A small note first before the trip report starts: this report contains a lot of details about spotting in LHR, to help the spotters who haven’t visited Europe’s biggest airport yet. I hope it’s of use to someone, because this report took literally several hours to compose. I hope you enjoy it!
About 14 months ago, BA went on strike during the weekend of July 18-19-20. In that strike, me, Tom (Turbotrent) and Ivan (Apuneger) were amongst the thousands of people that were stranded.
After several months of trying, we finally managed to get a compensation voucher (thanks to the help of a friend) of €85 each.
Ivan used his voucher already several months ago. Because I wasn’t able to go back than, I waited for a 2-day LHR spotterstrip in the beginning of September.
The basic fare in N-class for a return inclusive tax from BRU to LHR is €100, so for €15, I was able to fly to my favourite airport in the EU on my favourite airline!
I booked my tickets about 5 weeks in advance, at the BA ticket counter in BRU. BA have now introduced a service charge of €10, but I didn’t mind too much due to the €85 voucher.
The lady was very friendly. I gave her my flight details, she confirmed the fare, and 2 minutes later was my e-ticket printed!
Friday September 3, 2004
The day started quite early at 3.30am. I woke up, did the necessary ‘maintenance’ (brushing teeth, some basic ‘cleaning’ etc), and departed to the train station at 4.20am.
As usual, there was no delay. The train left at 4:35, and I arrived at the airport at 6am, for my flight leaving at 7:45.
I immediately proceeded to the BA self-service check-in area, where I had the choice between 4 counters. All were free, and I put my BA frequent flyer card in the first kiosk. As usual, some questions were asked like ‘did anybody ask you to carry something with you’ or something like that.
Something I really like, is the fact that you can select your own seat. I had already checked in on the internet the morning before my flight (another advantage of flying BA: they have an excellent “manage my booking” section at their website), and had selected my seat already.
Because 27L would be in use for landings, I had selected a seat at the right side.
My boarding pass was printed in no time, but I was surprised that I was not able to check-in for my return the next day. So I asked the very kind BA supervisor standing just besides the self-service kiosks whether the kiosk was also able to print my boarding pass for the next day. For some reason, this was not possible, and instead of asking me to queue in the row, she asked me to come with her. 3 counters were open, and she opened a 4th one especially for me to print my boarding pass! She asked me whether I had any preference (window-aisle) and I asked for 24F, which is the second last row in the A320.
My boarding pass was printed, she gave it to me, and she wished me a nice flight. Excellent service!
I quickly went to the Wingtips (a cafetaria where you can see 50% of the parked traffic), but it was too dark to read the regs of the aircraft, so I went downstairs again to go through security.
Because the UK is a non-Schengen destination, I had to show my identity card and my ticket to the police. As usual, they were very friendly (everybody complains about them, but I never had an unfriendly police officer at immigrations, or an unfriendly security officer at the security checkpoint).
Only 2 people in front of me at the security checkpoint. Luckily, nothing “beeped” so I managed to go from the Wingtips tearoom to the airside part of Terminal B in only 5 minutes.
Unfortunately, the A320 that was going to fly me to LHR was a –200, not a –100. But… I wasn’t disappointed too much because it was carrying the England football team sticker at the back.
After a walk through the Pier (nothing really special was parked except for the Aurela YAK42 OY-SKC bringing a soccer team, an SK DHC8 OY-KCE, and one of the last AT aircraft I needed to complete my log: CN-RNH, a B735).
I bought a breakfast (coffee and 2 croissants), and when I had finished, it was time to go to the gate. In the meantime, the sole B744 of AT landed (CN-RGA).
About the flight
British Airways BA389
Airbus A320-232
G-EUUJ c/n1883
Delivered 11/25/2002
Seat 07F
Departure time scheduled/actual 07:45/07:57
Arrival time scheduled/actual 08:00/07:49
Flight time: 52 minutes, 16 seconds
Bigger version: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/649154/L/
Bigger version: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/329968/L/
Boarding was announced 20 minutes before departure. There was no priority boarding, which seemed a bit strange, because this was going to be a totally full flight.
A friendly lady scratched my boarding pass, and wished me a nice flight. Before entering the jetway, we had a choice between 4 newspapers. One Dutch newspaper was available, unfortunately a sensational tabloid (Het Laatste Nieuws).
On board, I was greeted by 2 very friendly flight attendants, who directed me to my seat. This seat was extremely spacious, thanks to the fact that this row is convertible to C-class. The 5 rows of C-class were totally full on this flight, and so was Y-class.
To my big surprise, no fat smelly guy or woman was my seat neighbour this time, but a cute Dutch girl flying to ORD.
At 07:40, Captain Edwards made a very detailed announcement: he introduced the crew, gave flight information (a 40 minutes flight, great weather conditions, flying conditions were smooth, a take off followed by a turn to the South-West,…) and he ended with “Hope you enjoy the flight, thank you”. This was followed by an announcement of the purser to welcome us on board. In the meantime, N371AA (an AA B763) touched down at the 25L.
We were pushed back at 07:45, exactly on time. In the meantime, a taped announcement was made in Dutch and French with security information. This while N661UA (a UA B763) touched down.
Just like a year ago, no word about SN Brussels Airlines was included in the welcome-announcement. This while SN Brussels always welcomes codeshare partners. I was surprised that even the AA-pax on the flight weren’t welcomed.
We started taxiing at 07:50, unfortunately to the 25R runway. I had hoped that another runway would be in use, due to the works at the 25R, but our BA captain preferred to use the 25R apparently (which was partly closed, so the available runway space was shorter). All my take off’s till now have been on the 25R…
We started our powerful take off roll, and already after 30 seconds, we rotated into the bright Belgian sky.
Less than 2 minutes after take off, the captain switched the ‘fasten-your-seatbelt-sign’ off, and the cabin crew got up to start the cabin service.
The purser made an announcement to introduce the 6 flight attendants, and told us that “we are here to make this flight as comfortable as possible for you. We will serve you a breakfast, together with a tea/coffee/water service. It is my pleasure to be your purser”. They really made a lot of efforts to give the passengers a good feeling.
This was the content of our breakfast box:
x Vanilla Pineapple Yoghurt
x a Blueberry Muffin
x fruit salad
x a small map with all directions and possibilities to reach central London as soon as possible
The box was brought with a smile, followed by another smiling flight attendant who asked us what we wanted to drink. I went for the tea.
All in all, I was very satisfied with this breakfast. The muffin was very tasty, a fruit salad is always nice, and also the yoghurt was ok. Good to see that BA still offer the same excellent service as a year ago! Honestly, I find that their new catering concept is even an improvement. You do not only get a sandwich, but also other things like a yoghurt, or a chocolate bar, or something else depending on the flight time and the time of the day.
Once I had finished my breakfast, we were already reaching the British coastline. The cabin crew came around to collect the waste, and at 07:20lt, we started our descend together with an announcement of the captain “who hoped that we had enjoyed the hospitality”. He also announced that we would soon go into a holding pattern, and that we would be on the ground at 07:50 followed by a short taxi to the gate. He ended his announcement with some weather information, and he added that also during the weekend the weather would be great.
About the holding pattern: I took two pictures two illustrate this.
Here you can see our routing after our first turn was completed:
We left our holding pattern to start our approach to LHR after a second full turn. We just left our holding pattern on this picture:
At 07:35, the captain announced that we would land within 10 minutes. We descended, and I looked out of the window because, when you have a seat on the right, the approach for 27L offers excellent views of the City! Just like a few weeks ago, I managed to take a picture of the Tower Bridge, and I enjoyed the breathtaking sight of London.
We touched down a few minutes later, at 07:49, and as usual, I was amazed with the huge number of heavies on the ground. Just after we vacated the runway, we passed a VIP B744 of the UAE, namely A6-MMM. I took a picture of it:
We taxied to the gate in T4, and the Captain made an announcement to thank the cabin crew, and to thank us, the passengers, for flying BA. He wished us a very nice day, and in the meantime we reached our gate.
As most of you know, BA recently moved BRU from T1 to T4. Much to my joy, because T4 offers an excellent viewing opportunity (more about this later), and due to the fact that most long haul destinations of BA are leaving from T4 (behind our A320 were 3 BA B744’s parked for example).
2 flight attendants were at the door to greet the pax, and also the captain was there to greet us!
I think that it’s difficult to have a better flight than this one. Everything went smooth from the beginning to the end, everybody was friendly,… all in all an excellent experience.
I thanked them for the excellent service, and they wished me a nice day.
Spotting at LHR
The first thing I did was starting a search for a window, to spot the movements. I quickly found one, and started to write down the movements.
Nice were PH-XLQ, an all white ATR of Air Excell. For the rest: a huge number of BA heavies, a lot of EI/AC/VS/AF/LX/LH/…
I decided to proceed as quickly as possible to my favourite spot in front of the Visitors Centre, so I walked to immigrations, went outside, took a bus to Hatton Cross, and started the walk via the BA Maintenance area to the Visitors Centre.
I saw the usual South African Airways B744 parked at the BMI hangars. I took the following picture to show how close this bird is parked:
This is the front view of the aircraft:
A Qantas B744 (VH-OJU) was parked at the other side of the road, together with several BA B744’s and B772’s. I assure you that you feel very small between all this heavy metal!
Parked in the BMI hangar was a CX B744 (also as usual). The other 2 South African B744’s were parked at the gate, and so was the second Cathay B744.
Once I passed the maintance area, I got a good view of the departures. Lined up were D-ACPM, HB-IJP and an AA B772, N765AN. Another AA B772 was landing behind me (N783AN) followed by an AZ A319.
The Visitors Centre was reached about 45 minutes after landing (it’s possible to be there earlier, but I preferred to walk instead of taking the free bus, due to the amazing views at the maintenance area).
This is my preferred spot because you are able to see both arrivals and take offs. I especially chose this week, because I knew that (unless the wind blows from the East), take offs would be on the 27R till 3pm, followed by all landings on this runway. The advantage is that you can read all the regs of the aircraft that were already at the ground, and due to my early arrival, the biggest part of the planes that had landed before my arrival, would be in the air already before 3pm. All arrivals from 3pm till midnight would now land on the 27R, which made that I could read most traffic without using the excellent logs of Andy Mc Greggor which can be found at the LHR yahoo group. Those logs contain all arrivals and departures including the terminal, the gate, the aircraft type + reg, and the destination. Also a time is included, and the log is in chronological order. This means that 100% of all traffic can be logged.
About the interesting visitors… there are so many of them! I’ll make a small selection: N775UA, a B772 of UA in the new colours (I like the colours, although I also like the current colours). I also saw the Aeroflot B772 I was missing in my logbook. The Etihad A332 + A343 was also interesting, although I had seen both aircraft already. Got a new Air Algerie B763, 7T-VJI. The Pokemon B744 of ANA, JA8962, was also a first for me. I was glad to see 5Y-CCC, the second B763 of East African, after having seen 5Y-QQQ at MXP a few weeks ago. A4O-KB was the last longhaul aircraft I needed of Gulf Air (have now seen all of their A330’s and A340’s), and A4O-KB was followed by a Thai B744 in the Star Alliance colours, HS-TGW. All in all, I managed to fill a lot of gaps. I’ve now seen all LHR based B772’s of BA, and still have to see one B744 (G-BNLU). I also saw BA’s newest A320, G-EUUR, so also their Airbus short haul fleet was complete again. No new B752’s and B763’s were logged because I had seen all of them before already. This is only a short summary of the traffic. If you know that, before 8am, already 40 B747’s have landed, combined with a big number of B772’s, B763’s, A330’s and A340’s, you can imagine how busy LHR is!
Airport Hotel at LHR: the Travel Inn
It was 1pm, so I decided to go to the hotel, in the hope that they would be able to give me a room with good viewing opportunities. It was the first time I had booked the Travel Inn. A year ago, I went to this hotel to check out whether viewing would be possible from certain rooms. I saw several rooms that should be able to give a good view of the 27R, so I decided to give the hotel a try.
The price of a room was £49.95, compared to the £44.95 of the Ibis. Anyway, the difference between the Ibis and the Travel Inn is huge. The Travel Inn offers big and comfortable rooms, everything is very new and modern,… all in all much better than the Ibis for a difference of only £5.
I asked the lady behind the desk a room with good views of the runway, and she asked me whether I was a planespotter. “Indeed, I’m a planespotter”. “Oh, really? So what do you do when you are spotting planes?”. “I write down the registration numbers, every plane has a registration”. “Can I see it?”. “Of course!
”. So I gave her my book which contained all regs of the morning. “Oh, that’s very nice”. She smiled, and checked which room would give me good viewing opportunities. My room number was 1215. She wished me a nice stay, and I went upstairs to check out the room.When I entered, I saw that there were two windows just after each other with a curtain in between. Which meant that viewing was almost impossible. So I tried to open the first window the remove the curtain, but… it was closed. So I went back downstairs to ask for a key to open the window. She told me that the window is normally closed (which I don’t understand, because there is still a second window behind), but that she was going to make an exception because I obviously booked the room to see planes. She called somebody, but the guy was making some fuss about the fact that the window has to be closed. She was quite annoyed and told him: “Just open the window OK”. He insisted, and she directed him to my room. After 5 minutes, somebody knocked at my door with the keys, so I could finally open the first window!
To give you an idea about the views, I took 2 pictures from my room (they were actually taken on Sunday morning when the 27R was in use for both arrivals and departures):
After spending some time in front of my window (I also redesigned the room a bit to make my stay in front of the window comfortable
), I left the hotel and went back to the Visitors Centre spot, where I stayed a few hours before going back to the hotel.My first job was writing down all the interesting arrivals (thanks to the BBC). Once my list was completed, I put the TV at BBCWorld (I’m quite addicted to news) and relaxed in front of my window.
Interesting arrivals included A6-YAS, a B744 of the UAE. Also B-HUO, a CX B744F made me happy. ET-AKC, an ET B752, was a nice sight, but unfortunately not a new frame.
I stayed at the hotel till about 8.30pm. Due to some delays and some early arrivals, there was a gap of about 25 minutes without special traffic, so I decided to head for the Mc Donalds, the best option if you don’t want to pay €20 to eat something. The interesting thing is that you can see all arrivals while going to the McDonalds. During my walk, 2 VS A343’s landed, a BA B772, A320’s of BA and AF, and a B744 of BA. I went inside, purchased a BigMac menu, and managed to finish the junkfood within 15 minutes after arrival, exactly on time because I wanted to see the Cathay A343. The timing was perfect: 5 minutes after I left the Mc Donalds, the beautiful CX A343 touched down at the 27R, followed by an LX A320, and a CY A332.
My intention was to go to bed after the last interesting aircraft had landed. I didn’t want to wait for the nightstoppers because I was too tired, my intention was to get up early the next day. But, having the heart of a real aviation enthusiastic, I watched arrivals till 11pm. No new frames were logged, but it was nice traffic in general. Also the sight of the KLM B737 going around was very interesting to see. Just at the point when the B737 passed my window, it applied full thrust.
I switched my alarm clock on my mobile phone on, to be woken up at 7am (had seen all nightstoppers already, so there wasn’t any need to get up earlier), took a shower, and went to bed.
Saturday, September 04 2004
I woke up at 7am, and the first thing I did was have a look through my window. Surprisingly, it was still dark. Actually much darker than I had expected. Suddenly, an AC A333 passed my window, to touch down a few seconds later. I started looking at the traffic, and was surprised when I saw that several aircraft that should have arrived already, did not arrive yet. Even more strange was the fact that no aircraft were taking off yet. Just when I wanted to turn on the TV, I checked my watch and saw that… it was actually 6am, no 7am. I immediately realized that I had changed the time at my watch, but not at my mobile phone.
Being still tired, I decided to go to bed till 7am, but at this moment, a UA B772 passed. Just at the point I wanted to go to my bed again, a Cathay B744 landed. LHR started to wake up at this time. I kept on watching, and without realizing it, it was already 7.30am. To give you an idea about how busy LHR is, I made a small calculation for you, based on the actual arrivals between 5am and 8am: the arrivals between this timeframe were:
x 35 B747’s
x 18 B777’s
x 5 B767’s
x 5 A340’s
x 4 A330’s
In the next 2 hours, another 28 heavies arrived.
This means that 95 heavies arrived between 5 and 10am, so one heavy about every 3 minutes on average. Not bad if you ask me…
I won’t write too much about the visitors on the 2nd day, in order not to make this report too long. Nice visitors were 2 IL96’s of SU in the old colours, a B744 of the UAE (A6-YAS), a B747SP of the UAE (A6-ZSN), ZK-SUJ of Air New Zealand, a B744 in the Lord of the Rings colours, TS-INJ – an all white A320 flying for Lybian Arab Airlines, EZ-
A014 – a B752 of Turkmenistan Airlines, F-OGYO – an A310 of Jemenia, EP-IAG – a B742 of Iran Air and an Air Astana B752 P4-FAS etc etc.
Going to the airport
At 15h, when the runways were switched, I decided to wait for 15 minutes to spot some arrivals from the Visitors Centre. After the landing of some A340’s and B747’s, I decided to walk to the BA maintenance area, from where I would spot till 17h (the hour I wanted to leave to Terminal 4. My flight was only leaving at 19h35, but I wanted to have some time to explore T4 to check for spotting opportunities).
After spending some time under the approach path of 27R (a few A340’s and B747’s passed only metres above my head), and after walking around near the BA maintenance centre (see some pictures below of the BA B772 that crossed the road – see below), I walked to the Hatton Cross station, which I passed to cross the busy road to buy some food in the BP service station.
This is the last picture I took, while walking to Hatton Cross:
The BA Maintenance area – Towing of a BA B772
This is a place where I like to hang around, simply because you stand in the middle of B747’s and B772’s. Because the maintenace centre is not located at the airport itself, the aircraft have to be towed, and have to cross a road.
Until a few months ago, the police had to come several times a day to block the road. They found a solution now for this problem: big fences have been installed.
The following pictures show you the process of an aircraft that has to be towed. We start at the maintenance centre.
London Heathrow, Terminal 4
I waited for a few minutes at Hatton Cross, and took the bus to T4. Views are nice, because you pass the 27L treshold were all aircraft are lined up for departure.
The drive to Terminal 4 takes only a few minutes, and I arrived already at 17h15. The bus dropped all passengers off at the arrivals level, so I had to take an elevator first to go to the departures level. My boarding pass had already been printed in BRU, so I continued immediately to the passports control, where a friendly lady wished me a nice flight.
There were no lines at the security checkpoint, and the security officer wished me a good afternoon. For the first time in 15 flights, the beeper ‘beeped’ and I was manually checked by a security officer. Strange that I didn’t have to go to the beeper again, he told me it was OK.
Jens/Tristar500 likes Terminal-reviews, so why not include a few lines about the highly criticized LHR Terminal 4
. Honnestly, I don’t know what’s wrong with this terminal. OK, it looks a bit old, and the appearance isn’t very fresh and attractive, but it was better than I expected. There were plenty of shops and opportunities to eat, but I had already bought an overpriced sandwich at the BP, so I searched for a window to continue spotting.I found a nice place at Gate 9: there is a window with a row of seats just in front of it. You can see the arrivals on the 27R, and the aircraft take off just in front of your nose (at least with the runway configuration of this afternoon). You also have a very nice view of several heavies parked just in front of you. Parked just in front of me was a BA B772 (I think to Toronto), and I managed to watch the crew in action to prepare the aircraft for about 15 minutes, after which the plane pushed back, and taxied to the 27R. After a few minutes, a Qantas B744 was towed to that gate, for the flight to Singapore/Sydney later in the evening.
This picture shows the left view of the runway, with a BA B763 taking off in the background:
This picture looks a bit chaotic, but you can see all arrivals on the 27R (no arriving plane is pictured unfortunately):
It was already 18h30 now, and I left my seat to go to the screens, to know whether my gate was already known. Gate 17 was where I had to be, and I moved to this area to check out the spotting opportunities over there. When I passed a gate while going to gate 17, I enjoyed the sight of the first B772 of Kenya Airways (5Y-KQU) that parked just in front of me.
Spotting opportunities were poor, but because it was a 10 minutes walk to the seating area where I came from (so 20 minutes return), and because the flight was due to board within about 40 minutes, I decided to stay there (still managed to see a big part of the traffic).
Once boarding for the flight to VIE besides our gate was completed (that flight was operated by G-EUUJ by the way, the aircraft that carried me to BRU the day before), I had some more space and managed to see the reg of my plane. Again, it was not an A320-100 unfortunately
The last aircraft I saw landing was 5Y-CCC of East African.
About the flight
Boarding was announced at 19h15, and once again, there was no priority boarding. Also on the flight to VIE was a priority boarding not announced.
I handed the lady my identity card and passport, and she notified me of a change in seat, from 24F to 24A. A pity because I wasn’t going to see T1/2/3, but I was glad to have a window seat.
British Airways BA404
Airbus A320-232
G-EUUA c/n1661
Delivered 31/01/2002
Seat 24A
Departure time scheduled/actual 19:35/20:07
Arrival time scheduled/actual 21:40/21:44
Flight time: 36 minutes, 55 seconds
Bigger version: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/552548/L/
Bigger version: http://www.airliners.net/open.file/672508/L/
A friendly crew greeted me on board, and I proceeded to the back of the aircraft. 2 flight attendants were standing in the middle of the plane, to welcome the passengers, and to help them stowing their luggage.
Impressive was the amount of C-class seats on this aircraft: 8 or 9 rows, and almost all seats were taken! Economy was about 75% full.
Seating was more cramped in comparison with row 7, but it was still comfortable. I relaxed and enjoyed the sight of the BA B772 that taxied just besides us. This B772 was even the last LHR-based B772 I needed! Now only the LGW-based aircraft to go…
This B772 was followed by PH-BXG, a KLM B737, that parked just besides us. This aircraft was very full..
Because nothing else could be seen from my seat, I relaxed and changed my headrest to a comfortable position. The leather seats on board of this aircraft were really extremely comfortable, and the aircraft was very clean inside.
An announcement was made at 19:40, with the message that we had to stow our luggage safely. This was followed by an announcement of the captain. He welcomed us on board, and told us about a small delay: a cello had to be safely stowed in the cabin apparently because it didn’t fit in the cargo hold for some reason. I saw the cello and it was huge! He also made a lengthy description of our routing/altitude/weather information/… and introduced the cabin crew. He wished us a ‘great nice flight’.
This announcement was again followed by one, this time of Tina, our purser. To quote her: “Ladies and gentleman, a very warm welcome this evening on board of this British Airways flight”. She asked us to pay attention to the safety instructions. And, believe it or not, but she repeated her announcement in French!
Due to problems with the screens, the crew had to perform the safety demo manually. The screens were not used during the whole flight by the way, which is sad because I like the map, + the info about our speed and altitude.
For some reason, 24 D-E-F remained empty. I don’t see the logic to put me in 24A with two people besides me while D-E-F stayed empty.
We pushed back at 19h52, the engines were started, and we reached the queue for take off after a very short taxi. Ready for take off in front of us were an AZ A321, an NH B744, a BA B772 + B744, an LX A320 and a SK MD80.
The lights were dimmed, and we lined up on 27L. The engines spoiled up, and we made the most powerful take off I ever experienced! I was literally pressed into my seat, and we rotated after only 29 seconds.
We made a 90 degrees turn, and I got a nice view of the approaching planes. The flight attendants left their seats in the meantime.
The service went fast and the crew was extremely friendly. Sandwich of this evening was a Lettuce-Bacon-Tomato sandwich which was the best sandwich I ever got on a flight. We also got a vanilla yoghurt, and I had a tea as drink.
I finished my tea at 21h35, just when the captain announced on the PA: “Cabin crew, 10 minutes to landing”. This was going to be a very short flight.
The captain wished us a very nice evening, thanked us for flying BA, and told us that we would arrive only a few minutes after our scheduled time of arrival.
The flight attendants secured the cabin for landing, and we touched down at BRU at 21h44, only 4 minutes behind schedule. The flight-time was only 37 minutes, which is a personal record.
Nothing interesting was parked at BRU, except for a Tunisair B736 that was ready for push back, and a LOT ERJ170, which was not only the last aircraft I saw that day, but also the last new registration of the day.
BA was really excellent on both flights (it will be very difficult to beat both flights in terms of quality), and I’ll certainly fly them again next year!
Conclusion
During the past few weeks, I managed to fly on several new aircraft types, visited several new airports, and made several hundreds of new registrations.
This trip to London was the last one I had planned for this year, so this is also the last trip report you will see from my side till July 2005.
I hope you enjoyed the trip reports as much as I enjoyed writing them…
I would like to thank all people who helped me with the planning of those trips, and all people who helped me with airport and hotel information. A special and big thank you goes to the guy who made this LHR trip possible (I won’t mention his name, but I’m sure that he will read this!). Thanks to all of you!
See you all next year!
Regards
Frederic
