DUB-LHR-DUB 13SEP BMI

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Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

Hey everybody.
First of all let me give you the backround of this trip.
As most of the readers of the commercial forum will know I work in Dublin airport. However in the p[ast few weeks I have been relocated down to baggage tracing to help with the huge workload down there.

Although it isnt as great as check in it does have its benifits like getting your roster a month in advance hence knwoing exaclty when your working allowing you to plan somthing.
So I saw 2 days off together and decided to book a day trip to London or Heathrow to be specific. I have flown EI alot recently so I decided to check out BMI and happened to find a cheaper fare of just €61 return. SO I booked straight away for September 13th. I havnt flown BMI since 2000/1 and the last flight I took with them was on a 737-400.

So an early start as always with these day trips it was 6am on this ocassion. I could have left it later as Im so close to the airport but I like to get there early.

I parked in the staff car park and walked to the terminal. The walk at this time of the morning is great. You can hear all the morning departures taking off none more so than those beautiful and loud Ryanair 200s and you can confirm it was one of them by the line of black smoke that appears shortly after.
I was lookinf forward to trying out the BMI self service check in machine having used the Aer Lingus one many times which is simply brillaint and above all simple. So I approached the machine and an Aviance agent was there to assist and asked for my credit card. Errrrrrrr I dont have one I book using my parents card. ''Ohh well then unfortunalty youll have to Q'' What the %£$*. What sort of self service is this. You MUST have a credit card or FF card. Well to be this is unbeliveable and Aer Lingus blow BD out of the water at check in. So I had to Q and although there was only 3 in front it took ages.
Everybody infront was transferring onto another Atar Allaince flight one lady to St.Johns a couple to SFO and a man going onto DUS with LH.

Eventually I was called to the priority desk to be met by the sourest looking agent ever. She couldnt even smile. Now Ive worked at check in and I know exactly what these early starts are like but after 30 mins or so you perk up,this was 7am about 4 hours into and early shift and she was still as sour as a lemon.
I requested a window seat over the wing and got 17A. She said would you like me to check you in for you return flight as if she was the only person that could do it or she had invented day return check in,but anyway I got seat 15A

I had somthing to eat and watched the early morning arrivals which included AA,CO,DL,US and a few Ryanairs as well as 4 EI A321 departures and some other European stuff like OK and MA.

I had hoped for G-MIDL today the Star Allaince A321 but had checked the night before and knew it was G-MIDK but not to worry. Our A321 landed and was swiftly turned around and BIZ pax and pax with brown boarding cards were called and eventuall us with the blue ones. I headed down C43 and onboard. One thing EI beats BD on again is the uniform. From what I can see EI has one of the nicest uniforms ever and BD need to get rid of those stupid looking hats. The boarding music didnt seem to go with the overall impression I had of BMI. I cant remember what it was but it was some kind of pop thrash.

Anyway the safety demo commecend on drop down screens with the crew pointinf out exits etc and. Engines were started and we were away to RWY 28. There was a few to land and we were off. Im not a huge fan of the A321 and its underpowered hair dryers for engines but they were put on full today and we blasted off. We flew straight ahead for a whil and then made a left turnover North county Dublin and into the clouds. Now here comes the part Ive been looking forward to . Buy on Board and what a joke it was. I was slighly confused not to find the menu in the seat pocket as with EI or FR but instead a member of cabin crew ran up the isle backwards asking who wanted one. By the time I had seen her she was gone. Well what a joke. If people want to buy a drink or snack they dont want to have to run after cabin crew for a menu. Anyway this was reflected when the trolley came along which sold very very little.This new BOB serive to me is BD doing an awful impression of Ryanair and thats all they are now. I though to myself at this time that I would fly Ryanair over BD any day simply because they dont seem to have a clue what they are doing.

Descent into London was quite bumby but fast with no holding. We approcahed 27L over the city and I coul see LCY and the dome etc. We touched dow ahad of schedule and the oul captain didnt use as much brakes as I had expected. We taxied to T1 and on the way I remembered why I love LHR. AC,UA,CX,SV were all parked up for the day such a great variety.We parked at gate 90 and got off for a day of spotting and model shopping.

Well I hope that was OK and the return trip will follow later.

Original post

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Interesting read Shamrock. We must have passed each other in the air on both flights!

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 4,213

Good report. The bmi Business Boarding Cards are more of a Gold Shade then Brown :p

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

Mark what reg did you fly in on? When sitting waiting for my flight EI-DEB,E and J were all around.

Member for

19 years 1 month

Posts: 169

Great Report, Shamrock! Looking forward to part 2!

Member for

20 years 1 month

Posts: 3,124

I parked in the staff car park and walked to the terminal. The walk at this time of the morning is great. You can hear all the morning departures taking off none more so than those beautiful and loud Ryanair 200s and you can confirm it was one of them by the line of black smoke that appears shortly after.
I was lookinf forward to trying out the BMI self service check in machine having used the Aer Lingus one many times which is simply brillaint and above all simple. So I approached the machine and an Aviance agent was there to assist and asked for my credit card. Errrrrrrr I dont have one I book using my parents card. ''Ohh well then unfortunalty youll have to Q'' What the %£$*. What sort of self service is this. You MUST have a credit card or FF card. Well to be this is unbeliveable and Aer Lingus blow BD out of the water at check in. So I had to Q and although there was only 3 in front it took ages.
Everybody infront was transferring onto another Atar Allaince flight one lady to St.Johns a couple to SFO and a man going onto DUS with LH.

Lucky you, the staff car park at EDI involves getting the long-stay shuttle bus! :rolleyes:

When I booked my flight to MAN on bmi I noticed it said this on the website, I didn't book with my own card either, which meant I just went straight to the check-in desk when I arrived at EDI. :( No queue though, so it was no problem, but it would have been nice to try out the self-service machines.

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Shamrock, we got EI-CPF out, and EI-CPH back in. No 320 sadly :(

Member for

24 years 2 months

Posts: 6,503

Nice report, though I'm not sure I agree with your comments on the uniforms of Aer Lingus and bmi. I would say that I prefer the uniform of bmi. It looks much smarter than what I recall as being a dark green knitted jumper with a shirt and tie underneath.

And who would have thought it, I've been on G-MIDK and EI-CPF!

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

Excellent report Andrew, wish you could have held off your LHR trip until when i go on the 29th of next month ;).

Glad I booked my bmi flights with my own card now :).

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

T5, the EI Uniform was a fairly stylish Green Jacket and Skirt for the female staff, the single male crew member that we had did seem to have what looked like an unwanted Christmas jumper though!

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

LBARules I may be able to get to LHR for that meet but I wont know until the start of October . Thats going to be a nervous time for me as Ill be finding out if Im staying in the airport.

Member for

20 years 2 months

Posts: 2,495

Right here comes part 2.
I spent the first hour or so up at Myrtle Ave watching the morning arrivals and then decided Id walk over to the visitors center. Its quite a long (45mins) but enjoyable walk and you can watch the 27R departures which at this time were made of of BA Buses and a few European flights. I think I saw a LH 737 departing for DUS with the man who checked in before me on board as I heard him saying he had a 1.5 hour wait in LHR and this was about 1.5 hours after the first flight had landed and I didnt see any other LH aircraft around.

Anyway I bought a few models in the visitors centre and my copy of airliner world. For anyone whos interested I got a QF744,BA744,UA763 old colours and a AF772 which are proudly sitting with my ever growing collection.

I walked back around by the hangers with 3 SAA744s,QF744,BD332 and some BA stuff sitting around for the day and saw a EI321 departing for DUB. I spent a few minutes watching the arrivals from Hatton cross but afther 3pm couldnt be bothered walking back up for 27R landings so I though I would go on a little adventure and explore the terminals. Off the tube I went to terminal 3 and I was quite dissapointed. My initial reaction was good as I came across te VS check in area which is quite impressive but the rest is a dump. There is a few nice areas like the Gulf Air ticket desk but everything else is odd. The FIDS for each airline are different and I can only imagine what is like when its busy. It is nice however to see all the check in areas for these exotic airlines. Check in was being prepared for the evening JAL flights etc.

Anyhow after being dissapointed with no timetables on offer I went to T2 and it was worse. If I was any taller my head would be scrapping off the ceiling. I got 1 timetable from Swiss and got out of there. I headed back to T1 and picked up a Cyprus air timetable.
T1 is defintley the best between 1,2 and 3. I grapped another magazine and a burger king and headed for secuirity with the boarding card sour boots had given me in the morning. Secuirity was quick and painless.
I picked up a few items from the shops and headed for gates 80-90 which provide great photograpy oppourtunities off landing traffic.
However countless EI Airbuses kept obstructing the view. I saw EI-DEE the A320 which took me home from MAN last month,I had seen her that morning aswell departing and hour late to Seville.
I saw some great traffic during my 3 hours here including EK,QR,BA,BD,AZ,SK,TP,Virgin Nigeria,Air China,Air India 744 and 777 by 2.

The 3 hours past quickly and eventually I saw G-MIDK reappear and I knew she would be taking me home again. I was slightly dissapointed that I wasnt to get a Star Alliance logojet but I cant have everthing.

There was a few standbys checked in at the gate and I waited until last. There wasnt even and ID check done which I thought was a little lax. We had to Q in the airbridge for a few mins due to some really slow people putting away there hand baggage. As I walked to my seat a member of cabin crew was having a check in agents worse nightmare. A seat Dup!!!!! 2 passengers assigned the same seat so one has to go and find another seat. Luckily you cant put to many passengers onto a flight but when this happens its unfortunate although better than a secuirity number dup :eek:

So I was prepared to be impressed with bmi on the way home they had failed to impress on the outbound flight so how could they do this time. Well we started to push with passengers still standing in the aisle which I though was ridicolous but then again this is bmi. Safety demo was show and we taxied along side a recently arrived Uzbekistan 767. We didnt have to wait to long to take off on 27L the only traffic around was 2 other bmi A320 and A319 bound for some UK/European destination.

We lined up and were under way. I love being able to see T4 at night as all the BA744s are being prepared for their long hauls to Singapore,Bangkok,Hong Kong and the list goes on and on. Again it was another reminder of why I love LHR.

Shortly after take off inflight service began. This time I managed to get a menu without having to run after the cabin crew. I was amazed at this menu. A simple chicken,tomato and chesse sambo was advertised as ''roast chicken salad with cracked balck pepper,maynoisse,vine ripend tomatoes,cucumber and lettuce on malted brown bread'' !!!!!!!!!! All I wanted was a chicken sandwich.

Anyway soonthe trolley arrived and I got my ''roast chicken salad with cracked balck pepper,maynoisse,vine ripend tomatoes,cucumber and lettuce on malted brown bread''

I observed the inflight service a little closer this time. One girl was handing out the snacks while the other was running up and down the aisle like Bill Gates with a hand held computer calculating peoples change. Can they not just use a cup and calculator like any normal airline.

Anyway soon we were descending into DUB over the Irish sea past Howth head and onto RWY28. The approach was very very windy with the plane wanting to go in another direction then the pilot was trying to fly it. We hammered it donw on 28 and braked hard and jumped off on Echo 7. We taxied swiftly to C41 and got off. Nothing much happening at this time as all the European night stoppers would follow soon after. The only one there at that time was the Malev 737-700 but it was being prepard for its night flight to Athens.

So another great day in London over and I was home by 2130.

Im making preperations for my next day trip and Im looking at DUB-STN on FR,STN-EDI on U2 EDI-STN in GSM and DUB-STN on FR.

Thanks for reading.

Member for

21 years

Posts: 4,209

Another great read Shamrock, heres G-MIDK later on in the day at DUB, I think possibly operating back after your flight but I'm not so sure.

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Member for

19 years 9 months

Posts: 334

Good report; I thought the requirement for your credit card was fairly common for sel-service check-in. BA/KLM/LH all require the card used to make the booking.

Member for

20 years 10 months

Posts: 9,401

LBARules I may be able to get to LHR for that meet but I wont know until the start of October . Thats going to be a nervous time for me as Ill be finding out if Im staying in the airport.

Good man, hope all goes well, hope you can make it :).