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 “DLR”

18 Mar 2014

London City Airport on balance is not too shabby but food is Uber expensive

Travelling regularly I now often try to use City airport rather than Heathrow. It is a small airport on the Docklands Light Railway and when full is a little uncomfortable. However travel times through the airport seem quicker, although fog can cause more chaos than at larger airports. The one aspect I do not like though are the incredible prices for food. This is an airport not a gourmet restaurant. Meals are effectively eaten in the corridors. Despite this main courses rise to £30 for quite mediocre type dishes. Not reasonable, not fair, not worth it.

27 Nov 2013

The Shocking Cost of food at London City Airport

For anyone who does not know, LCY is an airport easily accesible from the centre of London and is used by many city types and those that inhabit Canary Wharf. Mere mortals like myself may use the airport when it is easier than travelling out to Heathrow. Tonight I was shocked beyond belief at the cost of meals on offer in essentially a bar area.

The layout of LCY is essentially open plan with a few barriers separating out a few areas. There is only one bar and that is in the main section of the deparature lounge and in fact one has to walk through the lounge with tables on either side to get to the departure gates 21-24. So there is a constant stream of people rushing past these tables to head off to the airport.

The cost of meals in this area is astonishing, ranging 20£ up to 35£ for a single main course. So for a couple with a bottle of wine eating a quick meal before flying off they will leave with their wallet emptied by potentially over 100£.

Prices of Food at London City airport

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged airport, bankers, canary wharf, centre of London, city types, DLR, eating out, expensive food, expensive london city airport food, fast food, food, holiday, lcy, london, london city airport, MHRA, pensions, shocking food, UK, wallet, westferry, wine | Leave a comment

08 Sep 2013

The Best Way to spill Coffee

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged coffee, coffee spill, DLR, london, london city airport, trick | 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

29 Apr 2013

Embraer 190 SR

A pleasure to travel on this aircraft today from London City Airport to Glasgow. What actually struck me was that the legroom if you sat in seats 2 C and D was phenomenal. They literally were missing a row of seats. This had another benefit, that the trolley that normally wrecked havoc as it went up the aisle with passengers coming down the aisle, could be parked in there, allowing folks to skip happily into the toilet. The two rules of flying that cannot be broken are that firstly one should carry every item from the household onto the plane and secondly that all passengers must visit the toilet at least once.

What however I did not know was that the aircraft series has been in production since 2002, and 908 have been delivered. They seat between 94 and 114 . My one today seated 98 according to British Airways.

There is however a little safety information to digest according to Wikipaedia.

On 24 August 2010, Henan Airlines Flight 8387, an Embraer E-190 that departed from Harbin, People’s Republic of China, crash landed about 1 km short of the runway at Yichun Lindu Airport, resulting in 42 deaths.
16 September 2011: TAME Flight 148 from Loja, Embraer E-190 with registration HC-CEZ, with 97 passengers and 6 crew on board, slipped off the runway at approximately 19:15 ECT (00:15 UTC) atMariscal Sucre International Airport.
27 February 2012: Shuttle America Flight 5124 from Atlanta, Embraer E-170, with 67 passengers and 4 crew on board, made an emergency landing at Newark Airport after developing nose-gear trouble in the air, authorities said.^[26]
29 June 2012: Tianjin Airlines Flight 7554 from Hotan Airport to Ürümqi Diwopu International Airport, an Embraer E-190, passengers and crew members thwarted an attempt to hijack a plane in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang.
Seats 2 CD in Embraer 190

Posted in Uncategorized and tagged british airways, DLR, embraer, embraer 190, embraer safety, flight, flight safety, glasgow, glasgow airport, good legroom, Heathrow, henan airlines, hotan airport, london, london city airport, london travel, seats 2 c and d, summer, TAME flight 148, travel, vacation | Leave a comment

06 Aug 2012

Gold Medal for GB in Team Equestrian at Greenwich

Equestrian has always been a mystery to me until yesterday. We had the pleasure of seeing the qualifying round for the Team medals. The weather played its part. All got soaked and I mean soaked by some of the heaviest rain that I have been out in for a while. But spirits were not dampened. Great to see up close the horses and riders. Rather than wax lyrical about how magical the afternoon was I will show you in picture form the story of the day. but again LOCOG deserve so much praise for excellent organisation, the searches were carried out with hunour by naval folks. I may have been converted to an equestrian lover.For years I have been under the delusion that only football can generate an atmosphere that is electric but this is frankly wrong. To see the people of varying ages , 2 years to 90 years would be my guess, shouting and screaming for a horse, then a deadening hush when it goes wrong, was incredible. We even got a trip back on the DLR and changing trains at Canada Water was also simply incredible.