Leaving home at 0515 on a Sunday morning meant that we had a clear, quick and easy drive to Heathrow T5 and with Meet & Greet Parking booked we simply dropped the car in the short stay car park and were soon in the terminal. Unsurprisingly it was almost empty and we quickly dropped our bags at the First Class check-in and were ushered straight through a small security area which again was pretty deserted. For some reason I was picked for a random search which involved patting me all over, but eventually I was deemed safe. A short corridor later and we were directly in BA’s First Lounge.
So I nearly missed the horse lamps.
Instead of the usual buffet, food is ordered using a QR code menu and whilst perfectly adequate the bacon rolls were not a patch on the old style. The Bucks Fizz though was fine and the staff as lovely and efficient as ever.
The flight attendants were all lovely, very happy to be
flying us even though it was just a 1 hour 40 mins flight. As usual I’d pre-booked extra legroom seats on the over wing emergency exits (weirdly though the seats got changed by BA several
times after I’d booked, but I persevered and after 4 online changes we eventually got to sit exactly
where I'd first booked).
For once we took off on time, we could have gone slightly early but apparently Inverness Airport doesn’t open until 1000 on a Sunday – bless! so there was no point getting there early only to have to circle.
Taxi-ing to the runway we passed many, many BA planes just parked up idle. Poor Chloe at the Vax Clinic has been furloughed for over a year now and still no date for restarting, although she's been told to report for annual refresher training.
We seemed to be having a race with this Virgin Dreamliner - and winning, despite being comparatively tiny.
I'm so excited to be flying again I've even filmed take off – how sad is that!!!!