Hello and welcome to another short series of flight reports, covering my recent trip to London back in late-July this year. This second part will cover the inbound flight, from London LHR to Stockholm ARN with British Airways.
Background: There was no actual reason to why we booked this trip, me and my dad just had random plans for a quickie to London sometime in July 2016 and spontaneously booked a trip with British Airways to London between July 25 and July 28 2016. The trip was close to being cancelled 5-6 days before departure due to some last-minute changes to my dad's plans for these days. He reviewed his situation a day or two before departure and told me he would still be able to head out to London as planned from the start. Norwegian, SAS and BA were the options for non-stop flights to London (or Ryanair from Skavsta). British Airways won the game at last, the deciding factor was to try out the Boeing 767-300ER that flies to Stockholm on the BA780/BA781 rotation. We chose BA781 operated by a B763 as the outbound flight and BA786 in an A319 as the inbound flight to Stockholm, BA786 is BA's last flight from London to Stockholm which meant we would be able to make some decent use of the last day in London before heading back to STO.
NOTE: Pictures used in this report are taken with my camera and phone.
Part 1 - ARN-LHR, BA781, British Airways, Boeing 767-300ER, G-BNWA - Here! Part 2 - LHR-ARN, BA786, British Airways, Airbus A319-100, G-EUPE - You are here
It was time to head back to Sweden after a random quickie to London. There were 7 BA flights from London to Stockholm that day, the original plan was to take the last BA flight from LHR to ARN which was BA786 departing LHR at 20:10 local time in order to make the most out of our last day in London but both of us probably regretted making that choice later on.
Me and my dad woke up pretty late on this day, had a late breakfast at a local café and checked-out from our hotel at 12 PM local time. Both of us soon realized we had nothing to do before going back home, none of us were in the mood to do anything specific so we just wandered around the central parts of London before heading to Heathrow. Taking BA784 at 18:20 (6:20 PM) would have probably been a better option.
We later decided to head off to an area around LHR to do some plane spotting before heading to the terminal, it was basically another measure to kill off some time before taking the flight. Here we're waiting for the Piccadilly line train towards Heathrow Airport.
Connecting to a bus at a station called Hatton Cross.
This was our first spot for plane spotting at LHR, a bus stop where you could spot aircraft arriving on 27R. Unfortunately they changed the main runway for arrivals to 27L a minute or two after I snapped this picture.
We therefore took the bus back to Hatton Cross and walked to the famous spotting place at Myrtle Avenue.
Spotting bonus from LHR, you can skip the spotting part if you're not interested :). Here's a sample shot of a BA A319.
More spotting
Bonus : Click here displayhide
Standard BA A320.
Longer BA A321.
GF A332.
JJ B77W.
BA B772.
AV A332.
AA B772.
KQ B788.
There were still a few (very few) planes landing on 27R, including this PK B772.
SQ A388.
JL B77W.
QR A332.
BA 32A.
BA B744, my first long-haul flight was in one of these from LHR to DAC back in 2003.
NH B77W.
EI A320.
EK A388.
My total spotting session lasted for about one hour, we could have been there for longer but I didn't want to bore the crap out of my dad. We took the tube to Heathrow and arrived at Terminal 5 at 16:36 local time. We then took a lift up to the departures level.
Walking to the lift, or elevator depending on how you say it.
Terminal 5 at LHR, home of British Airways. IB also flies from T5 since the merger.
Me and my dad hadn't got any BPs yet so I printed boarding passes for us using these check-in kiosks at the terminal.
A few minutes pass and my dad realizes we hadn't returned our Oyster travel cards yet, the ticket office was located in the arrivals area so we had to take the lift downstairs, return the cards, get our deposit back and then take the lift back to the departures level. I apologize for the blurry picture.
FIDS.
Going to the security control at 17:00 local time, roughly 3 hours before departure, we had not much else to do at the landside area.
Security was slow, lines weren't long but the staff seemed to be very cautious with their safety measures. Almost everyone was inspected carefully and slowly. Me including many other passengers had to go through complete body scans, from top to toe.
It took 13 minutes for us to clear security.
The departure gates were located downstairs according to this yellow sign.
Duty-free stores, you were not required to go through these stores but we went inside one to purchase some Cadbury chocolate for our family with the last amount of British Pound my dad had on him.
BA B772 to DXB.
BA A321.
BA B789, heading out to Calgary.
Another B789, this one would go to Jeddah later tonight.
BA B788 taxiing out for a departure to Chengdu.
Our gate was supposed to be shown 50 minutes before departure, i.e. 19:20 local time. I was hoping for an A gate, there was a flight going to Gothenburg at the same exact time and that flight was assigned to a C gate which practically means it's located two piers away.
The gate for flight BA786 to Stockholm ARN was finally assigned to gate A12 at 19:27 local time, the best part about the gate was that it was only located 50m away from where we were seated.
At gate A12.
Priority boarding for flight BA786, boarding for the last BA flight to Stockholm commenced at 19:50 local time (20 min before departure). Me and my dad were obviously not qualified for priority boarding.
4 minutes pass and boarding for the rest of the pack begins. Taking the escalator down to our A319.
Flight information:
Airline: British Airways
Flight no & route: BA786 LHR-ARN
Scheduled time of departure (actual): 20:10 (20:38), 8:10 PM (8:38 PM) UTC +1
Scheduled time of arrival (actual) : 23:40 (23:37), 11:40 PM (11:37 PM) UTC +2
Scheduled flight time (actual): 2h 30 min (1h 59 min)
Walking down the jetbridge.
Entering our A319.
This 16-year-old A319 was equipped with the new cabin.
Seat 12A.
Seat pitch was standard, fine for short flights.
These seats would soon be occupied.
Overhead bins.
BA A321 next to us.
A320.
Boarding was completed by 20:10 local time.
Overhead bins closed shortly afterwards.
Pushback took place at 20:18 local time.
Pushing back.
Taxiing to the active runway for departures which was runway 27R tonight.
The safety video was played on these screens while we were taxiing to 27R.
A320.
B763.
A321 climbing out.
A320 lifting off.
B772.
BA A321.
LX A320.
KE A388.
BA A388.
Now it was our turn.
Virgin Atlantic B789.
Alitalia A320 and KL E-190.
BA B789.
Rolling down runway 27R.
Rotating.
We took off from LHR at 20:38 local time.
Banking towards Stockholm.
Martin1405 tracked my flight once again, thank you very much :). All FR24 screenshots in this FR are provided by him.
Breaking through the cloud layers over London.
The safety card of this Airbus A319.
Basic flight information and a moving map was being displayed on these overhead screens, pretty useful for avgeeks.
BA High Life magazine.
The magazines were located in this pocket on the seatback.
The safety card can however be found in the normal seatpocket.
High life shop magazine.
Business life magazine.
Service was conducted 35 minutes after departure, the same bacon roll and muffin was offered as on the BA781 flight. I asked the FA if they had something without bacon and the cheery FA quickly gave me and my dad a Mezze salad each. The salad consisted of hummus, couscous or bulgur (don't remember), falafel, batavia lettuce? and maybe something else. OJ and coffee were my drinks of choice as always.
The box also contained a plastic fork. The salad was pretty good, not fantastic but definitely not bad. The FAs on this flight were very attentive, including the captain.
Approaching the Danish coast.
A pretty uneventful flight, I guess most of us just wanted to get home.
I really had to visit the lavatory for a long time, and finally got the perfect opportunity to do so when the passenger on seat 12C got up. This was not for photography reasons, I actually really had to visit the lavatory. I'm glad I didn't have to do it after arrival.
Cabin was pretty full tonight, we had 2-3 unoccupied seats on this flight.
Coat hook.
Flight information.
30 minutes from arrival in Stockholm.
Adjustable headrest.
Currently 23:12 local time, 25 minutes from arrival.
Descending.
Phone trying to compensate for the reduced amount of light.
We would land on runway 19R tonight, lining up.
Landed on runway 19R at 23:37 local time.
The last bit of sunlight left at 23:37.
Taxiing to our gate at Terminal 2.
Parked at our gate and back home right before the day was supposed to end.
We disembarked the aircraft at 23:45 local time.
Goodbye G-EUPE!
Walking to passport control.
KLM B738.
Passport control, 85% of the passengers lined up for the 'EU passport holders' line while the 'All passports' line was almost empty. I have no idea why no one moved to the other line to speed up the process, the other line said 'All passport', not 'All passports except for EU passports'. Me and my dad moved to the other line and were through in no-time.
Baggage area, nothing we had to worry about.
We made it outside of Terminal 2 at 23:56, the bus line going to our area doesn't operate at this time but there were quite a few of transportation options if you were heading for Stockholm C. There were buses going to Stockholm at 00:04, 00:19, 00:34, 00:49 etc. The Arlanda Express trains had departures until 01:05, there was a commuter train leaving at 00:43 and then there were taxis waiting outside.
My dad first asked a random cab driver with no company name on the car about how much it'd cost to take us to our home located 30 km away, he asked for 600 SEK (USD 71,5/EUR 63). We then asked another cab driver from a respected taxi company and he offered a fixed price of 390 SEK (USD 46,5/EUR 41). We went with the other cab driver with no hesitation.
Getting inside the taxi.
Driving out of Arlanda Airport, we would take the E4 towards Stockholm C.
Traffic on the E4 motorway was minimal at 00:07/12:07 AM.
We disembarked our BA A319 at 23:45 and made it home by 00:19, just 34 minutes from disembarking to arriving at our home. Thank you for taking your time to read this FR :).
See more
Verdict
British Airways
7.4/10
Cabin7.5
Cabin crew8.0
Entertainment/wifi7.0
Meal/catering7.0
London - LHR
8.4/10
Efficiency7.0
Access8.5
Services8.0
Cleanliness10.0
Stockholm - ARN
7.8/10
Efficiency8.5
Access7.5
Services7.0
Cleanliness8.0
Conclusion
A good flight with BA. The crew was cheery and friendly, catering was decent and we made it to Stockholm on-time.
Cabin - Newer cabin, it had a 'fresh' look to it and was definitely clean. Seat pitch was just fine for short flights, I'm about 1,79m tall.
Cabin Crew - Very attentive and friendly cabin crew, offering smiles all the time.
Entertainment - Window view and a flight map on the overhead screens.
Meal/catering - Bacon/chicken roll with a muffin or a salad. I went with the salad and it was pretty tasty. Contained falafel, hummus, lettuce, couscous and maybe something else.
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Some excellent spotting snaps there - one of my favourite locations is the first one you visited. The wingview was just excellent - especially the sunset pictures!
Thanks for a nice FR as usual! Spontaneous trips are the best for an AvGeek and London is always a good choice! Love all the great spotting!
The airshow is definitely old school on your plane despite the new cabin. I guess it wasn't worth putting in a new overhead IFE system on a 16 year old bird.
Thanks for sharing the return, the spotting was from a good angle. Reminds me a lot of LAX (minus the blue skies ;) ) with good diversity and nice side shots of the approaches.
I see you found out how un-spotter friendly LHR T5 is. You have limited planes that you can see from the waiting areas. It makes for very boring waits for your gate to be finally announced. I find that whole terminal to be overcrowded and the security lines a mess.
“BA High Life magazine.” Why are they advertising the US National Parks?
The salad doesn’t look too bad. At least a little bit more diversity than a boring caesar salad or something. It’s interesting that they have these salads on board, but don’t offer them to people…
I feel like KL is always parked next to BA at ARN…
The whole taxi rate situation is weird in Stockholm how the rates are not standardized at all and vary from taxi to taxi depending on what they have plastered on their window.
Thank you for your very nice comment :). Glad you liked the spotting shots (despite the weather and lighting conditons).
That is pretty much how I left, except that it wasn't so crowded when I was there (thankfully). A really nice description of the experience at T5.
"Why are they advertising the US National Parks?" I have absolutely no idea, didn't even realize that until you mentioned it. I have to be honest, I never actually looked in those magazine. I only used them for photography reasons haha.
That is true, we had to ask for a vegetarian option to know if one even existed.
Hahaha, might have to do with the fact that both use T2 (and it's pretty small).
One of the largest tourist traps in Stockholm, the taxis. The market is unregulated which means taxi companies can legally charge anything. It's extremely easy to scam you if you're a tourist and/or have no idea about the taxis here, this is a shame for Stockholm. I really hope the government decides to do something about the taxi market in Stockholm, there are very few reasons to take a taxi in Stockholm today which is why almost everyone has to rely on private cars or public transport.
Few reasons to grab a cab in STO:
1. You are rich 2. Group of at least 4 going to ARN for a fixed price 3. Extremely serious emergency
Hi RI777 and thank you for sharing this nice short FR with some gorgeous shots. I specially like the ones during sunset. Absolutely breathtaking.
I will be flying SFO-LHR-ARN in Nov. I have about 1:30 hrs to connect which I think is OK. I should have allowed for a longer connection knowing how slow security can be at LHR T5.
Nice of the FA to offer you guys a salad instead of the bacon roll. I would have preferred that too.
Good thing that you made it home in 34 min. Not bad at all.
Thank you so much for the positive comments, I appreciate it a lot!
That is interesting! I hope you make it without too much stress, also think it should be just okay. Would have been interesting to meet you here, temperature is crap here but hope you will get some sunny weather here.
Indeed :).
Hahaha I think this is my record here, no bags, empty roads and a taxi driver driving really fast made up to a short arrival process despite living 30km from the airport :).
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10 Comments
Some excellent spotting snaps there - one of my favourite locations is the first one you visited.
The wingview was just excellent - especially the sunset pictures!
Glad you enjoyed the BA experience :)
Thank you very much, glad you liked them :).
It was definitely a good flight with BA.
Have a good one, see you later!
Love all the great spotting!
The airshow is definitely old school on your plane despite the new cabin. I guess it wasn't worth putting in a new overhead IFE system on a 16 year old bird.
The snack seems pretty decent for intra-European.
Thanks for sharing.
Probably not haha, it was still better than no airshow at all (especially for avgeeks).
Agreed.
Thanks for stopping by!
Have a good one, see you later.
Stunning spotting pics at LHR, especially EK 388! Lovely!
Love them! Terminal 5 doesn't look bad IMO. Hope you did it too! Great pics from LHR btw.
The new cabin looks pretty nice and the seat pitch was decent too.
No problem for the screenshots. Tracking your flights is a pleasure for me!
Beautiful pics from the flight! The sunset was so nice!!
The catering was pretty okay for a short flight.
I hope you enjoyed flying BA!
Thanks again! See you! :)
Glad you liked the spotting shots :).
The pitch was okay for me but could still be an issue for tall people.
Appreciate your screenshots a lot!
A pretty decent flight with a nice crew.
Thanks for your comment. Have a good one and see you later!
I see you found out how un-spotter friendly LHR T5 is. You have limited planes that you can see from the waiting areas. It makes for very boring waits for your gate to be finally announced. I find that whole terminal to be overcrowded and the security lines a mess.
“BA High Life magazine.”
Why are they advertising the US National Parks?
The salad doesn’t look too bad. At least a little bit more diversity than a boring caesar salad or something. It’s interesting that they have these salads on board, but don’t offer them to people…
I feel like KL is always parked next to BA at ARN…
The whole taxi rate situation is weird in Stockholm how the rates are not standardized at all and vary from taxi to taxi depending on what they have plastered on their window.
See you for the next one
That is pretty much how I left, except that it wasn't so crowded when I was there (thankfully). A really nice description of the experience at T5.
"Why are they advertising the US National Parks?"
I have absolutely no idea, didn't even realize that until you mentioned it. I have to be honest, I never actually looked in those magazine. I only used them for photography reasons haha.
That is true, we had to ask for a vegetarian option to know if one even existed.
Hahaha, might have to do with the fact that both use T2 (and it's pretty small).
One of the largest tourist traps in Stockholm, the taxis. The market is unregulated which means taxi companies can legally charge anything. It's extremely easy to scam you if you're a tourist and/or have no idea about the taxis here, this is a shame for Stockholm. I really hope the government decides to do something about the taxi market in Stockholm, there are very few reasons to take a taxi in Stockholm today which is why almost everyone has to rely on private cars or public transport.
Few reasons to grab a cab in STO:
1. You are rich
2. Group of at least 4 going to ARN for a fixed price
3. Extremely serious emergency
Have a good one, see you!
I will be flying SFO-LHR-ARN in Nov. I have about 1:30 hrs to connect which I think is OK. I should have allowed for a longer connection knowing how slow security can be at LHR T5.
Nice of the FA to offer you guys a salad instead of the bacon roll. I would have preferred that too.
Good thing that you made it home in 34 min. Not bad at all.
Thank you so much for the positive comments, I appreciate it a lot!
That is interesting! I hope you make it without too much stress, also think it should be just okay. Would have been interesting to meet you here, temperature is crap here but hope you will get some sunny weather here.
Indeed :).
Hahaha I think this is my record here, no bags, empty roads and a taxi driver driving really fast made up to a short arrival process despite living 30km from the airport :).
Thank you very much for stopping by!
Have a good one, see you :).
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