The Long, the delayed and the choatic flight to HK

Now, we all knew very well that flight security and government warning levels were raised to “critical” after the British police announced the arrest of suspected terrorists across London. We were told by many that transferring through a London Airport would be tedious, crowded, and people scattered in chaos at infinitely long security checks. This however, does not quite describe my trip…

In short: Søren and I checked in at Copenhagen Airport at 14:00 local time, two hours before departure with British Airways (BA) to London. Now, in Copenhagen there were a lot of people, and yes it did take some time to go through the tightened security points, but none the less we could walk to straight to the plane and board on time… BUT, then that was where it went all wrong.

Sitting comfortable in our seats, the captain announces that a computer in the control tower was down, and air traffic was delayed for approximately 1 hour. Søren and I looked at each other and knew that that would leave us with 45min in London to transfer, a tight fit, but possible in sprint. We were then moved to business class, so we could quickly get out. “Nice”, we thought and further “nice” when we were told that we would be escorted directly from one terminal to the other by BA ground crew.

Jumping in at the seat in the back of a small BA mini van upon arrival, we were rushed at full speed across the airport, wheels screaming in the sharp turns. Reaching terminal 1, our BA escort, nicknamed “Ricky”, jumps out shouts to us to rush up the stairs and tell at the security fast-track that “Ricky send you” and “I will meet you on the other side”. However, at the top of the stairs, chaos was at large…people rushing everywhere in distress, people standing in infinite long security queues, water bottles, make-up and foods scattered across the floors, and ONE stressed and angry security guarding checking the new allowed handbagage size and empting now deemed illegal terrorist weapons, water bottles and make-up!

We told him quickly that our plane to Hong Kong was leaving in 15 minutes and that Ricky sent us. He looks at me and says, “Sir I don’t know any Ricky and that handbagage is too large to board on the plane, I can not let you pass here”. Stressed out, I ask him “You are kidding me, my plane is leaving now, I need to go through!” He shouts out while blocking the way for a busy business travel, which hand baggage was too large as well and says: “You need to go through emigration, exit the airport, go to a check-in counter and check in your hand baggage.” That quickly we were in for the full tour of Heathrow airport, which I’m sure, is a nice airport under different circumstances…

Anyhow, running to the around the corner for the emigration desk, arghh… major queue, and that was the end of our first flight to HK. Waiting for half a hour to enter English emigration, we were fare from the only ones having met the distressed security officer and sharing it out aloud. We took it with a smile and went to BA service desk to check in my oversized hand baggage, which actually did fit regulation given on BA website, only London had equipped their “advanced hand baggage security and measurement tool” (see picture above – where I tried to reconstruct the scene! LOL), with a small appearing home made wood box, so small that only plastic bags or single laptops could fit in.

Luckily, the lady at the BA service desk was very helpful, booked us on the next flight that same night, and conclude by saying: “Yes, we do feed our passengers and we are service minded” Off we were again, through check-in, then the first security check, then hand baggage size check, then passport check, then the second security check, (shoes had to go off) and finally last check before boarding our flight some 3 hours later than expected and with the complete tour of the airport… wasn’t that fun? Hell no, I hope I shall never experience that again, but ohh-well off we were to Hong Kong with the flight captains announcement over the radio: “Ehmm, we just received some late baggage, which we will try and fit in before we taxi out!” That was at least some of our baggage…

Just to finish off our trip, we landed in Hong Kong 23 hours after take-off from Copenhagen, and by the way, Soeren lost all his baggage which currently is missing and lost somewhere in London.

Afterall, I'm safe and sound and tired in HK with temperatures ranging from 28-32. degrees...nice!

Anders