Arcticterntalk.org

The blog of a travelling psychiatrist and football lover. Who happens to be a halfway decent photographer. Takes a cynical view of the world

Archive for the tag “BA”

06 Dec 2013

Weather Report from Scandinavia

It seems I am replicating the Grand Tour but instead of Italy am focusing on Scandinavia. All that I am trying to do is get back from Copenhagen to London. However last night having got onto a plane and sat there for 2 hours it became too windy for the ground staff to work. This also meant that they could not connect the air bridge so we were all stuck on the plane. Today the weather is a little less stormy but snow has arrived. Copenhagen airport is chaos, with people and queues everywhere. The pushing and shoving at the gates reminds me of Rugby League. Mr Angry is out in force and has been cloned too. Mr Important is standing there shouting into his phone that ” he has to get to Bejing”. Which is where most folks might wish to place him. Restaurants are packed selling high priced pizza and hot dogs. Most folks are surgically attached to wine or/and beer glasses.

Somehow I escaped on a plane to Stockholm that then promised me a trip to London however the london flight was cancelled along with most other flights. So I am here in Stockholm Arlanda Airport, most likely all night. The queues to book at the SAS ticket centres stretch around 200 yards or longer and just keep on getting longer. The staff are doing their best and remain cheerful and pleasant and SAS cannot be criticised at all.

For those of you who would like to experience this joy a few photos. As for the weather, well cold, windy, actually very cold and very windy and lots of snow here. Posted 8 pm. A glass of wine for me

The Hilton hotel is at Copenhagen airport and the sky shows that snow was coming. The queues you will have to just work out as they were endless. The pushing at the Gate. Well thats easy. The folks sitting on the baggage carousel was last night at Copenhagen. They may well still be there!

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport food, arlanda, BA, bejing, british airways, british airways cancelled flights, cancelled flights, copenhagen, denmark, expensive airport food, gates, gdansk, grand tour, hot dogs, italy, london, moscow, mr angry, pizza, pushing, pushing at airport gates, queues at airports, rugby league, russia, SAS, SAS great staff, SAS staff, scandinavia, snow sweden, stockholm, storms denmark, sweden, weather denmark, weather in denmark, weather report, weather sweden | Leave a comment

30 Nov 2013

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Casting Spells in Finland

After a mere 24 hours in Finland I can only say that this is quite a magical place. The people are kind, intelligent and interesting, also interested in other people. The food is great. The hotels are interesting. The temperature is cold, minus 8 this morning. What however struck me the most is that for children to learn spelling is not so easy. I had to sit through 2 hours of lectures in Finnish, which I did with good grace ( and my blackberry). One noticed that they used a lot of long words, and I counted 21 letters in one word. At dinner I was informed that the words could get and did get longer. Here is an example:

levyseppahitsaasaopiskelna = 26 letters

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, BA, baltic, baltic countries, beach, cold country, cold walk, denmark, finland, fires, forest, helsinki, hilton, hilton helsinki, holiday, home, loganberries, minus 8, norway, reindeer, reindeer meat, SAS, scandinavia, sweden, triple glazing, tunnels

12 Nov 2013

Photographs with an I Phone

Am seriously underwhelmed with the camera capacity of the I Phone. I see others do better but wonder how much post-production there must be, months maybe. There are not many times I want to take photos with the I Phone as for me it is not a real camera. But sometimes the subject matter just works and here are two examples where the photos are not too shabby. On a more positive note just look at the alcohol available in this BA lounge!

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, BA, BA lounge, beer, british airways, camera, female, girl, girlfriend, Heathrow, i, i phone, I phone 4, I phone 5, i phone photos, london, photo, sex | Leave a comment

08 Sep 2013

London City Airport. Has the love affair ended?

LCY is a very convenient airport and in general terms functions well. I came across it by chance a few months ago and have used it as often as possible as it frankly beats travelling and experiencing the hell that is Heathrow. That was until something went wrong. When things run smoothly then all is well but when something goes wrong in a small airport then how does it cope. LCY is a small airport. There are no lounges and or anything luxurious. A huge open space that subdivides ino a few eating and drinking areas. Last thursday things went wrong. Having arrived early and spent 2 hours there it was a happy occurrence to then find out from the departures screen ( no announcements of this happy event) that my flight to Edinburgh was cancelled long with the last of the day. No reasons given.

At that stage one discovered that two plane loads of folks, perhaps 250 maybe more, were queuing at the ticket desk which had two people working. British Airways no doubt would have employed good souls but to be placed at the back of this queue meant that I did a quick estimation that even if each customer was sorted in 5 minutes ( new flight/complaints/hotel for the night etc), I might be there for hours and in fact very many hours. Possibly all night even. so here is a situation that does not work in a small airport. This is a shame as I shall now think twice before using a small airport again , maybe the larger airports would have more staff, more flights, and a speedier resolution.

So a few photos as momentos . The queue snaked around and around and in fact like a giant conga twined itself through the 2 cafe’s in the airport.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, aviation, BA, BA queues, british airways, british airways cancelled flights, cafe, cancelled flights, cars, conga, departures, DLR, happy event, holiday, last thursday, london, london city, london city airport, lounges, no doubt, open space, small airports, stage one, ticket desk, transportation, travel, trouble, what are my options for cancelled flights | Leave a comment

08 Sep 2013

British Airways Build Planes with Apartments on top

The rumour is either that BA has so many delays that hotels are becoming expensive, or that increasing levels of luxury are being demanded from the expensively suited folks who travel in the various upper this, or executive that classes. Either way it came a no shock to see a BA plane with a small aprtment block built on the top for such reasons.

a splendid idea in fact.

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airplane, airport, aprtments in london, BA, british airways, delays, flight delays, london, london city airport, new travel experiences, plane, travel, travel delay | Leave a comment

08 Sep 2013

Evening at London city Airport

London city airport is in the heart of docklands and the views are impressive both when landing and when landed. On this autumnal evening the light was shining kindly for my i-phone to snap an air France plane waiting at the gate.