Fine, so maybe in-flight wifi isn’t that bad. Well, at least when it’s free. Here I am.
Yes, I believe this is the second time this year I’ve given out this award, but this one definitely took the cake. You can read about the last passenger that won this award here. Usually my “tweets” are in good fun, so those of you following along this morning may have seen that I saw a guy in the lounge and had hoped he wouldn’t be me seatmate. At the time I was joking around, but oh boy, was I right. Well, the good news is that he wasn’t my seatmate. As a matter of fact, I was lucky enough to have an empty seat next to me. The bad news is that he was seated right behind me.
Let’s start from the beginning. This gentleman walked into the gate lounge at London City Airport and seemed to run into someone he knew. I could immediately tell he was one of the cheesiest people on earth, especially based on the way he acted. Picture a combination of David Hasslehoff and Simon Cowell in 10 years, and you have this guy. So he chats his “friend” up (in an attempt to be charming), and they discuss all kinds of things, many of which aren’t all that appropriate. Well, we board the flight to Shannon and everything is relatively ok. As it turns out they’re sitting together, but oh well, that’s fine, or so I thought. They chat loudly and drink copious amounts of alcohol (although I wouldn’t call them drunk). Then we get to Shannon and at the departure gate I see them kissing, borderline making out. I give them a real nasty look, like “sir, I doubt your wife would approve,” and she immediately separates herself from him.
Then we reboard, and oh boy, does it get fun. They’re talking very loudly, which I can deal with. The first two hours are ok, but after lunch I decide to take a nap. I put in earplugs which usually does the trick, but in this case it doesn’t help. They guy is laughing so loudly at the movie they’re both watching that the passengers in row one turn around (he’s in row five), and all the passengers around him are rolling their eyes. Passengers that walk by just shake their heads. Furthermore, he’s kicking my seatback or something. Not sure how that’s possible with 72 inch pitch, but he manages to do it. His laughter is uncontrollable for the better part of an hour, so eventually I decide to step in. I get up and say (rather loudly) to him “Sir, you’re not the only one on the plane.” Without taking off his headphones he goes “sorry, sorry.” He continues laughing at the movie, although a bit more moderately.
I’m happy to report that he was well behaved the rest of the way to JFK.
So why does he outdo my previous “passenger of the year story?” Well, it’s clear that he should know better. He was wearing a thousand dollar suit, was rolling along a Tumi, and was flying a product where the cheapest seat is several thousand dollars. The lady flying Ted, on the other hand….
I just cleared US customs and immigration here in Shannon, Ireland. What an awesome experience. No, immigration in and of itself typically isn’t fun, but I was the first in line and the agent that helped me was the same lady in the CNN Business Traveler episode with Richard Quest that says “welcome to the United States.” She laughed about the fact that I recognized her and couldn’t have been nicer. She even wrote down my blog URL (whether or not she visits is anyone’s guess, heh). We talked for a few minutes, and now I’m sitting here in the departure lounge waiting to reboard our flight to JFK. While the stopover isn’t all that fun, the fact that I’ll arrived at JFK without having to deal with a rude immigration officer and long lines will make the rest of my journey that much more enjoyable.
Here I am. I’ll be in the US faster than you can say Concorde (or something like that). I had a fantastic time in London and a great stay at the InterContinental Park Lane. More details to come, of course.
I kind of don’t want to get up. After walking at least 20km today (between sightseeing and the gym), I’m sitting in the club lounge at the InterContinental London Park Lane and the views are magnificent. I can see the London Eye all lit up in the background (although you probably can’t see it in the picture below) with Hyde Park right below me, and am quite enjoying the appetizer selection. Oh, and for those of you in the “Lucky drinks way too much Diet Coke based on his trip reports” camp, that’s only my second Diet Coke in well over two weeks.
Check out this CNN article about the life of a baseball umpire. Not that exciting to me, except for this part (bolding mine):
They are, however, well cared-for while on the road. Each ump gets a $340 per diem to cover hotel and food, and when they fly, it’s always first class. Working a full postseason can tack on an extra $20,000, plus expenses. They also get four weeks of paid vacation during the regular season.
If that’s true, where do I sign up?
I’ve heard the landings into LCY tend to be “firm” due to the short runway, and given that the A318 is the largest plane flying into the airport, I was expecting a rough landing. So for the first time ever I decided to take a video on a plane and upload it to YouTube. I apologize in advance for the crappy quality. I used a five year old awful camera with a half broken lens, which can only be outdone by my shaky hands.
Let me know if you like these types of videos or not. If some of you do I’ll be sure to take one tomorrow on takeoff out of LCY, which I hear is also an adventure.
….London! Holy cow, what a day. Aside from the fact that London is a great city, I haven’t been in such pleasant weather in years. And no, I’m not being sarcastic. It’s around 60F and was overcast in the morning, but it’s all blue skies now. Just amazing weather. And the timing couldn’t be better, given that today was my day to roam around the city. Sheesh, now if only I could figure out what the people in the UK are talking about when they constantly complain about bad weather. 
Now, the fact that it gets dark so bloody early is a different story.
Maybe my expectations were just unrealistic… because Club World London City blew me away. I’ve flown PrivatAir and I’ve done OpenSkies, but this service is in a new league. This was literally a new type of travel experience. I really felt like I was flying on a private jet, and with only 17 of the 32 seats occupied, it might as well have been.
Take boarding, for example. I wanted to be the first aboard so I could snap a few pictures. I figured I’d be fighting with a few gate lice too. Little did I know that I would be the only person in the boarding area when they started boarding. And it’s quite funny to have a boarding announcement just for you as well. The gate agent should have just said “gentleman, we’re now ready for boarding.” 
Again, more about the product itself will be coming, but I was also impressed by how polished the whole experience was, despite the crew only having flown this for the second time. I guess that’s where British Airways’ experience comes into play. And the thing that stood out the most was the crew. They were phenomenal. All three of the flight attendants genuinely wanted to be there, and it was clear that the pilots took pride in this service, from bidding everyone farewell at the door to constantly mentioning this “special service.”
Again, more details will be coming with the report (within the next week), but those are my initial impressions. For a different view, my return flight on Friday is almost booked out, so let’s see how the crew handles a full flight. On this flight I was actually the only passenger that required any service for the first five hours. Everyone fell right asleep or had a glass of wine at most. Oh, and the landing was fun too (I even took a video). One of the firmer landings in my life with VERY strong braking, although that kind of goes without saying on a runway that’s less than 5,000 feet.
And the adventure begins in exactly an hour, as I get ready to board BA004 to London City on British Airways’ new Club World London City product. As long as you’re not a stalker, feel free to follow along with the progress of the flight here.
So I just flew TPA to JFK on Delta and had an interesting flight. It was uneventful for the most part, although there were a few things, both positive and negative, that make it worth mentioning. First the negative. Before boarding I decided to take my camera bag out of my carry-on because I knew I wanted to use it during the flight, and since I was in the bulkhead it made sense to me. I go to board and am down the jetway, when the gate agent chases me. She says “Sir, can you do me a favor?” I responded with “Let me guess, consolidate?” She said “yes, please do.” I realize she was only enforcing “FAA regulations,” but I nonetheless decided to explain to her that I just took it out of my bag a minute ago because I’m in the bulkhead and wanted to speed up boarding as we had a late departure. “Sorry sir, you’re limited to two carry-on bags,” she responded. She asked me to step to the side as I placed my camera back into my carry-on, and waited for her to “approve.” Eventually her colleague said “those are big carry-on bags, but I think you’ll be ok.” If any of you are going to chastise me, please don’t tell me they would get fined.
They were nice enough about it so I wasn’t really holding a grudge. And ultimately the outcome was good, unlike a flight I had a while back where my carry-on was legitimately too big but I didn’t want to check my bag, so I decided to “layer” my clothing (on me) to save carry-on space, if you know what I mean. I ultimately won, much to the agent’s chagrin.
Once onboard there were no pre-departure beverages due to the late departure, but the flight attendant in first class was exceptionally friendly. As the door was about to close there were still two empty first class seats. A lady came up from coach as the gate agent was about to close the door and indicated she was on the upgrade waitlist. The gate agent responded “first class is full.” Before the lady could respond the gate agent shut the door. Now that’s pathetic.
The most notable thing about the flight has to be the exceptionally obnoxious people around me. I had an empty seat next to me, which you’d think would translate to a pleasant, relaxing flight, but no. Seated across from me was a lady with a baby and she couldn’t care less about taking care of her. Not only that, but the baby decided to stink up the cabin shortly after takeoff while the seatbelt sign remained on for about 45 minutes. Absolutely deadly fumes. Wonderful. Seated diagonally from me were two people that wouldn’t shut up. And seated behind me was a lady that wouldn’t stop bugging her seatmate. The guy had the patience of a saint, pretending to be interested in every word she said. She was a rich Czech lady that loved all the “bargains” she could find in Tampa, like $300 jeans that would be $500 in Italy!
To top it all off, we got in about 30 minutes early. Well, I should say we made it to the apron 30 minutes early. Then we waited and waited and waited. Eventually we started moving and I thought we were in luck, but as it turned out we were just going to a remote gate. Seriously, a remote gate on a domestic flight? This is the first time in my life I’ve had to get on a bus in order to deplane a domestic flight.
Of course now things are looking up with Club World London City in a few hours…. 
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