BA New Club World, and a week in Kenya

By: Mark L - 22nd September 2007 at 14:19

This summer I’ve spent most of my time working. Since my 7 hours notice First trip on BA to South Africa, I’ve had all but a smattering of Domestic flights to satisfy my travel addiction. Towards the end of my summer job I started researching a quick US trip to bolster my miles balance, but in the end I decided to burn off the dregs of the miles I still had with another trip to Africa.

After trying to get onto an organised tour of some type in order to avoid a lot of wasted time like I had in South Africa, I ended up with two trips on hold, one with 6 days in Nairobi, and the other with 5 days in Johannesburg. Both were in Business Class with BA. In the end my options looked a lot more interesting for Kenya than South Africa, so I reluctantly dropped the hold on those elusive JNB seats, and plumped for the NBO flights with just 2 days left to go.

My plans necessitated a few bits of kit that were still at my parents house, so I had to fly down to London for one night before heading off to Nairobi. My last day of work was great, and after being treated to lunch by my employer, they let me head off early, so I called AA to move to an earlier Shuttle. I spent an hour or so in the Manchester Terraces lounge, and headed down to Gatwick on what must be the world's most delayed flight, BA2909, which has an on time departure record of just 3%. Obviously today was no exception, and we left about 25 minutes behind schedule.

Birdseed was served, and 30 minutes later we were on the ground at Gatwick. The flight was very busy, but I was one of the few people with some checked luggage, and my case popped out after 10-15 minutes of waiting. After traipsing back to my parents, picking up all my gumpf and transferring it all into a giant backpack, I grabbed a few hours sleep, before heading off to Heathrow at 0600 the following morning.

The first stop of the Rail Air coach was T4, and I ascended to the top floor, and walked all the way to the end of the BA check-in facility to the First Class check-in area. There were two people waiting in front of me, and we were all greeted and asked where we were travelling to by the line dragon. She asked if I was in First, but when I said no I flashed my EXP card and she escorted me to a desk. I got a wonderfully friendly agent, who took her time, but chatted about my trip and what she was doing in equal measure, whilst happily double checking the visa entry requirements to Kenya for me, and finally wishing me a pleasant trip and giving me a Fast Track sticker.

Security took about 10-15 minutes, and I walked down to the main lounge pavilion. Amazingly the Spa had a couple of spaces available for treatments, and I grabbed an 0830 slot for a massage. With just 30 minutes to wait, I decided to try the First Lounge. This lounge gets quite a bit of derision and it is easy to see why. Whilst very pleasant, with comfy seats and a good breakfast spread, the lounge is horrendously busy and I was very lucky to get a seat. Lots of moronic, self important, DYKWIA behaviour was evident, with lots of people talking into mobiles, and even one Australian chap talking into the mic on his laptop shouting “Guess what, I’m in London talking to you on this new programme called Skype”. Grrr, use headphones next time!!!!

After having a bowl of cereal, a few pastries, and working my way through The Times, 0830 was soon here, and I gladly left the lounge and headed round the corner to the Molton Brown spa. I was greeted by a very nice South African guy who proceeded to pummel me stupid for the next 20 minutes whilst discussing the Elemis takeover, and my trip to Kenya.

By now I was well and truly awake, grabbed a quick shower, and went to check my emails. After giving up on the painfully slow internet I enquired at the front desk about the status of my flight, and was informed it was just starting to board. Unfortunately it was from gate 22, which is on the old Victor Pier, requiring quite a walk down to one of the satellites.

I’ve had to walk much further elsewhere before though, so it wasn’t quite so bad. At the gate there was one large queue of people waiting in 2 lines, but there was also one BA employee standing at a BP reader next to me doing nothing. I went up to him, he saw my Club BP, and let me straight on. I’m not too sure if I was supposed to do that or not as it wasn’t marked as Fast Track exactly, but no one really seemed to mind!

Climbing the stairs of the 747 was incredible, and to be honest something I had looked forward to experiencing for many many years. After a bit of confusion as to where all the seats were (Backwards facing seats are very confusing the first time, honest!) I found 62K, and was very pleased I had. This seat is in the exit row, so the legroom is virtually unlimited. The other seats are hardly constricted, however as a 6’3 guy, a 6’ long bed was going to be slightly restrictive later on if it had a great big wall at the end of it, rather than a load of empty space!

The Club service started moments after boarding, and I was presented with an amenity kit, followed by today’s menu. I was also offered a pre flight drink. “Water or Orange Juice Sir?”, “Err, no thanks, I’ll take a champagne if you don’t mind!”. Sadly it is Monopole Blue Top. This has been phased out in Club Europe, so it is slightly galling that they are still serving it in Club World!

Nairobi is a heavy cargo route, so we were a little late off stand whilst the last of the crates were loaded, but we were soon on our way departing off the southerly runway at about half past ten.

As we were taxiing out, our purser shouted at the top of her voice down the stairs “We’re secure! Anthony, darling, I’m secureeeee!!!”. I couldn’t stop giggling at the whole thing, and tried to imagine an AA flight attendant doing the same thing. Naturally, I failed miserably, and continued chuckling to myself during the taxi. :D

Up until this point my mind had been convincing me that I was facing forwards, so it was only with the acceleration of the aircraft that I found myself being tipped forwards instead of backwards for the first time. This was much more preferable to the norm, as it enabled me to move my head round to look out of the window without the same difficulty as when turning your head turns against the G force normally experienced when sitting forward.

The service started very soon after take off, and although I wouldn’t quite call it rushed, it was certainly on the speedy side. Meal orders were taken at the same time as the first drinks round (another champagne for me) and I placed my order off the menu:

Lunch

Starters

Loch Fyne smoked salmon with mustard dressing

Or

Roast vegetable terrine with basil crème fraiche

(With)

Fresh seasonal salad served with vinaigrette

Main

Grilled fillet of beef with asparagus, carrots and blue cheese gnocchi

Shaun Hill’s smoked haddock and prawn fish pie

Penne pasta with cherry tomato sauce

Main course salad of Cajun chicken with peppered pineapple and spicy tomato dressing

Dessert

Apple and blackberry pie with custard

Cropwell Bishop Stilton and French Brie cheese

A selection of fruit

Chocolates

Wines

White
Danie de Wet Limestone Hill Chardonnay 2006

Chablis Champs Royaux 2006, William Fevre

Red
Foot of Africa Shiraz Viognier 2005, Kleine Zalza, Stellenbosch

Chateau Arnauld 2004, Cru Bourgeois Haut-Medoc

Champagne

Champagne Cocktails:

Kir Royale

Buck’s Fizz

Heidsieck Monopole Blue Top Brut Reserve Champagne

Now, I am quite tall and thin, and look about five years old, so I attract a fair bit of motherly attention from the Matronly staff onboard BA flights especially. This usually involves them limiting my alcohol intake (a la the pre flight drinks) and trying to get me to eat as much as possible (obviously to fatten me up).

So when I ordered the Salmon to start, and then the salad for my main, I was given a worried quizzical look, and had the fact reiterated to me that it was a COLD salad. I had to explain that I had only really just had breakfast, and wasn’t quite feeling my best either due to lack of sleep, and that the salad would do me just fine.

This seemed to convince the Purser, and I then managed to shift her off the topic by complaining that my AVOD wasn’t working. She was a bit surprised, as apparently the rest of the aircraft was fine, and said she’d try and reseat me to a free seat (downstairs!) after lunch. However shortly afterwards, the ubiquitous “AVOD announcement” was made, and the system was turned off and rebooted.

I left it alone for a bit and concentrated on my food. The salmon was edible, but not looking as fresh as it could have done however. The salad on the other hand was delicious, nice big chunks of chicken and pineapple were in abundance, and the whole thing was washed down very nicely by the Chateau. The FA even did the whole showing me the bottle and giving me a taste thing, which I never got in First before!

The dessert was similarly very nice indeed, but you can’t go very wrong with pie and custard I suppose. After lunch I reclined the seat flat, grabbed a cup of tea, and settled down with a paper. The Times, and a cup of tea in bed, at 37,000ft, it doesn’t get much better than that now does it.

I decided to play around with the AVOD again and see if it was working, and after some coughing and spluttering it kicked into life and started showing me programmes. I hadn’t expected this at all! First I watched a couple of comedies, and then settled into Oceans 13.

I decided afterwards to get a picture of the bed in its fully flat position, and sidled to the end of the bed to get a shot. However before I could lift my camera, a loud CRACK rang out, and I fell to the floor. After a few seconds of mild shock and panic, I realised I had been sitting on the footstool, and I was now looking at the big writing on it saying “Do not use this as a seat”. I knew perfectly well I wasn’t supposed to do this, but had totally forgotten how the bed was constructed in my desire to get a photo! I quickly fixed the footstool, and got out of sight of all the experienced Club travellers leering at me for my amateurism.

Shortly after the crew came round with ice cream, and after finishing it I decided to go for a walk to stretch my legs. I descended the stairs, and walked backwards through the lower Club cabin, and then through the two World Traveller cabins. It wasn’t full, but was still quite busy, and the lack of space made me incredibly glad to be sat upstairs. I walked all the way to the back, which I’d never done before, and took a long look out the window at the rolling Darfur desert beneath us. Sadly it was quite hazy so I was unable to get any decent photographs.

After taking in the scene and trying not to think too much about the political situation below, I went forward again and took a look at the Club Kitchen. Very quickly one of the lower deck crew came up to me and asked me where I was sitting. After convincing her that I was sat upstairs, another crew member came over and said he’d told her he’d seen me come downstairs earlier, and she was just chatting me up!

It turned out crew member number two was “darling Anthony” and the three of us ended up having a long chat about Nairobi, BA, life, the universe, and everything, which is always very nice. They had to excuse themselves due to a number of passengers demanding tea and coffee all at once, so I took the liberty to peruse the Club Kitchen. The menu lists it thus:

Club Kitchen

Between meals, please help yourself to a drink or a tasty snack. Please visit the Club Kitchen and help yourself to the selection on display.

Snack salads, sandwiches, filled rolls and wraps

Fresh fruit salads and fruit smoothies or juice

Choice of luxury cakes
Crisps and chocolate (including organic chocolate)

If seated in the upper deck, you can visit the Club Kitchen downstairs.

At this point we were only a few hours away from Nairobi, but the Kitchen looked virtually untouched which was nice. I wasn’t very hungry, so just grabbed an orange juice and a fruit salad and climbed back upstairs again and lounged in front of the TV some more.

The flight was coming to an end after feeling like we’d only just left London, but the crew were coming round with the Afternoon Tea:

Snacks

Sandwich selection of crayfish with lemon mayonnaise and rocket and Cheddar cheese with pickle

Or

Salad of grilled marinated artichoke and asparagus

Sweets

Fruit Scone served warm with clotted cream and strawberry preserve

Farmhouse fruit cake

I took the sandwiches, of which the cheese and pickle were absolutely delicious. Sadly the crayfish ones had gone a little soggy and weren’t quite as appetising. Scones are always to be welcomed however, and by the time I was through, I only had room for a couple of mouthfuls of the fruitcake before I was bursting at the seams and could take no more.

Again, the service was over in record time, and before we knew it we were starting our descent into Nairobi. The weather was pretty bad, and we were treated to some exciting flashes of thunder and a lot of close cloud, but thankfully not too many lumps and bumps.

As we touched down in NBO we could see a fellow BA aircraft, a 767 which it turned out had diverted from Entebbe because of that nasty weather front. Thankfully the forecast showers hadn’t hit Nairobi, and the evening was “beautifully balmy” according to our Captain!

We taxied onto stand, and very quickly the doors were open and we were off. I bade farewell to the crew, and went to the visa desk. The crew had given us a landing card, but not a visa application form, so I had to spend a few more minutes hurriedly filling one in. Thankfully the queue wasn’t too bad at all, and within ten minutes I was in possession of my visa, and in the arrivals hall. I was astonished to see my backpack already there, circling the belts! It had no priority tagging of any kind which made things all the more strange, but I happily verified it was mine, grabbed some Kenyan Shillings, and rounded off the evening perfectly by spotting my taxi driver straight ahead of me as I passed through customs.

Kenya: The trip itself

I was staying at Nairobi Backpackers Hostel as they had a well recommended in house safari business, and the place was filled with all different kinds of people. Mostly students with backpacks like myself, but during my stay I chatted with two merchant bankers, and two lawyers which was rather interesting.

During my stay I was planning to climb Mount Kenya, but unfortunately trip dates didn’t combine well with mine, so that plan was axed. In the end I plumped for a couple of safari options.

On Day 1 I did a half day trip to an Elephant Orphanage and a Giraffe sanctuary which was very interesting. On the way home however, my seat in our Land Rover caught fire, and after finding out no fire extinguisher existed, we dealt with the issue by flapping the seat fabric about a bit until it went out. Fantastic.

Day 2 was a trip to the Hells Gate park, where we saw plenty of Zebra, Giraffe, Rhinos etc, and went for a walk down a floodplain gorge. However what had not been explained to me was that I was the only one in the group doing the tour as a day trip, and noone had thought how I was going to get home. The answer?

Matatu. A Matatu is a shared taxi, 99.99% of the time it is a small Toyota minibus, crammed with as many seats as humanly possible. They are generally not advised for tourists, and during the entire course of my stay I never saw anyone remotely resembling a tourist in one! Nevertheless, my guide insisted it was safe, gave me some money to cover the cost, and I was on my way.

Again, nothing was explained to me, and I naively assumed I would just sit there for three hours and be dropped back where I started. Oh no! Our first stop was the town of Naivasha, where we had to change. I flapped my arms around a bit and said “Nairobi” lots of times until someone took pity on me and pointed me to another Matatu which was going that way. What followed was the most uncomfortable journey of my life. I was crammed into the front seat, in between the driver and another passenger. There was no leg room whatsoever, and the gear lever jabbed into me whenever it was moved.

About two hours into the journey we broke down, and had to transfer into a third vehicle, where finally we re-entered Nairobi and I was able to jump out and get in a conventional taxi for the final leg of the trip. It was certainly an experience!

Day 3 was meant to be the commencement of a four day safari, however as the rest of my group never turned up I ended up on my own for the first day of it, and spent the day at beautiful Lake Nukuru with the pink flamingos.

After a pleasant overnight in a local hotel, I linked up with another group, and we spent the next three days in the Masai Mara. Here we saw all the usual things expected, including Rhinos, Hippos, Croccodiles, and even a couple of Cheetahs.

On the penultimate day of our trip we went to Keekorok airstrip to pick up some passengers, and I got a few photos of the duty free shop and also one of me next to a Cessna Caravan that arrived for all of 2 minutes, after performing an ace STOL landing. It landed over the top of some Antelope, and stopped short of a German tourist wandering down the runway oblivious to the landing aircraft!

We woke up early on the last day to catch the sunrise before returning to Nairobi on a busy, rainy, Wednesday night.

Eight hours in the back of a safari minibus with a hyperactive Ecuadorian girl is enough to make anyone wish for the sanctity of an airport, so I was rather glad when I finally entered the airport grounds. My taxi driver had a broken wing mirror, and I was treated to my first real piece of evidence of corruption in Africa when we were pulled over, and a traffic officer brazenly requested some form of payment in order to proceed. My driver got very indignant, made lots of loud noises in Swahili whilst gesturing at me, and finally we proceeded without having to pay anything!

Entering the terminal required the same fun and games as it does in South Africa:

Entry Goon: Ticket
Me: Err, I don’t have one. I don’t think I’ve ever had a ticket actually.
EG: So, what do you have then?
Me: Just a booking reference.
EG: Passport?

Whips my passport off me before I get a chance to open it

EG: What’s your name?
Me: First Name + Last Name
EG: But it says here “First Name + Middle Name”
Me: Yes, that’s my Middle Name, not my Surname
EG: Hmmmmmmmm
Me: So I can go through?
EG: Yes OK.
Me: Sigh. Thanks.

After a quick security check I joined a queue behind a Northern Irish family at the First desk, and double checked with them that check in was supposed to open about four hours ago. It normally does, but as with everything I was just told “African Time” and so we happily waited for 15 minutes or so until some staff came out.

Annoyingly all the WT desks were manned first, then finally someone on First, but no-one on Club. Eventually, after the small queue of WT pax had been dealt with, I was called to a WT desk.

My bags were tagged through to Manchester (My first time checking bags through LHR, so I was slightly worried) and I was handed my BPs (old style, which was nice, but with the new style printing over them, which made them look messy) and a lounge invitation. I was also handed an “exit” form, which just turned out to be the entry form as they had run out of exit forms. Filling it out made no sense at all, but I tried my best anyway, and was given an exit stamp at immigration and allowed on my way.

The Lounge Invite had what has to be the most useless map on the reverse. Across it was printed a diagram: Check In -> Immigration -> Escalators -> BA Lounge.

Now this very helpfully navigates you from check in to the airside point, but it is impossible to go wrong there anyway! Airside is quite a big place, and the signs within it helpfully list “Lounges” with arrows pointing both directions. I got quite frustrated and asked someone for directions, finally being pointed towards the obvious location of the immigration hall again! Oddly this is where most of the lounges are, and I entered the first one I came across.

Oh no. Not this lounge. Go this way and that way and climb five flights of stairs, and THAT is the BA lounge. Great.

Anyway, I finally got there, and it is a pretty run of the mill lounge. It is still an Executive Club Lounge, and not a Terraces, so slightly outdated but fit for purpose I guess. There was an F and a J section, but the F section was just a small walled off section identical to the J side, but with no food or drink, so I just stayed on the J side. Some hot nibbles were put out after 9pm, and were very nice, even if they did resemble something I’d get from the Indian takeaway at the end of my road!

After a few drinks and some food it was about 1030pm, and the lounge attendant reckoned it was OK to head downstairs. Gate Closure was supposedly at 11pm, but I noticed some of the more regular looking passengers remained in the lounge for some time after me, and the queues at the gate were the obvious reason for this. The queue itself wasn’t so bad, it was the fact that there were two independently manned security checkpoints in the gate area one behind the other, with a big BA sign saying “we value your security”. It all seemed a bit bizarre.

After passing through these there was a huge scrum of people at the gate, and by looking out of the window the jetbridge was clearly U/S and so we were using a single set of steps. :mad: As I joined the scrum and prepared to do battle with elderly Kenyan Ladies, and some feisty looking American tourists, the day was saved by a BA staff member screaming “First and Business Class passengers only please” at the top of her voice, followed by lots of grumbling as a few of us pushed our way through to the front, descended the stairs, and joined another queue at the foot of our 747.

The rain had just stopped, and the light was perfect, making our 747 positively glow. I always talk to people about “the warm fuzzy feeling” you get when you are in a far away land, and you see that great big bird sat on the ramp, oozing homeliness in that great colour scheme. I certainly felt it then, and was happily welcomed aboard by our CSD, and directed towards the stairs.

After settling back into 62K again, I grabbed the wash kit and went into the bathroom. There, I managed to drop the toothbrush into the bin, and keep hold of the plastic wrapper. I had been up since 0600, driven all day on potholed dusty roads, and was all of a sudden hit by a wall of tiredness. I slipped into my First Class PJ bottoms, and changed my jumper to a shirt, quickly brushed my teeth with my fingers, and went back to my seat.

Pre flight drinks came round, and I enquired after some champagne, but of course local licensing laws in Kenya meant that wasn’t possible. We were all closed up very quickly and on our way, before the crew handed out tonight’s menu:

Starters

Smoked salmon with cucumber salad and wasabi dressing

Or

Broccoli and pine nut tart with roast red pepper coulis

(With)

Fresh seasonal salad served with vinaigrette

Main

Grilled beef medallions with garlic mashed potatoes, Madeira just, roast carrots and sugar-snap peas

Pan-fried tilapia served on pea puree with a bacon and shallot cream sauce

Vegetable biryani, vegetables in fragrant rice

Main course char-grilled chicken Caesar salad

Dessert

Tiramisu

A selection of cheese

A selection of fruit

Nothing on there particularly stood out to me as something I wanted to try, I was exceptionally tired, and not very hungry anyway. So instead I reclined my bed, raised the privacy screen, put in my earplugs, put on my eyeshade, and went to sleep.

I don’t usually sleep exceptionally well on aircraft, and had rather a difficult time in First to and from South Africa, but strangely this seat was by far the easiest one I’ve ever had to get some rest in. I was just dosing and not really asleep for much of the time, but I definitely got a couple of hours of decent rest and was really pleased that I did. The biggest thing for me was not having any restriction on where my feet were. I don’t care if my feet dangle off the end (they do on my bed at home) but just having no constraints in where I could move them was excellent.

A First seat is still superior to a conventional club seat. However 62A/K has so much extra space it is by a long way the best seat on the entire aircraft for me to actually sleep in. This is a bit of a mixed blessing for me to be honest. Finally I’ve found a seat that I can sleep in, but now I have the problem of First not necessarily being the most attractive flying option for me!

The biggest problem for me was rolling onto the seatbelt buckle, and this woke me up once somewhere over the Med, with about four hours left to run. I noticed that the AVOD had died on my seat, but didn’t bother with it anymore and just went back to sleep.

The cabin lights came on about an hour before landing, and I was starting to wake up at that point anyway. I heard the breakfast service starting around me, and about 30 minutes before landing got up, quickly changed back into my normal clothes and took my seat for landing.

Once again the crew seemed rather concerned I hadn’t eaten, and wouldn’t let me leave without practically force feeding me some croissants and a breakfast smoothie! The rest of the breakfast menu was like this:

Starters

Chilled orange juice

An energising fruit smoothie

Fresh seasonal fruit

Or

Birchermuesli

Fruit Yoghurt

Bakery

Selection of warm breads and breakfast pastries

Cheese and tomato Danish

We were soon on our approach into London, and for the first time ever I landed on runway 09R, which is only ever used for landings in the rare easterly configuration during the early morning. We sidled along T4 and slowed down next to a remote stand. I prayed we wouldn’t get it, and thankfully we turned left onto a normal stand.

Again, disembarkation was fast, and I was soon in the immigration hall. IRIS was as ever broken, but after 5 minutes I was into the UK, and 15 minutes later was on the HEX transferring to T1. After another long walk I made my way to the T1 Arrivals Lounge at about 7am , and after being queried on why I was there and not the T4 lounge, I was welcomed in and shown around.

I made an appointment for a massage at 8am, and grabbed a quick shower straight away. I then made my way over to the extensive breakfast spread, and set about devouring a full English brekkie, with lots of pastries, waffles, tea, and orange juice! 8am was soon here, and I was greeted quizzically at the Molton Brown desk. I explained I had a massage booked, and the masseuse responded, stony faced, “Are you over 16?”. I wan’t sure whether to be offended or flattered, but quickly decided on flattered. My 3rd and final spa treatment from Molton Brown this year was very excellent indeed, and truly woke me up.

After a bit of browsing on FlyerTalk (Foolishly not logging in and missing out on meeting up with Aerotec in the Domestic lounge :mad:) I left the Arrivals lounge, and went through security to the T1 Domestic Lounge.

There, I presented my Inbound and Outbound boarding passes, and had a bit of an argument with the Lounge Dragon when she demanded my AA card as well. The view over the runways from this lounge is really quite good though, and this calmed me down somewhat. After a couple of hours I boarded my final flight of this trip, the 11am A319 shuttle to Manchester (In 1A, naturally). Aside from the chap next to me snoring for the full hour, the flight was uneventful, and we landed into Manchester on time.

My bags had made the five hour connection perfectly, and by late afternoon I was back in Leeds. That night I decided to put the effects of BA New Club World to the ultimate test, and went for a night out with some mates. Even after a seemingly small amount of sleep I had no problem staying up until 2am for a night of drinking and debauchery. Aside from a small domestic issue involving a pair of twins (they are not nearly as much fun as you might imagine) I had no trouble waking up at 7am the next morning (despite it being in a nondescript city centre Travelodge that I had no recollection of entering) and getting on the 8am train to Manchester, and finally the 10am train to Glasgow.

So, all in all, a fantastic trip. Another spur of the moment randomness fest it may well have been, but ultimately it was a very successful visit to Kenya, where I saw a great deal, and of course importantly a set of really excellent flights on BA. I am currently without money or miles, so my next trips won’t be until the New Year. However I do face a big dilemma to get over until then: whether I can ever go back to BA First now I have discovered 62K…!