Having made it to the Galleries Lounge I quickly acquired a sandwitch and coffee and then settled down to some serious mental gymnastics.
The reason for the mental gymnastics was my trying to calculate just how deep into trouble I might be. As things stood, my return to Heathrow was set to touch down at 19:34, with my Dublin flight taking off at 20:20. Yes, you read that right—a whopping 26 minutes to land, clear security, sprint through the terminal, and board. Piece of cake, right? Oh, who am I kidding?
Given the mess that was Heathrow, I’d say my chances were hovering somewhere between “snowball in hell” and “winning the lottery without a ticket.” I was already picturing that polite but oh-so-final message from the system robot kindly informing me that I’d been offloaded. Honestly, I was amazed it hadn’t happened already.
Now, in fairness, I half-expected something like this. It’s precisely why I built in some wiggle room for Plan B: the option to either hop on a later flight or catch the first one out the next day. Maybe it would all miraculously align—the plane would arrive early, the gates would magically clear, and I’d breeze through T5 in record time!
EDI-LHR
BA1447
G-EUUD
Departure: 18:11
Arrival: 19:07
Boarding eventually got underway at 17:35, and they captain was predicting an 18:01 departure. The passengers were trickling in so slowly you’d think they were navigating a minefield. I have no clue what was causing the holdup, but it’s definitely did not help my stress levels.
Meanwhile, I was still clinging to my Dublin flight by some miracle. It was also running late, which meant my chances might not be completely sunk. Could two delays actually work in my favor? The optimist in me was cautiously hoping, but the realist knew how this usually goes…
The crew, bless them, looked like they’ve had better days. They were probably running on fumes at this point, which I suppose is par for the course after a day of non-stop delays. On the upside, there were only seven rows in Club for this flight, so at least their service was on the easier side. Menus had been passed around, and, would you believe it, another 15-minute ATC delay was announced. Honestly, at this point, 15 minutes feels like the default setting for every flight today. Eventually we were off the ground and heading south again by 18:11.
I’d ordered the Muslim special meal, which turned out to be… well, the usual chicken dish, only with a slightly more disappointing dessert. Fabulous! At least they’re keeping things consistent. Now, it was back to waiting and hoping this circus act somehow ended in my favour.
The rest of the flight passed quietly and uneventfully and we landed at 19:07 and quickly to the gate. With a short connection this was not a time to risk going landside and so I headed off down the transit route.
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