The flight was showing a delay of 30 minutes, but no explanation was given. Boarded late, with UCS and PE given priority. Then we sat on the ground for a while, again with no explanation..... Moved about an hour late, and then sat on the taxi way for about 10 minutes. Captain eventually said it was 'ATC'.
PE was only one-third full, UCS half full, and economy about 2/3rds full.
Service was OK to poor; initial drink given, one drinks run, only one (small) glass of wine with meal and no topup. No after dinner drink. Only one water/juice run in the entire 8.5 hour flight. Food choice was either vegetarion, chicken in sauce, or lamb curry. Chicken was OK. Light snack before arriving.
But the window provided decent scenery most of the way.
I find the airbus (A430-300) PE seats not as comfortable as the 747, but it was allright for a day flight. Arrived over London a few minutes later at around 6:30pm or so, and then circuited 3 times over the dome before coming in to land 30 minutes late - again no information given....
Dismebarkation was pretty rapid, but I forgot my duty free bag, and had to go back for it, where a nice ground crew interrogated me before handing it over!
Immigration and luggage were reasonably fast for a Friday 7:00pm.
So a reasonable flight, but not high on service, similar to the outbound. Given the low passenger numbers, this was doubly disappointing.
Oh well - off to St Lucia in PE in a couple of weeks, so let's hope that one is better.
