Trip Reports

Category Archives for Trip Reports.

Spending time at the British Airways HQ in Waterside, LHR

After a lovely welcome by American Airlines, a little party in the Flagship Lounge at JFK, a shower at the American Airlines Arrivals Lounge in LHR, we were all set to go over to British Airways. We received an interesting email a few days ago from BA, which had a boarding pass in a PDF file. I got seat 2A, I am sure they looked me up from my handle on MilePoint and Flyertalk which is A2A! Some of us wanted to check out if we could check in at Terminal 5, LHR. Here is what they got But we sure did manage to check-in on the staff bus of British Airways and find our way to the Waterside HQ…

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A day at the American Airlines Arrival Lounge at London Heathrow

The American Airlines flight AA 104 was uneventful at the back of the plane, with a largely empty cabin which accommodated a lot many passengers from the MegaDo bunch onto their own fully flat seats by occupying a whole row to themselves. All the action was in the First Class where there was a special dinner on-board for a chosen few flying F, with the new president of AAdvantage, Suzanne Robin. We were lucky to have arrived in LHR an hour early, with the tailwinds in favour (the same Atlantic ones which came in my way to arrive at JFK from Brussels after a fuel-stop). Here is a little bunch of pictures from the back of the plane: Yeah, it…

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The send off at American’s Flagship Lounge in New York JFK

As soon as the Finnair presentation got over, there was a light reception, this one, at ‘ The Bridge’, where JFK based crew of American Airlines were invited to participate along with the attendees of the MegaDo’s Transatlantic trip in London. There was food, music and a lot of good chat. But then you already know all of that from the last time you heard from me. The interesting party was taking shape in the Flagship Lounge of American Airlines at JFK: This is where we managed to sample the food and the drinks offered by American Airlines at the Flagship Lounges. As someone who has only started to fly to the America’s often now, I can tell you these…

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Sir, British Airways is not a part of oneworld but we do welcome oneworld members…

I was at Mumbai Airport (BOM) earlier today, to take the first leg of my flight to New York. Middle of the night flights are quite my forte, but it turned out that this time my usual flight to Brussels 9W228 was taking off at 03:00 AM. The schedule to bring it to BRU late is the first time I knew of it, because I usually travel on this flight 3-4 times a year at least, and it has always been at about 01:00 to 01:30 AM. The silver lining this time seemed to be the fact that I was booked on an American Airlines codeshare (AA7836) because I was further continuing on an AA flight to JFK. Now, in…

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How to make a rough day rougher? Easy, delay a ultra long haul flight by about 3 hours…to start with

While I was still recovering from the bout of slamming doors and interconnecting rooms and disturbed sleep on my last night in Chicago, there is much more that was going to go wrong it seems than right. I arrived in time for my ORD-DEL flight AA292 which was boarding from gate K12 at O’Hare. I saw the plane arrive at the gate about an hour and forty minutes prior to departure (at about 2 PM for the 3:40 PM departure). Now I don’t know if it was the same plane that they use every day or rotate planes on the route. I’d assume everything was alright and I sat easy at the Admirals Club doing my final rounds of email…

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The next 5,000 miles!

While I am always ready to wheel-up on an international flight, the next few weeks are getting ready to get on a domestic flight, something I haven’t done in 3 months now. For the upcoming festive season, I am heading over to Delhi to be with my family. Right after is the inaugural F1 Grand Prix of India, which I am looking forward to. The last time I was at the first race in any country was 2008 in Singapore, and it is always quite an experience to be at one. Flying Indigo this time, and it is the first time after January 2011 that I get to fly one of their A320s. I head back to Delhi again on…

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Review: Chennai Airport (MAA) and Airborne to Colombo(CMB) on 9W254 in Economy

Introduction & Trip Index Considering Jet Airways was out to prove a point, they had put out their Guest Relations manager at Chennai on the job to make sure my transit at Chennai was smooth. I arrived at the Domestic Terminal of the Chennai Airport, and I had a porter waiting for me right outside the plane waiting to bring our handbags to the International Terminal. He insisted to carry my bag but I had to really request him and plead with him that I was okay carrying my own bag! He brought us to the Arrival area of the Chennai Airport, where I was coming after quite a few years. There was construction going around all over, and I…

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Review: Mumbai Airport (BOM) and Airborne to Chennai (MAA) on 9W 469 in Economy

Introduction & Trip Index Since I was going to be heading to Colombo via Chennai, I arrived at the Mumbai Airport domestic for my check-in on the BOM-MAA leg of my trip on Jet Airways (9W 469). I was going to be seated at the back of the plane, but I found some amusing things happening around here! Jet Airways wanted to prove a point, that they would take care of this entire trip to go event free, because I’ve been poking holes in their service delivery for a short while now. Since this was a long weekend coming up, there was the obvious long queues at the airport on the evening wanting to fly somewhere. On arrival at the…

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Travel is glamorous only in retrospect

Upcoming Alert: 9,200 miles over to Europe and back, and a Sunday in Switzerland thrown in! While I have been writing in my head for most of the past week, and on the way back home from work, but for the past few days I have had no hours to put all these thoughts on paper. Why? A trip with two month’s notice going down the wire to a last-minute clincher and the work associated with it. 14-hour workdays at the office and hardly any sleep. My travels and work are deeply interrelated. I work to travel to work to travel to work … you get the gist. And when you are the face of an organisation (or so I…

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Trip Report: A short vacation in Sri Lanka

Introduction Check-in: Chatrapati Sivaji International Airport, Terminal 1 (Mumbai), Carnations Lounge Domestic Airborne: Flight 9W 469 (BOM – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Clipper Lounge International Airborne: Flight 9W 254 (MAA – CMB), Jet Airways, Economy Taj Samudra, Colombo Exploring Colombo Exploring South-west Sri Lanka Check-in: Bandaranaike International Airport (Colombo) Airborne: Flight 9W 253 (CMB – MAA), Jet Airways, Economy Check-in: Chennai International Airport (Chennai), Jet Airways Premiere Lounge Airborne: Flight 9W 489 (MAA – BOM), Jet Airways, Economy Conclusion In Feb I decided to take a quick couple of days off from work and hop over to Colombo for a four day vacation. This was going to be rest and recuperation for me, and labelled as a ‘do-nothing’…

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