I am one of those people whom check-in staff, security staff, gate staff, immigration officers etc. Tend to dislike. This is because at the front of my passport I keep a collection of boarding pass stubs. I don’t do this in order to show off, i’m willing to bet the majority of people fly more than me, but i do it to remind myself how lucky I am that I fly when I do and in order to remind myself of the holiday i went on. However, on a recent flight from London to Germany I noticed that the last 3 or 4 sets of boarding stubs I had, when they fell out for the fourth time that day in front of the immigration officer, all of which were from London to Berlin and joy of joys were all on different airlines. I say joy-of-joys because I like flying to different places and on different airlines (so at least i had one of the two!). In any case I normally wouldn’t write a trip report on a routine flight but then I remembered that this flight wasn’t completely normal. This was....wait for it...the first flight I have ever taken that left from HEATHROW (thats right) early! Now I realise that many of my more learned colleagues on this forum will have been on countless flights that have left from LHR early but for me this was a special experience.

History of the trip
I am currently a student at Cambridge University where I study geography and I am currently researching my dissertation. This research required an extended trip to Germany and when I started looking at flights I realised that I had four choices. This was due to time constraints – I had to meet my parents in a town called Halle an der Salle before 1PM and there was a train from the, incredible, Berlin hauptbahnhof to Halle direct (this only went once every 2 hours and it left at 10:40) which I essentially HAD to catch. Whilst there were Ryanair and easyjet flights, they left from either Stansted (approx 45 minutes at the best of times) from my house or Luton (an airport I cannot really stand but which is an hour away) and they arrived at Schoenefeld airport (which is much further away from the train station than Tegel Airport), the way I worked it out I would’ve had to leave even earlier to catch these flights. The other two options I had were either Air Berlin from Stansted (the morning flight which I have taken more than once) or British Airways from Heathrow. Normally I would’ve taken the former hands down, not only because heathrow is pretty much unbearable when you fly British Airways, but a few Christmas’s ago, my whole family made a pact never to fly British airways again (having been silver card Executive club holders for years) thanks to them losing our luggage and dealing with it in a completely unacceptable away (with minimal recompense), we only received our luggage 3 months later! But Air Berlin was slightly more expensive and I really fancied seeing what terminal 5 was like. In any case, I booked the BA flight and prepared for the disowning by my family.

The Flight
Flight Number BA 990
Route London (Heathrow ) (LHR/EGLL) – Berlin (Tegel) (TXL/EDDT)
Date 28th June 2008
DEP 0715(p) 0710(a)
ARR 1005(p) 0950 (a)
Seat06C
AircraftAirbus A319
Picture the scene, an alarm goes off at 415AM. A time No-one should be awake let alone a 20 year old man who has been thrown a ‘going away’ dinner party by his best friend the night before. I roll over and nearly smash my phone to pieces thinking why I am awake this early in the morning. Oh yes, I remember due to the time of the flight, I couldn’t take the Heathrow express because it was too early in the morning so I had to take a taxi, this rolled up at 4:45 AM. I know that this seems very early but unless you have been living under a rock for the last couple of months, terminal 5 at Heathrow is now open and as a London based airline nut, I really wanted to take my time looking around it. So i won’t bore you the same way i was by my driver’s mindless chat but needless to say we arrived at sun-up with this view:





First impressions of terminal five? Wow, it is such a departure from Terms 1,2,3 and 4 so as to be unreal. The design is similar to Stansted insofar as it is very open it differs because, praise the lord  , Ryanair doesn’t fly from there so it has a very civilized feeling to it:



The check in area




After queuing briefly to check in my bag, and due to the tight connection in Berlin I asked for a priority label and was given one, I was given my boarding card. I must say, i’m a bit disappointed by the fax-style paper that British Airways have started using (cost-cutting – i know...), in any case, you go past the check in desks and then to either end of the terminal for security, where I am greeted by quite a large queue, this was the first and only disappointment of the day. There were massive queues and only TWO, yes TWO, security lines open – and it moved soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo slowly. Now for those who haven’t flown from terminal five, I want to provide a brief explanation of how the security machines work, because there seems to be a fundamental flaw here (feel free to skip)
When you are called forward it is in groups of three as there is like a small station with two levels you take a tray from the lower level and place it on the upper level. You then empty out your pockets and put it on the rails which move automatically towards the x-ray machine before it is lifted off and placed back in front of you and you are told that you bag, whereas in every-other airport (as far as I know) can go on its own, has to go in a tray now, this causes problems as many bags are too big for the trays. Anyway, you place your tray onto the rollers and go to the metal detector before you are called back AGAIN and told to take your shoes off (this could’ve been my stupidity, but there are NO signs telling you what to do). So once everything is through, your trousers are falling down because the belt is off, the shoes are off your passport, wallet, phone, bag and everything under the sun is through the X-ray machine you go to the other side where the trays are coming through. Now because it is all automated, the trays stop for a few seconds then move on, this occurs 4 or 5 times before they go down a ramp and back to the other side. If you dare to wear a belt and shoes, have a jacket, wallet, phone and passport and bag, then you have to work very quickly to get everything back on again before it disappears. Now, i’m not very quick at these kind of things but i’m not exactly slow, i’m fairly well practiced My tray reached the end with half my stuff still on it, so I held it back for a second to grab the rest of my stuff and get myself together:

Him: “No NO, sir you must let go it will stop” (despite the fact it already had and was about to go down the ramp)
Me: “I’m sorry, you made me remove everything from my pockets, my belt, shoes, bag etc – I accept this but you need to slow the machine down”
Him: “no sir, you are just too slow!”
This really pissed me off (I wasn’t the only one who had to grab their tray) so I made a comment under my breath and walked off into the shopping mall.
Here are various pictures of terminal five. The overall layout is that there are two floors the floor on which you enter after security has one floor of Harrods and a few restaurants as well as the entrance to the North British Airways Lounges (next to this, is a good bar/kitchen which served up a BRILLIANT full English Breakfast – if you fly in the morning from T5, you HAVE to have it). Then you go down to have more shops (very upmarket, you have your Ted Baker’s, Channel’s, Harrods and itsu etc. I’ll let the pictures do the talking – but one thing to note, the first time you go there it is a bit disorientating but once you get the hang of it its very easy, also the views of the tarmac are incredible.


looking towards the top of the escalators

The top floor

The ground floor

The 'duty free bar'

The area next to the escalators to the transit

Escalators to Transit

On the way up from the transit

A 744 - Preparing for its flight to America I believe

My machine, this was taken in the air-bridge - you can see how far it was!

So eventually my gate pops up as one of the B gates, i’m quite pleased with this because it allows me to try out the transit – which is very efficient and quick, as well as well designed. The B-gate satellite is like the main building but very airy with a few shops. I did notice that the BA lounge here is closed at the moment – does anyone know why? My flight left from the gate furthest from the transit which is interesting because you have a VERY long jet bridge that gives a good view of take-offs and landings but isn’t air conditioned and on a sunny morning, can get very hot.
Was welcomed on board by the quintessentially British crew (which is something I have REALLY missed as you never get it with Ryanair). Captain came on the intercom and announced that we would be leaving ‘early’ I seriously doubted this but it actually happened! Take off was from 27L which from terminal five is a long taxi and I actually fell asleep but woke up just after take off with the drinks cart smashing against my leg, in a way i’m pleased because the sandwich from the infamous all day deli was actually very nice.
A quick note about my seat – on most European BA flights the first couple of rows of euro-traveller (Y class) they have a 2-3 seating, despite not having the best views, if you are looking for comfort then I would recommend it no-end.
Now comes the apologies, after the food I fell asleep again so i can’t really say more about the flight, but we landed in Berlin and taxied to gate 5 where the unique design of Tegel airport came into its own. For those of you who haven’t flown through it: The main terminal (I have never flown from the others) is in a pentagon shape. Each gate (or pair of gates) is like a mini-airport itself, has its own check-in, passport control and baggage claim – this means that there is very little walking to do (until you are through customs, then depending on which onward transportation method you chose to use, you might have quite a long way to go, I didn’t as I was taking a taxi. This means that baggage comes out very fast as the aircraft is practically next to the baggage claim. Unfortunately, this lay-out can mean that you are queueing for passport control almost as far back as the plane door (which I bet is the case for the Delta flight that arrives soon after the BA flight (has anyone taken this flight?). Whilst it is a very pleasant airport to fly from/to, it really isn’t designed for larger planes and I think that the new BBI airport will be good for Berlin as it could attract more intercontinental flights away from Frankfurt and Munich.
For once the priority label worked and my bag was the first out after the transit bags so I ran to the taxis and got to the tri-level main train station in Berlin and got to Halle on time where I started my research – this will take me all over Germany, from Halle/Leipzig/Dresden to Wiesbaden, Frankfurt (where I am at the moment) to Duesseldorf, Koeln and Hamburg.

Aaannyway thats the end of my report I hope you enjoyedit – questions, comments, criticisms are all appreciated.