Ireland day 0604. Thursday 25 May 2023- Heathrow *

Ireland day 0604. Thursday 25 May 2023- Heathrow

Today’s summary	Flew to London with British Airways to meet up with a member of the family. All went well except my flight back in the evening was cancelled so I had an unexpected night in London. Zero points to BA
Today’s weather	Bright and sunny with no rain in London or Dublin. Light north westerly wind. Appx 17C in Dublin, 21C in London

Today’s overview location (The blue mark shows the location of my route)		Close-up location (The blue line shows where I walked) (No GPX today)

Commentary

(Summary blog only. Last full blog was Day 0368).

Was supposed to be a flying in-out one day visit to London to meet a member of the family at Heathrow who was arriving from Vancouver. My BA flight to London this morning was cancelled and replaced by another two hours earlier – so that was OK apart from the early start.

Once I arrived at Heathrow at about 9 am and given I had some time to wait before the Canadian flight arrived, I went into London to have a quick look round. Then hot-footed it to Heathrow to meet the family where – despite a 2 hour delay for baggage, we had a nice meal and a couple of beers in the Globe pub at Terminal 5.

I was supposed to fly back to Dublin this evening but my flight – along with almost all BA flights from Heathrow, it seems, was cancelled. An IT problem, apparently. Absolute pandemonium and nobody on hand to help – especially as I only saw the cancellation once I was air-side. Anyway eventually we managed to escape the airport by going back out through the e-gates and I cut my losses and applied for a refund. Now I have an evening in London then am going to avoid the airports and take a train and ferry back to Dublin tomorrow.

Oh the joys of travel. Thumbs down to BA.

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


A beautiful day in store for Dublin today	Air travel seems to be pretty much back to pre-pandemic levels now – queue at security was 25 minutes versus about five minutes immediately post pandemic. Although the peace and quiet of pandemic times has some attractive qualities, it’s much better to see some sort of normality resuming. How long will it be till we forget?

I always admire the fortitude of those who can drink Guinness at half past six in the morning	Got the new Elizabeth Line train into London – very good service to all the way to Tottenham Court Road

Caught a passing dignitary on Tottenham Court Road. Suspect it was the PM, given the intensity of the police escort	Just four members of BA staff to help deal with hundreds of angry customers whose flights were all cancelled at zero notice.

Practically all BA flights from Terminal 5 – mine included – were cancelled this evening