Another simply dreadful BA Ground Experience at London Heathrow
After a great BA First Flight from Johannesburg, we are back to reality at one of the worst connecting airports in the world. To add insult to injury, First Class passengers are treated no differently than Basic Economy passengers. While LHR connections require a security check, today's security was a bloody gong show with massive queues and no priority queue. Even with us quasi queue-jumping, this stupidity took nearly an hour including a ridiculous secondary where even acceptable toiletry liquids were walked to another screening area 50 meters away before being returned. That left no time for anything but a shower before we had to take the miserable train back to the B gates.
To B39... a BUS GATE. LOL, but of course. Why should our LHR experience improve today?
London Heathrow LHR to New York JFK
British Airways BA 179
777-200
9:50a-1:55p
11:10a-2:55p
March 15, 2022
First Class Suite 1A
The long, long way to our plane...
Or maybe we're walking to NY today.
Uh-huh.
Stairs...
... and more stairs.
At least it wasn't raining today.
Lovely. Air France and Lufthansa First Class passengers get a private limo ride. BA First Class passengers get crap.
At least we get a nice view of our 777.
Once finally on board, our mood changed with a nice cabin but an even better cabin crew, led by our wonderful FA George.
1A has nice spacious closet big enough for my carry-on.
Although we boarded on time, we sat at the gate for a while but not pushing back until 20 minutes after our departure time. We taxied a bit and then stopped... FOR AN HOUR. While the clueless cockpit crew and BA ops tried to figure out whether we had enough fuel to reach JFK. Say what? At first, we were going to have to go back to a gate but supposedly none were available. Then we were going to go to a remote stand. After an hour of this BS, the captain announced that we did indeed have enough fuel and we were going to taxi for departure. Sheesh.
Once in the air, George provided simply flawless service for 7 hours.
OMG, pink beef on BA. I didn't think that we even possible.
Afternoon snacks...
And tea.
All in all, once in the air and only once in the air, another marvelous BA flight with wonderful service.
And then there the ridiculous gong show at Terminal 7 CBP. With Global Entry, I've never really had any bad experiences anywhere... until today. This CBP group had a real New York attitude. First off, there were no CBP agents at any booths to process our arrival. They started slowly showing up a couple minutes later, from their break or whatever. Despite my Global Entry receipt, there was nowhere for me to go. I was first in line and was finally directed to a booth where the jack-ass agent had just turned on his green light. But apparently the green light didn't mean anything as I was yelled at for getting too close to booth. Channelling my inner New Yorker, I yelled back and then was finally waived forward to said jack-ass who decided to "work to rule" sitting there doing nothing at one point saying "I don't work during accouncements". Welcome to New York.
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