Review of British Airways flight Stockholm → London in Business

introduction

After a really lovely 4 days - and most of the Monday as well - it was time to return home from Stockholm. I was once again travelling on British Airways, on the last departure of the day.

airport

I made my way back to Arlanda the same way I left - on the pendeltåg (commuter railway).

And once again it was a long trek from Arlanda C in T5 to T2, but again there are some really cool apron views, including this Norwegian 737 awaiting to taxi after pushing back.

BA's check-in desks are located just outside of Terminal 2 (it appears) - they are by the entrance to Terminal 3, which has been disused since Covid according to Wikipedia. Nobody was at the BA desks when I arrived at 18:00, but the only check-in agent at the Finnair desks was very happy to let me drop off my bag.
Just as I arrived at the check-in counters, a delay was notified to me by TripIt (I am lucky to have a pro subscription through work) and Flighty (which I subscribe to on a weekly basis as-needed).

I spent a few minutes after I dropped off my bag looking at these populAir aircraft. Whilst they appear to be at the T3 stands, they actually board these aircraft on buses from T5 I believe.

It took a while to get through security, not because there was a queue, but because they were being rather vigilant. They rescanned the tray with my jacket because they didn't like my phone being in my jacket pocket - the first time that's caused a problem since I started travelling with a phone in 2014.

I went through to the lounge, which is the Pearl Lounge. I wasn't hugely impressed, the seating on the whole was uncomfortable. I found a dark corner with a seat I could just about relax in and hid there for a few hours. There was an average hot and cold food selection, but more sweet offerings could make it a bit better. It was mostly savoury choices (chicken wings, cold cuts, salads) with the only sweet item being chocolate cookies, which were nice but got boring quickly.
With the delay slowly increasing, I stayed in the lounge until the inbound flight landed from Heathrow. Whilst I was in the lounge I was keeping an eye on the seat map, which was showing 1D as being free all along - this becomes pertinent later!

Remember that the lounge is still in the Schengen area, so you have to clear passport control before you can get to the gate. This took a matter of seconds for me, but for the teenager in front who had arrived into Europe in Innsbruck three months ago it took quite a while!

on-board

After a bit of a scrum at the gate, with far too many people not understanding how group boarding works despite an excellent explanation over the tannoy from the gate agent, it was time for a bit of #BoardingNotBoarding action in the chilly jet-bridge.

Soon we were on-board our A320 taking us back to Heathrow, G-EUUF.

Once again I settled into 1F - hoping for some lovely London skyline views on our way into Heathrow.
Interestingly someone was sat next to me in 1D - a look at their boarding pass when they left it on the central table said they were actually sat in 18E. I've no way of knowing if they were a self-upgrader or had paid to upgrade at the gate.
Menus were handed out pre-departure.

It really was a quite stunning departure out from Stockholm, with the sunset glow staying long into the flight. I could still see some light in the western skies when we were approaching the east coast of the UK.

The service began with a nut mix and drinks run. I got a Sprite, my preferred beverage on non-morning flights.

I was served first for the drink and food run.
I would've gone with the beef but I was only offered a choice of "fish or pasta" - and didn't really think before replying. The cod was good though. Didn't touch the salad due to my hatred of visible egg and my mild cheese allergy. Didn't touch the cheese for that matter either - obviously…

WiFi was available on this aircraft, unlike the outbound. Unfortunately it did not know what sort of aircraft it was. I made use of the free messaging available for Executive Club members.

There was only one brief outage, annoyingly it was in the middle of a conversation with a friend about something just before they headed for bed. Oh well.

I thought this control panel was quite retro, and the cabin crew didn't mind me taking a photo of it in the purple ambient lighting. I was tempted to ask if I could press a button but managed to resist the temptation.

The bathroom was in decent condition when I went to use it about 40 minutes before landing - just in time for some turbulence, of course. The sink had definitely seen better days, it being visibly discoloured.

Soon we were approaching our final descent into Heathrow, and we broke through the clouds to reveal London looking quite pretty in the late evening.

A firm landing and a short taxi onto our stand at T5A, passing this A350 pushing-back from T5B on the way.

We were at the gate which is best suited to the immigration haul at T5 - ideal as there was quite a queue for the E-gates already. I was through in only ten minutes and headed to the baggage haul. Unfortunately this is where it all went wrong again…
Yes, for the second arrival into Heathrow in a row, BA couldn't unload any bags from the plane! As it was 23:00 already and I had to be at work at 08:00 the next morning, I was quick to beat the queues at the baggage helpdesk where an agent took my details. I had my bag by 16:00 on the following day - so perfectly adequate on this occasion. Still absolutely infuriating though, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm cursed!