INTRODUCTION
The West African Tour - ACCRA to LONDON
These upcoming reports map my summer 2019 trip to and from the African continent. As this year is the 'Year of Return'. This report covers Accra to London. Ghana is one of BA's cash crop routes on the African continent, the others being CPT, JNB and LOS. These flights operate from T3 and shares gates with AA.
Having the opportunity to travel on the 747 once more has been a privilege as these birds are becoming more rare as the months ago by. Our flight, BA78 was delayed about 2.5 hours as the aircraft was down for maintenance in London. BA sent out an email recommending passengers to delay their arrival by about 90 minutes due to the disruption.
Flight routing
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5ACC-LHR
- 6LHR-JFK
- 7EWR-YUL
- 8YUL-YTZ
TERMINAL
Night time at Kokota Airport is extremely busy as most long haul flights depart. Even with our delay, the airport still operated as maximum efficiency. Other departing flights included, KL to Amsterdam, TP to Lisbon via Lome, DL to JFK, SA to Johannesburg and Washington Dulles, TK to Istanbul and SN to Brussels.
Customs took a couple minutes as the airport is sure to allocate a great amount of staff based on the hours of flight departures.
As we had time to relax, I took a stroll and headed to one of the bars in the departure lounge. It was amazing to see my country's rum in Ghana (Mount Gay Rum, Barbados).
Spotted KL's Dutch livery.
TP arriving from Lisbon.
SA loading up for IAD.
SN departing to BRU.
INFLIGHT
Aircraft: Boeing 747-436
Registration: G-CIVX
Age: 20.8 Years
Layout: F14C86W30Y145
Soon enough, 2.5 hours later our aircraft arrived in Accra.
These seats and IFE were newer than the last flight report.
During taxi, SAA overtook us as they backtracked the RWY for an expedited departure.
Winds favored the north so we took off headed north bound.
Dinner came soon after takeoff as crew tried to serve the passengers as soon as possible as we were late.
descent & arrival
Again, SOMEHOW, I missed sunrise. Usually i never miss sunrise on my flights but it probably shows how tired I was from my trip.
Descending over the channel.
The coast of England
Enterring approach in LHR
One of our 4 RR engines
Finals
We touched down about an hour later than scheduled as time was made in the air.
We pulled into our gate next to a CX 77W and QA A388. At this point it was time to sprint across to T5 for my connection which was leaving in 40 minutes.
BA coming in from ORD.
Our Aircraft.
Approach and flight map from Flightradar24.com
Nice FR JAZ350,
Yeah true, it's time to try the Queen of the Skies now rather than later.
You got lucky to have the special OW livery!
What are the main differences between the new seats & Ife VS the old ones?
Many thanks for sharing.
Hey! Thank you. I was hoping for one of the 100 Year liveries actually!
Two differences are that the older seats are slightly thicker in terms of cushioning and they are also more comfortable. The IFE on this flight are BA's newest editions which can be compared to the older edition on the 777/787s and the even more dated version on the older 747s as seen in my first 747 report between LHR and ACC.
So, a better IFE or a more comfortable seat? that's your choices right?
What would you choose first between these two?
On which aircraft (old or new) can be seen the 100y livery?
Personnally, for a late night flight, the plane you've got with a better seat, would have done the job, especially with your delayed departure time from ACC!
The new IFE - no matter the resolution/contents would have been totally useless... like the sunrise you missed ?
Too bad you had to run at LHR T5!
I prefer the more comfortable seat as I just wanted to sleep for most of the flight. I think the 100Y schemes may have been randomly selected but I have read one of them will be retired pretty soon.
LOL running to T5 was a marathon, we actually asked the check in crew in Accra to shift us to a later departing flight from LHR and she insisted not to do so. We didn't get our luggage in JFK.
Always interesting to see this kind of routes, moreover, with a B747 !
But is the flight full every day ?
Thanks to share ;)
Indeed these routes are interesting! YES the flights are fulled to the brim from first class right to economy everyday.