Review of British Airways flight Oslo → London in Economy

Oslo Gardermoen & The OSL Lounge

Continuing on from my prior flight bringing this trip a full 360-degree circle, here's the final flight.

I had to make the extra effort of going through arrivals and then turning around in Oslo Gardermoen back to security. A bit of an unnecessary hassle given other airports can do airside connections, which make them great for connecting. I don't know why Oslo (a big SAS hub) doesn't offer this, but if anyone from Norway could enlighten us in the comments, please do!

I got through security pretty quickly due to combined Priority Security perks and a knowledge of Oslo Gardermoen from previous travels.

Airside in Oslo you enter the area for Domestic flights, you then go through a separate area for international flights which then splits into two sections- Schengen/EU flights and other international flights beyond a passport check point.

Before you go into the post-passport control international section, there are the only two lounges offered by Oslo Airport in that area. I covered the SAS Lounges (Domestic & International) in another report.

A third lounge which is operated by Oslo Gardermoen for other airlines (non-Star Alliance) including British Airways and Finnair- the OSL Lounge is today's lounge.

Overall a nice and minimalistic lounge. Its quite basic and there are no shower facilities, but toilets are offered. A range of snacks and cold items are on offer as well as Norwegian beer, wines, soft drinks and hot drinks- interestingly you can grab a hot drink to take with you, which I took advantage of. There was a large window offering some limited apron views. But I was very tired and slept for most my time in the lounge in some of the comfortable sofa chairs. 

It was a good lounge, but nothing special, I would like to one day hopefully try this place again when I'm feeling a bit more awake and with a better drive to experience the lounge a bit more in depth.

You can pre-book entry for 43EUR (£38 or 500NOK), whether you find that worthwhile or not- I'll let you be the judge!

BA763- A Very Special Guest!

Time to introduce the aircraft of this report and we have one of the best looking planes flying in the BA fleet today!!!

Please welcome for the first time to Flight Report- British Airways Airbus A320-neo G-TTNA wearing the BA Better World Livery!

G-TTNA was the first British Airways Airbus A320-neo to be delivered to the airline in April 2018. 17x A320-neo are in the fleet currently with another five airframes on order (excluding the A321-neo). British Airways has never been one for many special liveries but in September 2021 the airline revealed that G-TTNA was to wear a special blue/turquois livery to promote the airlines commitment to becoming more environmentally friendly a to push their "BA Better World" program which is at the forefront of the project.

In an interesting note, I can now say I have flown on the first Boeing 767-300 (G-BNWA), Airbus A319-ceo (G-EUPA), Airbus A320-ceo (G-EUUA), Airbus A321-ceo (G-EUXC) and Airbus A320-neo (G-TTNA) in the British Airways fleets! 

I boarded in Group 2 on this flight, going through the door I noticed the panel which was adorned to note the special livery and BA's project. Inside the cabin is the same as all the other Airbus A320-neo aircraft, and I had the luck of selecting a window seat right by the engine, Seat 8A on this occasion, which gave me a brilliant view of the uniquely coloured engine!

Oddly enough during this boarding process, you can see anyone boarding at the front of the plane can use the jet bridge, whereas people in the rear of the plane have to go outside and do an open board through the rear door! A bit of an odd more for BA? Usually its all passengers via the jet bridge or everyone does the outside open board.

Even if I never get a chance to fly the BEA Retro Airbus A319 (G-EUPJ) and given I never caught a flight on a BA 2012 Olympic Dove (2012-2019), I at least finally have a chance to say I did fly a Special Livery BA plane! Though I did fly on Airbus A319 G-EUPC some 6 years after it wore the Olympic Torch livery!

The plane boarded on time, and we proceeded to taxi out of Oslo Gardermoen off to the runway. As with Helsinki Airport in my previous report, Oslo Gardermoen was covered in mounds of snow!

We taxied onto the Runway and the Airbus A320-neo powered its large engines and we rocketed up into the skies over Norway!

I was still quite tired so I tried to nap on and off during the flight, I woke up to get the inflight service, a standard offer of a bottled water and some pretzels (having now replaced the crisps). A little while later I grabbed a cup of tea and bar of Dairy Milk chocolate bar using BA's online portal to access the Speedbird Café. I think its a really modern and funky way of doing this!

Overall the flight was uneventful. I went to the toilet at the back of the plane and whilst waiting I grabbed a shot out of the rear emergency exit door of the wing, which I quite liked! We eventually passed into UK airspace, coming up around Southend and Essex, this meant we'd get a pretty sweet arrival over London and the city, allowing for some rather nice views!

As always, some pretty cool city views over London, however it was the other side of the plane that got all the good views of the city centre on this trip. I still got a good few views of the urban areas outside the city centre.

We arrived into London Heathrow and taxied over to Terminal 3, I didn't realise BA travelled from T3 on their Oslo service, I thought it was a T5 destination, so it must have changed since February 2018 or it was a last minute change.

We parked up next to another British Airways A320 and an Emirates Airbus A380-800. I left the plane last, having had a great flight and happy to have added G-TTNA to my list of BA Flights, not bad for over 100 BA flights alone.

After passing through Customs and Passport Control, I went to the Heathrow Central Bus Station (located by the former Terminal 1, Terminals 2 & Terminal 3). My flights today were on time, but my coach back to my area was painfully late by nearly 2 hours, but I took the time to go visit St George's Chapel at LHR, somewhere I had never visited at LHR (despite being local to it for 2 decades) and I also grabbed this funky green latte before I was able to finally head home!