder control again on the way and collecting a free copy of the daily mail there was a lot of people in the gate area and so i knew the flight would be full.
at 06:45 they started to board the flight after an announcement saying that some seat changes had had to be made as they had swapped our scheduled A319 for G-MEDL one of the A321's and so people had to be moved to fill a larger aircraft.
G-MEDL has the new brown economy seating as seen here from 9A at the front of the cabin
we pushed back from gate 8E 10 mins late and after a take off from an intersection half way up the runway we were quickly airborne.
a smooth flight all the way to Edinburgh and a good landing the cabin interior was a bit noisy with a lot of vibration shaking it whilst we were taxing at LHR and EDI
we arrived at the gate (6) at 08:12 and the door was opened quickly.
on arrival in to EDI the pax get off and like in the US domestic pax go straight in to the departure lounge following signs to UK arrivals & Exit.
throughout the flight the crew were only visible to do a quick cabin check before take-off and landing and to do a quick trolley service i know that this was only a short flight but it would have been nice to see the occasional crew member in the aisle instead of them being in the rear galley all flight.
overall a good flight although the crew/service could have been a bit better.
Chris H
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