The Adventure Begins!!!

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And so it begins….

2nd June, 2009, Ernst and I arrive at Heathrow airport to catch our British Airways flight to Bangkok. With an interesting mixture of nerves and excitement we start the checkin process. As seems to be the way with everything nowdays, they have chosen to leverage technology in an attempt to make all of our lives faster and easier… uh, lie! Now an army of electronic checkin machines line the halls of the airport and whereas I’ve usually had the option of speaking to a human being, this time they insisted that we checkin with their fancy new machines… of course there is still an army of people there because the machines inevitably aren’t going to work they way they should. True to form we were unable to checkin, so the human contingent had to step in. They spent 40 mins… no exaggeration, 40 mins!! Calling around the airport to find out why our passports weren’t showing up on the automated system. They finally managed to secure 2 seats for us next to each other, however instead of having a formally printed boarding pass, he simply scrawled the seat numbers he had acquired on to a blank boarding card. We were then instructed to see the ordinary checkin desk where they would print a formal ticket and check our bags. At this point I already think the whole setup is a joke. No sooner had this thought crossed my mind that the nice lady behind the desk informed us that she had now somehow lost the seat numbers that we were given and she would have to seat us on opposite sides of the plane. Great start!

Never fear, Ernst is here. A few angry words later and we were told to see them boarding gate and inform them of what had happened and they would do what they could. Ernst wasn’t going to just give up there. We followed through, met the same checkin assistant at the boarding gate and threw another strop. I must admit that I was ready to keep my mouth shut and just get on the plane. BUT, thanks to Ernsts powers of persuasion, we were bumped to premium seats. Not quite business class, but somewhere in between business and economy! Foot rests, wider seats with ample leg room, and adjustable lumbar support. Fan-bloody-tastic. Anway, a few bottles of wine and a couple of sleeping tablets later and we were waking up on the runway in Bangkok. Possibly the best flight I’ve had in ages!

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