Weekend trip to Dublin (Storm Eunice edition)

For my first trip of 2022, now that travel restrictions have been eased again with Omicron largely under control.  I decided to keep it simple with a short weekend trip from London to Dublin.  I picked a great weekend for flying.  On the Friday, my flight took off after Storm Eunice had just passed through and on the Sunday, I landed into the beginning of Storm Franklin.  I flew BA4470 from LCY-DUB on an E190 with registry G-LCAC. 

I booked the flight from London City, which is substantially more convenient than Heathrow and had a flight at a good time: 7:15 pm.  I left work around 5:30, got on the DLR, and arrived at LCY by 6:30.  The mask wearing in the airport was as poor as I’ve come to expect it to be.  The airport DLR station is directly built into the airport and even had check-in kiosks in it, not that they were working…

The other thing not working that evening was the baggage belt.  After tagging my overnight duffel bag, I took it to the oversized luggage area to get it scanned and loaded.  Mostly I thought it was funny to take such a small bag to ‘oversized luggage’.  I headed up the escalator and was through security and at my gate by around 6:45, which was mere minutes before boarding began.

I left from gate 8, but I stopped by gates 9/10 to get a view of my plane.  Once boarding began, we went downstairs and outside to get on the plane.  As long as there’s no bus, I don’t mind walking outside to a plane.  It was definitely very windy still.

Once on the plane, I found it to be a pretty standard E190.  Club Europe was limited to rows 1 and 2 (for a total of 6 seats), which makes sense for such a short flight, especially from London City, where there is no lounge.  The legroom in Row 1 (A and B only) was pretty good, and in Row 2 (C and D) there was no seat in front of them, so they had miles of legroom. 

London City is known for being a small airport and having a short runway that only allows regional aircraft to use it.  I understand why; the take-off roll can only be described as, ‘punch it’.  The engines revved and then we were treated to a nice jerk back and a nice, steep climb.  It was a very smooth takeoff/climb though, given the weather, so I was able to enjoy the views of Canary Wharf on the way up (but the pictures turned out poorly).

The perks of Club Europe are pretty limited for London City flights: no blocked middle seat, no lounge, yes additional baggage, and I’ve read that everyone gets at least some sort of meal on the flight, usually.

Shortly after takeoff, we were informed that there would be minimal inflight service (only a snack and water) because only minimal supplies had been loaded on the aircraft.  Given the high winds and all the cancellations that day, it seemed perfectly reasonable they didn’t allocate anything beyond the minimum when they didn’t know if the flight was actually going to happen.  However, one of the few benefits Club Europe offers over Euro Traveller on this leg is a meal, and so I was advised that I was potentially due (probably pretty small) compensation because only Euro Traveller service was provided, whereas I’d paid for Club Europe-level service.  I submitted the request very politely through Twitter (so as to not tie up the phone lines) when I returned to the UK, and about a week later, I got an email confirming that 10,000 Avios would be deposited into my account as compensation. Wow! That’s way more than I thought I’d get. I expected maybe 2,000 and would’ve been happy with 5,000 Avios. 10,000 Avios is enough to book another one-way Club Europe flight to Dublin!

We were warned at takeoff that the flight was not expected to be particularly smooth, and so the seatbelt sign might remain illuminated during the trip.  However, the seatbelt sign did stay off for most of the flight, which was a welcome surprise, especially for such a short flight.

In summary, this short flight was just that: short and a flight.  Given the disruptions that had been happening all day, I’m just happy that my flight wasn’t cancelled, and I could go about my trip.  London City Airport is very specifically designed for you not to be in for very long, and I wasn’t.  There’s no lounge and there doesn’t need to be.  Since I was flying Club Europe, I expected a meal, but because of operational problems, I didn’t get one, but I was told that I could seek compensation because none of the Club Europe amenities were available.  The flight attendants did what they were supposed to do on a very hectic day, so no complaints there either.  The lack of in-flight entertainment was expected and was fine for what was marginally more than a domestic flight.  Because of the weirdness of this flight like the previous one, I can’t really score it fairly.

From a points perspective, I used a Future Travel Voucher to purchase this ticket, so I earned very few credit card rewards (192 Amex points from triple points on my Green Card) but still got full BA Avios earnings.  I earned 1 250 Avios (750 + 500) and 40 tier points.  The total points earnings are worth around $19.  The theoretical percentage return for this flight would’ve been around 12%, if not for the voucher.

If we include the very generous compensation, I netted 11 250 Avios, which is worth at least $153.