VS3023 LHR-ABZ 18 JUL 14 (Economy)

This is a Trip Report from the Economy cabin

Ground Staff

Food & Drink

Entertainment

Seat

Cabin Crew

My first TR....woo hoo!

Off to Aberdeen (then on by car) for a friend's big birthday surprise visit. OLCI completed the day before....got Seq 8 so there were obviously some keen bunnies on my flight. However, got seat 1C which was great.

First impressions were not good when I arrived at LHR T1 to find they had already removed LR from the list of "where to check-in" information (ahead of the move to T2 I guess) - I had a moment of panic that LR had already moved to T2! Luckily I spotted the red sign at the end of the departures hall.

There were 3 queues with a few people at each and luckily for once I chose the right queue (very unusual for me)....lots of single travellers. Dropped bag off quickly, although why did they have to re-print my boarding pass and throw away the one I had printed at home? What a waste!

I was meeting a friend who was travelling from London City to ABZ at the same time as me, so we exchanged texts at boarding time, then I proceeded to board last as I was at the front. It was only then that things didn't got to plan....

We were sat waiting for quite a while when there was an announcement to say the co-pilot had had an accident on the way to work and they were awaiting a replacement......general moans and groans down the plane. Some time later the co-pilot turns up but then we are told we have to wait another 10 minutes for a slot. Eventually I think we were about 50 minutes late taking off. Oh well at least we got there!

Drinks were OK, but "food" was a choc chip cookie or a miniscule bag of plain (or as they were called on the bag "plane") crisps.

Flight was uneventful and we landed late (obviously) but not too bad - my friend had chance to sort out the hire car paperwork whilst waiting for me and we were off on our way for a weekend of eating, drinking and surprises.

Thanks for the TR, and sorry to hear about the delay.

I am actually a fan of those Plane Chips - just love how tiny each crisp is... Maybe that's just me.

I was on the LR to and from AND recently, too, and in addition to your observation on the single passengers, I also noticed quite a gender imbalance. But guess that's ABZ for you.

One thing I did notice was the ground staff at the gate at LHR took some hand luggage off a guy to be checked in - he was standing there with 4 bags, but was waiting for the rest of his party of 4 to come back from the loo.....it seemed very unfair as there was another party nearby who appeared to have two pieces each and they weren't asked to check anything in. I always keep valuables/medication in my hand luggage so would have been mightily p'ed off if I had been asked to check my hand luggage bag (wouldn't have happened on this flight as all I had was a small handbag - I had checked a bag in as I hate lugging a load of stuff round an airport).