Review of British Airways flight London → Amsterdam in Economy

Welcome to 2020!

Well 2020 is here and I'm making my first trip of the year and new decade!

So my trip is to Toulouse, but I got to fly there from Amsterdam- as I cashed in Flying Blue miles I stashed up over the last few years. However I need my OneWorld miles and flights for my status- So positioning with BA being some £50 cheaper and donating towards my annual Ruby tier membership- it was worth it!

I'm not a huge fan of flying the BA428 anymore as it will always be "That Flight" I associate the Boeing 767 with- so I jumped for the BA430 option, allowing me a 4 hour gap in Amsterdam, just in case things go to pot, boy was I right to do that! 

British Airways BA430 LHR-AMS

The 80 minute ride from Christchurch in Dorset to London Heathrow in Hounslow was a pretty average and uneventful ride which I've done in the past a few times. Nothing much to worry about when driving at 5am! Got there for 06:50am (give or take a few minutes), giving me plenty of time to get through security and have a browse through London Heathrow Terminal 5…. for the seventieth or so times I've been there since my 18th Birthday almost five years earlier!

My flight that morning was to be operated by a new Airbus A320 for my BA flight log: G-EUUU.

There was some major weather problems in Amsterdam that morning it would turn out. The flight was boarded on time, and as the final passengers loaded on- the captain announced the problems our flight was to encounter… 

I couldn't help but notice that behind us was the BOAC Boeing 747-400 G-BYGC, looking fantastic in the early morning sunrise!

Fog and Mist had been forming in Amsterdam- which had led to reduced visibility, so the airport had to restrict its slots causing flight's to go into long holds or divert. We couldn't leave London on schedule.

To help the other BA flights coming into LHR on time, it was decided to board us, push back and sit parked on a remote stand for up to 55 minutes. So we parked on a taxiway running between Terminal 5 and the departure runway that morning (Runway 27L).

A lot of people have been criticising BA for their legroom in their Airbus A320 cabin, but I have never had an issue with the legroom and I come in at an average male height of 5-foot 9-inches (1.55m). As you can probably see in the image above- I've got enough room….
 
Thankfully our plane was deiced before we boarded, so we didn't have to worry about any further delays to our journey after we got our clearance. It gave the wing a Sci-Fi influenced green glow!

We got told by the captain we would begin taxiing for departure after 40 minutes waiting in our parking space, so anyone who had left their seat for a walk or to use the facilities had to go and sit back down and strap in for take off.

We taxied down to Runway 27L, which was quite quick with little wait. We lined up next to Concorde G-BOAB, who has resided at LHR since her last flight in mid-2000, and we lined up and departed finally at 09:15am, 45 minutes later than scheduled… We were under way! 

The BA wi-fi wasn't installed on this Airbus A320-ceo, but the website's main page was working enough to allow us to track our flight's time. The buy on board was distributed across the Euro Traveller cabin, It has been three years since BA introduced their M&S Bistro- I'm ok with it and its definitely better quality than some rival options, but I still think there are areas of improvement and I personally have objections to this practice on an airline that is supposed to be more up market than their budget airline rivals…. I am probably always going to be 50-50 on it…

Anyway- I bought myself a Speedbird100 IPA Beer for £4.65 (for later in TLS) and I also enjoyed a cup of this new "detox" herbal tea which was £2.50, however as I decided to bring my own (and slightly larger) travel mug- I was able to get 15p off my drink, making it £2.35 in total. It's not a lot, but the amount of Euro-Traveller flights I do on BA, it does build up!

We began descending towards Amsterdam after making a circuit over towards the South of Amsterdam, again this was down to the backlog caused by the weather which hadn't fully cleared out yet… We must have descended a good 15,000ft in cloud and fog before seeing the runway no longer than 15 seconds before we touched down on the runway!

Rejoice we had finally arrived! Unfortunately for me- they landed us on the Polderbaan!

I am not keen on having this runway (given its a 15 minute taxi) on a good majority of my trips… My pot luck in deed….

We parked on the D-Gates where all EI/BA/BACF flights arrive and depart in Amsterdam Schiphol's mega complex. No flight deck visit on this flight as the first officer was on a training flight and thus with the extra captain on board reviewing his performance, i was advised that I wouldn't be allowed entry, which is fair enough, I would be on a BA A320 coming back anyway in 2 days, I could wait!

So I left the plane after a nice enough flight, despite the delay at LHR, to enjoy a three hour wait in Amsterdam. I will continue the stop over on my next flight report on the KLM flight to Toulouse I did…. Stay tuned!