Good morning guys. What is up?
And why!?!
I'm at Aberdeen Airport, Dyce Airport if you like, this morning and I am taking a British Airways flight down to London Heathrow.
My first time at this airport so why don't you come with me and we'll go and see what it's like. I'll catch you on the flight!
Aberdeen Airport is normally easy to get to by rail. But unfortunately, the local train
operating company were on strike on the day of my departure so I had to get the bus. It's not a
problem though, they run about every 20 minutes from the city.
The terminal has a fairly unobtrusive entrance in my opinion. As per usual at the moment, there was hardly anyone about when
I walked in.
Getting through security was painless enough though my tray was once again selected for additional
checks. Apparently it’s random but it seems to happen to me more often than not at the
moment. Maybe it’s time I changed my brand of toothpaste or something!
Anyway, after going through the usual duty free shopping experience (which is really
about the same as everywhere else these days) and past plenty of closed outlets, I arrived
in the departures area which I think possibly looked busier than it actually was and I reckon
this is partly due to the relatively small space around the main gates. However, it was
good to see that, as well as the usual domestic flights mainly by Loganair, Eastern Airways,
Easyjet and British Airways, there were some holiday flights going out despite the myriad
of testing that people had to undertake before and after.
Now I like to explore the airside areas as much as possible prior to boarding and so I wandered
off towards gates 6 - 12. I found this a great area to escape from everyone. The tv was on
and there was absolutely nobody about. I was more interested in what was going on outside
and this was a great area to observe some of the aircraft close up but also watch the
comings and goings of the many helicopters on view. Did you know that Aberdeen is the
worlds busiest heliport? This is largely due to it’s proximity to the North Sea oil and
gas fields so many of the movements are to and from the many rigs located out to sea.
Helicopter passenger numbers are about half a million a year at the moment.
Basking in the sun this lunchtime was our aircraft today a 19 year old Airbus A320-200,
G-EUUD.
Boarding was approximately 20 mins late because the aircraft was being sanitised. That's a good sign really isn't it?
There was no priority boarding today which has been the case on all BA flights I’ve taken since
the start of these crazy days.
Notice how long it’s taking to get people onto the aircraft. This is partly due i think
to there just being the one set of steps at the front whereas a further set at the rear
would have helped on this occasion.
A single Dettol wipe in a clear plastic bag was handed out on boarding. I’m sure there
used to be more in this bag but it’s something rather than nothing I guess.
I made my way to my seat in the exit row today which was 12F
And as per usual, it was tyrells plain crisps (just for a change) and a small bottle of Harrogate still water.
I used the wipe handed out on boarding to clean my hands after eating the crisps.
It may be useful to note that there is no arm rest on the window seats in row 12. Not
sure about the row in front either but it makes no difference to me personally as I
much prefer the extra legroom
Now something that I didn't know before this flight was that the Usb and power sockets are only available
and switched on once the seatbelt sign is off.
There is WiFi on board but personally I don’t think it’s worth it for such a short flight.
All I’m interested in really is the flight stats and you can still get these via theshop.ba.com connection.
If you scroll past all the payment requests and there you go, it's all there.
There are two toilets at the rear of this aircraft and I did have time on this flight to do a
quick loo review. Anyway, the right-hand side one was available which is small but it was clean and everything worked.
Well it took me ages to find the paper tissue disposal for some reason. I did like the toiletries on offer by the way.
I had been looking forward to some nice clear skies today. It was a bit cloudy leaving Scotland
really but the further south we went, the better it became and by the time we’d started
our descent, the clouds had all but disappeared.
And I was on the right side of the aircraft today to enjoy some great views over the capital,
the River Thames, Buckingham Palace, Wembley - a lot of the landmarks were clearly visible
though my window did mist up quite a bit at this point. Does anybody know why this happens?
Other windows seemed fine so, I don't know, maybe it was just a bit of bad luck.
Anyway, we’d managed to make up time and we’re only 2 minutes late, touching down
on runway 27L today.
Overall, this was just another normal domestic flight, with BA doing what they do efficiently
and to a consistent standard. These days, it really feels like a privilege to be up
in the air at all. But I really miss long haul flying and can’t wait to get back up
there in a bigger aircraft, experiencing different cultures in far away lands.
In the meantime though, I’ve got a few more trips booked and I’m going to share them with you guys
and, if you like this content, I would really appreciate it if you could consider a subscribe.
It really helps me out and until the next time guys, cheers for now!