Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021: Day 6 – New York JFK to London LHR

By Nige on November 16, 2021 at 8:04 pm
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021 Category: Travel
Tags: British Airways | JFK | LHR | London | New York | Trips | USA

When I got to T7, I checked in with BA who gave me new boarding passes.  The AA boarding passes won’t work with TSA Pre-Check for some reason, even though the TSA Pre-Check isn’t much to talk about in T7.  I’ve never understood why they don’t implement it properly.  Security was a joke as usual, with two lines feeding into one x-ray machine and some “priority” customers expecting to take priority over the other line.  Handbags at dawn and all that…

Into the CCR and I got a warm welcome from the lounge team.  I asked for a glass of LPGS and was topped up on a regular basis.  Although I note that it wasn’t LPGS – it was another LP champagne.  I saw Rona who is a very small, but very bubbly member of lounge staff – I have seen her on a number of occasions in the CCR and she clearly remembered me too.  We had a nice chat about the New York team’s downtime of 19 months when the lounges were closed.  It seemed that there was just one flight JFK to LHR during that period – the BA112.  Passengers had to check in and go straight to the gate! 

I got a table in CCR dining and enjoyed a starter of scallops followed by a BA burger.  The scallops could have seen some heat for a tad longer if it was me, but they were done and tasty.  The BA burger was just the right size (not too big) but came with crisps rather than fries.

The flight left from Gate 6 and I waited at the gate for a good 10 mins before boarding commenced.  The gate staff referred to the flight as the delayed 19:45 which I’d say was technically incorrect.  I had noted on FlightAware.com that the expected departure time was indeed 19:45, but if anything, it might be referred to as the delayed 19:25.  As it happens it was irrelevant because we pushed back on time.

For this flight I had to accept seat 11A which is a bit further back than I would prefer.  This seat is part of the much larger business class section of the aircraft and it feels like a dormitory – not a great experience.

I had a glass of champagne when I got on board, but after that I stuck with the bottle of water I was provided with.  No dinner on board for me, but I did go for the bacon panini for breakfast.

I managed to fit a couple of hours of dozing on the very uncomfortable lie-flat bed.

We arrived into a C Gate and as with previous BA flights, cabin crew asked for all passengers to remain seated so that small groups of passengers could be invited to deplane.  Being in the main business class cabin was interesting, since just about everyone got up and got their hand luggage ready to go, whilst the first 7 rows had the chance to leave the plane.

Grabbed the train back to arrivals.  It’s normally faster than walking along the Transit Walkway and I know what passport control can be like at this sort of time.  The quicker you get there, the quicker you can get through. There was a long queue for automated passport control.  When I finally got to a kiosk, it almost let me through, but at the last moment, it chucked me out and told me to ask for assistance.  I was then directed into a long queue for a manual passport check.  So overall it took me about 20 mins to get through, before heading to T5 Meet & Greet.

Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2021