An Autumn Escape (part 1: to Sweden)

It’s now been about seven months since the first round of lock downs were announced in the UK.  Obviously, travel is still way down given the quarantines or testing requirements that are often necessary to change countries.  I planned this trip back in April, at a time where it was generally hoped that by October, the curve would have been flattened.  This post is the first of a series that’ll cover a set of trips from the UK to Stockholm to the US and finally to Finland.  At the start of this trip, I had Bronze status with British Airways.

Please remember to always travel as safely as possible and be responsible.

I apparently forgot to take a couple pictures (of food bags for example), and I had to replace my hard drive during the trip, so I lost a couple of others, so there are substantially fewer pictures than normal for these next few posts.

First, we’ll start with the flights from the UK to Stockholm (combined because they were very similar as will become apparent…).  Since Krister and I live in Liverpool these days, our journey started at Manchester Airport for a short little domestic hop to London on October 17^th.  To avoid public transport, we took a taxi and arrived at the airport about 80 minutes before the flight.  For whatever reason, British Airways was operating two separate flights from Manchester that day, only about 30 minutes apart.  Our flight, BA1389, was the earlier of the two, leaving at 11:50 AM.  When we arrived at check-in, there was no priority lane to be found, so we joined the regular queue.  We were travelling in “Euro Traveller” (economy), but Krister has Gold (Oneworld Emerald). and I have Bronze (Oneworld Ruby) status with British Airways, so we would’ve been able to use the priority lane.  Luckily, immediately after joining the queue, they called for anyone for the 11:50 AM flight, so we skipped the line as if we had status. 

After the easiest check-in and security experiences of my life at Manchester Airport, we headed to the main atrium.  The BA lounge was closed, but normally, it sits above the atrium and has a nice view of the terminal.  Instead, Krister grabbed a coffee and then it was time to start boarding.  If the lounge had been open, we normally would’ve arrived a bit earlier for some chill time.  Between the shut lounge and the social distancing requirements, we wanted to minimize our time in the airport, since there was nowhere to escape the continuous movement of people.

The plane waiting for us at the gate was an A320 (registry: G-EUUC). Like many airlines, British Airways is now boarding back to front, but everyone lined up beforehand in a random hallway.  It proceeded a bit chaotically but relatively quickly.  When we boarded, we discovered why: the flight was around 25% full (if even).  Club Europe extended back to row 8 (32 seats), but there were only about 5 people in it.  We had seats 12A and C.  Once boarding was complete, the flight attendant had me move across to the other half of row 12 because they needed at least one person in each of the four exit row benches.  The flight was very short, only around 30 minutes in the air because of no air traffic delays into Heathrow, so about 10 minutes after takeoff, the pilots gave the “20 minutes to landing” notification to the flight attendants.  Luckily, the flight attendants had time to serve us our COVID-safe meal, which was a plastic bag with a small water bottle and bag of potato chips.  It was a 30-minute flight, so it was a totally reasonable offering.

Upon landing, the aircraft was deplaned again by row (and this was actually obeyed pretty well) at the low numbered A gates.  Krister and I went through the tiny ‘domestic transfers’ area at Heathrow and were dumped out into terminal 5, which was a lot busier than I was expecting.  Krister’s BA Gold status meant that we had access to the Galleries First lounge (which was located at the opposite end of the terminal…)

A note on the Galleries First lounge.  It’s actually not British Airways’ lounge for its own first-class passengers (they use the Concorde lounge).  Because of COVID regulations, there is no buffet anymore, so instead there’s a QR code at each table, and you order online, and they bring the food to you.

Krister and I weren’t sure what to expect from the plated food; it could’ve gone either way because of COVID restrictions.  However, it was a huge step up from the previous buffet offer.  Krister got the harissa chicken, and I got a superfood salad, which I was able to add both ham and (tiny) shrimp to.  We also got a serving of afternoon tea tiny sandwiches.  Alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks were on the house, as is the case in the business class lounge too, so I got a glass of prosecco and Krister got a cup of tea.  After about a half hour in the lounge, the monitor said it was time to go to the gate, to gate A3 (a low numbered A gate).

So, we walked to gate A3, and noticed that the A320 parked there looked very familiar.  Well, as it turns out our next aircraft was registry G-EUUC, so we got back on the same plane!  The crew was different, however.  We also had seats 12A and 12C again, but this flight was much busier than the previous (i.e. half full!), so we actually sat together this time.  Neither of us took any pictures this flight because it was literally the same plane, haha.  Like the previous flight, we were each given a small bag, and that was the extent of the in-flight service.  However, the thing that was weird was that instead of being given a small water bottle and a bag of crisps, we instead got a nature valley bar (not bad) and a tiny, sealed cup of water (weird).  This second flight was booked off as two hours, but they gave us less food and drink.  Krister was definitely not a fan of the sippy cup.  Like with the previous flight, no air traffic problems in London meant that we landed around a half hour early in Stockholm, which was great.  We actually ended up taking an Uber all the way from the airport to our Airbnb because it was cheaper and faster than taking the train, since we weren’t staying in the old city, but rather just south of it so we could have a better view of the city.

In summary, these two short (1 hr and 2 hr, respectively) BA flights went pretty well, given there’s a pandemic on.  The first flight’s in-flight experience was arguably marginally better than the second flight, but the ground experience in London was, of course, way better than in Manchester.  The lack of lounge in Manchester is largely understandable, but still a bummer (n/a).  The Galleries first lounge was excellent, especially on an economy ticket (5/5)  The snack bag on the plane was perfectly alright for a short economy flight, but it was weird that the domestic flight’s bag was better (3/5 and 2/5, respectively).  Like most short-haul flights now, the extent of the service was handing out the pre-packaged bags, which was totally fine (5/5).  On both flights, we had exit row seats (with extra legroom) and no one in the middle, so our seat comfort was on par with (or higher than) the Club Europe seats (5/5).  The airplane had WiFi and power plugs, which is a pretty good offering for an intra-Europe flight (4/5). Overall, the 2-leg journey gets scores of (17/20) and (21/25).

For those who have mentioned they’re interested in the points side, these flights were booked in “O” class, one of the cheapest economy fares on BA. For the domestic flight, I netted 125 Avios (25% of the 500 mile minimum) from the flight plus an additional 125 Avios from the Bronze bonus (Krister netted 125 + 500). For the flight to Stockholm, I netted 223 Avios from the flight (25% of the 890 mile flight) plus an additional 223 Avios from the Bronze bonus (Krister netted 223 + 890). We also netted 10 tier points, which was enough to bump me to BA Silver (Oneworld Sapphire) status in time for the next post!