Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022 – Day 6 – London (LHR) to Budapest (BUD)

By Nige on November 15, 2022 at 5:59 pm
Type: Post
Story: Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022 Category: Travel
Tags: British Airways | BUD | Budapest | Heathrow | LHR | London | Trips

Once through passport control, I took the lift up 1 level to the Arrivals Lounge which is the best place to get a shower. I definitely needed to freshen up.

There was a 5 min wait for a shower and I was provided with a buzzer thingy and I sat down and started messing around with my phone. I wondered what that buzzing noise was when I was surfing the net. I wondered whether someone was trying to ring me. It took me a few secs before I realised what was going on.

Into shower G09 and as always I initially tried opening the door by pulling it. A member of staff walking past reminded me that I needed to push the door to get in. Doh!

After a shower I headed up to Departures and through TFW. Security was backed up again. It looked like only one scanner was open. However, when one of the more senior security guys piped up, it was apparent that the tray return system wasn’t working and no one had thought to say anything or work around the restrictions.

As soon as we heard that passengers started taking trays from the working scanner and used them on the second scanner. Suddenly it started to go a bit faster. When I got through I suggested to the security guys that they could carry a load of trays (that were piling up) through to the second scanner so that passengers didn’t need to nick them from the first scanner. The answer I got back? Can’t do that because of health and safety. Ugh? I got some BS explanation, but the whole situation was simply crazy.

My flight to Budapest was due to leave from Gate A21. There was a big group of passengers around the priority boarding line, but there were numerous wheelchair users that needed extra time to board so that held up general boarding and subsequently held up departure.

Once on board, it became clear there were a number of passengers who were on TP runs. I’d expect 5 or so are likely to be doing B2Bs at Budapest.

We eventually pushed back 40 mins after the scheduled departure time, so that meant we would arrive late into BUD and likely would depart late on our flight back to LHR.

A drinks service started fairly quickly. I had to stick to water due to driving later on. The menu looked similar to last week’s, so this time I went for the vegetable korma instead of the chicken & leek pie. The curry was pretty good and came with brown rice.

The rest of the flight was pretty uneventful. We arrived into Gate 32 again (B6 from a boarding perspective). I heard noises from other passengers that they were either starting Hawaii trips originating in BUD, or were doing a B2B. I guessed at there being at least 5 passengers doing B2Bs. Let’s see how I did on that score later.

I was first off and I didn’t make the same mistake again. This time I worked out which way I needed to turn and I avoided looking like a complete numpty. Through the double glass doors, down stairs and into the transfer channel.

Tier Point Run to Hawaii in Nov 2022