Anyway back to the trip home. We had received a text message from BA saying the flight was delayed, but no message to say that we could go later than usual. We used the airport express train out to the airport, which is pretty good. When we got to the airport, we went to the ticket desk to see if we could upgrade our return flight as there was no option at the time of check-in. The agent said “I can do that” when I asked, and after I asked again, it became apparent that we were being upgraded for free – good result. She made some comment about the flight being late and making up for that. In addition, we were able to get two seats upstairs as we were flying back on a B747. Very happy and with Club World boarding pass in hand, we dropped off suitcases and headed to immigration. Luckily there is a separate business class area, which had only a very short queue (again with nothing said during the whole process) and through security to the lounge. This is labelled as an “airport lounge”, although it comes across as though it is a BA Terraces Lounge. Very spacious, good choice of local food and plenty of alcohol. In the end we were about 3 hours late, which meant we had quite a bit of time to spend in here. Not too bad shops – lots of vodka if you wanted to buy some! There some people in there that were very noisy, maybe through a small amount of alcohol, who in the end were on our flight and were in First! The later flight left about an hour before ours due to the delay.
Finally boarding was called and we headed off down to the gate area, where there was a big queue even for priority boarding! Once on board, we headed upstairs and settled in with our glass of champagne. The captain explained that the reason for the delay was that the plane had a technical fault which meant it was delayed and as a result the cockpit crew would have gone out of hours so they then needed to get a new cockpit crew. At least we knew the reason for a change.
After take-off, the drinks trolley came around and I had my usual Kir Royale. Menus were handed out and the options were
Starters
- Smoked salmon and smoked trout roulade with Royal Belgian Oscietra caviar with radish and fennel salad served with your choice of Russian Standard Imperia or Chase English Vodka
- Cream cheese panna cotta with pea and broad bean salad and pickled carrot dressing
Main
- Seared fillet of Charlois beef with mustard cream sauce, champ potato and poached spring vegetables
- Corn-fed chicken Kiev with tomato and vodka sauce, sour cream potato bake and wilted spinach
- Spring vegetables with fregola pasta and spring onion mascarpone sauce
- Chilled main course Caesar salad with prawn and toasted croutons
Afters
- Cherry chocolate drum
- Barber’s Cheddar and Somerset Camembert
The person dinner orders seemed to be dotting around the cabin – I thought that this was because she was working around the drinks trolley. However, we asked for the Chicken Kiev for main, she said that all the upstairs ones had been chosen. Rather than saying I’ll check down stairs, she then added “I see that you were originally in a different cabin and so I have been making sure that the Golds and other Club passengers got their choices”. No I realise that that probably is the case, but she didn’t need to say it and to me it seemed to be said rather loudly.....and therefore I felt embarrassed! As it turned out, there had loads of chicken kievs downstairs and so she could have handled it all much better IMO.
When the food was served, we went for the Russian Standard Imperia vodka with the salmon/trout/caviar starter. The CC went to the galley and then came back with a full size bottle of chilled vodka and two double shot glasses! Having a double neat vodka with the starter was quite a challenge, but we managed it with style! After the initial blip about how the food orders were handled, it felt as though she and the other CC decided to be a bit more attentive to us, so that kind made up for it. Again the food options were really decent size, well presented and tasted great! I do think that BA is pretty good when it comes to long-haul food in Club. Watched a movie and some comedy during the flight, with several glasses of wine during dinner and afterwards.
Arrived to a T5B gate and luckily there wasn’t a queue at immigration. Luggage came off very quickly and we were soon heading off to the Heathrow Express for our return home. overall we were nearly 3.5 hours late arriving in the end.
Impressions
- Brilliant to get a free upgrade by the ground staff in Moscow to “compensate” for a late flight
- Good standard of food on board
- The food situation could have been handled a bit better – I understand the reasons as we were in a higher cabin than we had paid for
- Seems a little strange being in an upstairs Club World seat on a B747 for a 4 hour flight. However, I did enjoy it and now means that my next medium-haul trip in Euro Traveller or Club Europe will seem a bit strange.
