During the transatlantic flight, between two movies, I've thought at a way to improve my list of top busiest airport visited... the good thing with "involuntary changes", is that the validating carrier has to get you to your destination, whatever the mean, so once landed in LHR, I've used matrix to look for options of travel between LHR and HKG, leaving after Monday 10h and arriving in HKG before my flight back to NCE via LHR, scheduled at 23h30 Tuesday.
My initial plan was a LHR-AMS-DOH-PVG(or PEK)-HKG, but this wasn't possible, so I've removed the AMS stop. It would have been in theory possible, but arriving at 20h the Tuesday, reducing drastically the margin, thus I've focused on a LHR-DOH-HKG (Qatar Airways is now part of Oneworld, and the objective was still to gain as many miles as possible).
There were 3 flights LHR-DOH, and I saw the last one was operated with a 787... golden opportunity to fly this aircraft, even if it means a 1h15 connection in Doha.
The BA agents stared at me with eyes wide opened when I told them I'd like to change my route, but they were keen enough to call their AA colleagues on T3 (I fear I had to get to T3 to do it myself).
So be it, AA approved the rerouting: to come back to NCE from Chicago, my itinerary would be 33'000 kms in 3 days:
The only thing is I had to collect my bags in LHR T5 and check them in T4 (Qatar Airways). The BA Agent, at 8h00, told me to get down within 30 minutes, the time to pull the bags out of the system. I didn't want to leave too early the lounge, so I took a shower, browsed the internet for a while...
At 12h00 (the take off with Qatar was scheduled at 15h05), I went down to collect my bags: bad surprise, they weren't ready as understood. It took BA staff 1 hour to pull one bag out of the two checked in, I and started to feel the pressure to not be on time for my flight...
I decided to pick only one bag, telling the BA staff I'd like to have my second bag flying with me on the way back from HKG 48hours later (second stare with eyes wide open : "I'm sorry sir, do you fly TO or OUT of HKG?" "both").
In hurry, I took only few minutes to enjoy the Skyteam lounge in T4 (one of the best lounge I've ever been): for Oneworld top tiers, Qatar do not open its lounge (reserved for QR pax flying F or J), but partners with Skyteam.
Arriving in the 787 was a punch in the face: there is a feeling of space as never experienced before, the crew was keen enough to allow my scooter as hand luggage and cherry on the cake, the flight was scarcely 50% full.
IFE is dual screen, even if not neither yet super reliable (at one point, I couldn't switch off my light, but a very nice FA was able to do it for me from the galley)
The landing at DOH from the North is really impressive, you have the feeling you could touch the skyline with your fingers.
The new terminal isn't open yet, so every flight has to use buses to get from'to the terminal (but jet bridges should be ready before EoY 2013). Free wifi compensate this, but I made the connection only due to my scooter, which allowed me to ride thru the terminal.
Second flight was 95+% full, so I slept most of the time. I'm now in HK, waiting to check in with BA on the way back to NCE.
My initial plan was a LHR-AMS-DOH-PVG(or PEK)-HKG, but this wasn't possible, so I've removed the AMS stop. It would have been in theory possible, but arriving at 20h the Tuesday, reducing drastically the margin, thus I've focused on a LHR-DOH-HKG (Qatar Airways is now part of Oneworld, and the objective was still to gain as many miles as possible).
There were 3 flights LHR-DOH, and I saw the last one was operated with a 787... golden opportunity to fly this aircraft, even if it means a 1h15 connection in Doha.
The BA agents stared at me with eyes wide opened when I told them I'd like to change my route, but they were keen enough to call their AA colleagues on T3 (I fear I had to get to T3 to do it myself).
So be it, AA approved the rerouting: to come back to NCE from Chicago, my itinerary would be 33'000 kms in 3 days:
The only thing is I had to collect my bags in LHR T5 and check them in T4 (Qatar Airways). The BA Agent, at 8h00, told me to get down within 30 minutes, the time to pull the bags out of the system. I didn't want to leave too early the lounge, so I took a shower, browsed the internet for a while...
At 12h00 (the take off with Qatar was scheduled at 15h05), I went down to collect my bags: bad surprise, they weren't ready as understood. It took BA staff 1 hour to pull one bag out of the two checked in, I and started to feel the pressure to not be on time for my flight...
I decided to pick only one bag, telling the BA staff I'd like to have my second bag flying with me on the way back from HKG 48hours later (second stare with eyes wide open : "I'm sorry sir, do you fly TO or OUT of HKG?" "both").
In hurry, I took only few minutes to enjoy the Skyteam lounge in T4 (one of the best lounge I've ever been): for Oneworld top tiers, Qatar do not open its lounge (reserved for QR pax flying F or J), but partners with Skyteam.
Arriving in the 787 was a punch in the face: there is a feeling of space as never experienced before, the crew was keen enough to allow my scooter as hand luggage and cherry on the cake, the flight was scarcely 50% full.
IFE is dual screen, even if not neither yet super reliable (at one point, I couldn't switch off my light, but a very nice FA was able to do it for me from the galley)
The landing at DOH from the North is really impressive, you have the feeling you could touch the skyline with your fingers.
The new terminal isn't open yet, so every flight has to use buses to get from'to the terminal (but jet bridges should be ready before EoY 2013). Free wifi compensate this, but I made the connection only due to my scooter, which allowed me to ride thru the terminal.
Second flight was 95+% full, so I slept most of the time. I'm now in HK, waiting to check in with BA on the way back to NCE.
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