This is a Trip Report from the Premium Economy cabin
Ground Staff
Food & Drink
Entertainment
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Cabin Crew
With the floods the day before and Saturday being the first day of the school holidays I left fot the airport a little earlier, meaning my 3 children were woken at 6:30am, put in the car still in their PJ's and eating breakfast on the move.
Left Reading at 6:45am, some sort of incident on the M4 but by the time we got there it had cleared. Traffic heavy but moving from 500 metres from the traffic lights before the Tunnel. Arrived at the tunnel at 7:15am
The T3 approach was OK, signs were diverting pickups to the parking garage, rather than allowing people to wait.
The terminal was busy, but I've seen far worse. Checkin in the PE line was better staffed, and faster moving than the UC line.
Got my usual row 70 seat. This time opting for 70K, as someone else had managed to bag 70A.
The Fast Track line was quick, although the metal detector went off as I went through, and the security guard was sure it was my belt. However, it never normally goes off anywhere I travel. i even walked back through the deviced 4 more times without setting it off, so I have no idea what triggered it.
The lounge was quiet, and the service was a little slow. Had the usual Bacon sandwich and some fruit. I was happy to see they had the shortbread back, so I took a couple for a mid-flight snack.
Boarding was late, as the plane was late coming in from it's destination, a knock on result from yesterdays storms I guess.
The flight was not called until 11am, and by the time I got there I had to queue all the way from the loung, over the jetway, and was being edged out by some UC passengers who clearly did n't like to be in a line.
The flight pushed back at 11:40, and we rotated at 11:55. Flight time was expecgted to be a little quicker, with a 14:10 landing.
I was the last to arrive in the PE section upstairs, and the guy next to me was already in situ, he was a bit offish with me, and later by accident managed to knock a chocolate ice-cream lid onto my trousers, and this was the trip I decided to travel light, with only 1 formal pair of trousers and 1 pair of jeans.
The Cabin Crew was good, and I had a good chat to the attendant on the climb.
The flight was Ok, they did n't bring the fruit round. The food was OK, I had the Roast pork. The entertainment system worked perfectly.
Watched Are we done yet, Hot Fuzz and 300 and a few documentaries.
Dozed through HF and AWDY, surprisingly was awake throughout 300 and thought it was pretty good.
Landing at 14:20, some 30 minutes late, meant we were arriving at a similar time to the BA 747 and the KLM one. Immigration was busy with a slightly new format, which means you can join about 10 semi-long lines, which I still do not think works well.
I picked a fairly fast moving line, which did not help, as I the Immigration Officer who stamped my forms, told me to go to a secondary booth. They were selecting people from Visa Waiver countries on new passports for a more thorough check.
I went down to the far end and was seen immediately by an immigration officer, who did try to explain why I had been selected. It was not random, and he asked me if I had used my passport before, how many I'd had etc. I told him this was a new passport in December 2006, and this was the 8th trip since Jan 2007, and was last used at SFO on March 19th.
He did a lot of typing, and I still have no real idea why this happened, at least he was friendly, and was willing to try and answer my Why questions.
The priority luggage was already on the belt, and I picked up my bag immediately and was off to collect my Avis car. Priority baggage clearly worked this trip.
There were very long lines at Avis' main counter, and moderate ones at the Fastbreak line, so I went straight to my car, which was a Chevy Impala, a horrible car, it weaves on the freeway, and is very heavy at parking speeds. I am going to swap it later this morning.
I headed to some friends in Fremont, for dinner and to do a bit of work on our Oracle deployment testing, and fix a technical problem on their new laptop.
I was not looking forward to the trip, I really did not want to be travelling on the first day of the school holiday, and it does look like I'll have another trip in 4 weeks, right over my 16th wedding anniversary.
Not too much time for people watching, I did notice there were many adults reading the Harry Potter book.
The plus side, is it's in the 80's and sunny here. When I checked email later, my wife had sent me a picture showing the road we have to use to get to the M4 was badly flooded, so it was a good job I did leave early. I'll post it here later.
Mark
