Amsterdam Schiphol

I took the shuttle from the Hyatt Place Amsterdam Airport to the airport, where I arrived at 11:45 for my 14:10 departure. The shuttle drop off stop is at arrivals 4, which is only a short walk from the escalator up to departure 3, where the check in counters of British Airways are located at row 17.
Only one agent was on the desk at 11:50, which is not very surprising, as the 11:45 departure had left and the most passengers will not arrive more than hours before departure. Only one other passengers was queuing at the counters, which had different lines, one for Economy and one Club Europe and oneworld elites.

This time, I had to check luggage and approached the agent, which became available shortly after I arrived at the check in area. She retrieved the booking from the system, confirmed that my frequent traveler number was in the booking and checked my ID. She asked me if Montreal was my final destination and after I confirmed it, printed the luggage tag. I was also given a flyer with information for transfer passengers at London Heathrow and a card with the location of the British Airways Lounge at Schiphol. She suggested using the immigration desks at the KLM counters, as those were closer to the lounge than the regular immigration counters for the departures 3 area.

Immigration was also not very busy, two counters were staffed and the lines were short. It does not take long to pass, though I was as usual in the slower moving line.

The BA Lounge (lounge 40) is one floor up. The lounge, which was renovated after my visit, consisted at this time of one small room and two bigger rooms. There was a main buffet in the part next to the entrance and a smaller additional buffet in the other of the two bigger rooms. The lounge offers wine, beer, spirits, soft drinks and tea and coffee and a selection of sandwiches, chips, cookies and cheese. There are three computer terminals with a printer. WiFi is free in the lounge. Unfortunately the lounge does not offer restrooms and they are even none close to the lounge, one has to go one level down to the main concourse.

I was greeted at the entrance to the lounge and my boarding pass was validated and I was granted access to the lounge. I took a seat and finished some e-mails and some work related things and also got a sandwich and a glass of sparkling water. The lounge was not very busy and a number of people left the lounge as the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong was ready for boarding. Like always if you have to work, time in the lounge passed quickly. Since the security at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport is performed in the terminal at the gate, one has to pass security after the lounge visit.
I left the lounge around 14:25 and slowly walked to the gate.

The security checkpoint was not very busy and I passed it quickly but noticed that there was a line a couple of minutes later. The gate was at the end of the concourse and thus the security checkpoint served all gates at the end of the terminal.

The boarding announcement was made shortly after I arrived at the gate. First, a passenger in a wheelchair was brought to the plane followed by a family with a child. Then all passengers traveling in Club Europe and oneworld elites were invited to board the plane. I was one of the first passengers to board the plane.

04 December 2014
AMS – LHR
[Amsterdam Schiphol – London Heathrow]
BA 435 (British Airways); Airbus A 319 (G-EUOF)
Gate D26
14:10 – 14:30 [effective 14:06 – 14:27]
Economy Class
Seat 11 E

I was welcomed at the entrance to our Airbus A 319-131 by two flight attendants. I passed the Club Europe Cabin and headed for my seat in the Economy Cabin. This plane was equipped with the Europe Cabin, i.e. foldable seats.

My seat in row 12 was not in the part of the cabin, which could be converted to Business Class. The last row, which offers a better seat pitch and could be converted to Business Class was row 9. This means I had four inch less legroom than the seats in the rows before row 10. Our plane was equipped with 132 seats. The seat pitch of the first nine rows was 34 inch, thereafter 31 inch. The seat width was 17 inch compared to 19 inch for Club Europe seats. The plane is equipped with small overhead screens, which are also used to show the safety video and the flight map during the flight.
Currently, BA is refitting their shorthaul fleet with narrower seats similar to the so called “Neue Europakabine NEK” of Lufthansa which thinner backrests and decreased seat pitch for the first rows. But there are as of June 2015 still not all plane refitted, which means, there are changes you will experience this cabin.

The plane is powered by the usual IAE V2522 A 5 engines with a thrust of 22000 lbf. It was delivered to BA on October 23, 2001 and is leased from BBAM.

In the meantime boarding was completed. There were a number of free seats on this flights and the middle seat (12D) remained empty.
While we were still at the gate the captain welcomed us on board and told us information about our flight to London. We could expect an on time arrival, depending on air traffic control. He also mentioned that we would take off in Eastern direction, which is unusual for Amsterdam. The flight time would be only 45 minutes.

After the captain finished his welcome, the flight attendant welcomes us as well and announced the safety video, which was shown during push back, which was ahead of schedule at 14:06. We taxied quite a bit passing a number of widebodies, which are always nice to see and watch. I could also see a parked MD11, but was not sure, if it was a cargo plane or one of the recently retired passenger jets.  

Finally at 14:18 we had reached runway 09 and without need to wait, the captain powered the two IAE engines and we accelerated in the cloudy sky before we made a 180° turn to the west.

Five minutes later the fasten seat belt signs were extinguished and the crew started the service. It was a beverage service accompanied with a snack. We could choose among a selection of different types of snacks, salty and sweet, I opted for a sparkling water and a small pack of assorted nuts. The crew was friendly, but there was no special recognition for elite frequent flyers. One was also not addressed by name and as far as I noticed, there was no passengers manifest on the cart.

During our flight we made a few turns and given the fact that we had not already began our descend, that we had to fly waiting pattern.

In the meantime the flight attendants had collected the trash and used items from the beverage service were collected.

Before we began to descend into LHR, the captain gave us around 15:00 Amsterdam time an update about the remaining flight time of approximately 20 minutes. He mentioned that the visibility in LHR was due to low clouds and rain not as good as expected which lead to the need of bigger distance between planes approaching LHR and thus we had to fly waiting pattern. The approach was also now from Western d direction, meaning we passed LHR and made a 180 turn. Finally, we touched down at 14:21 and taxied to our gate at terminal 5A.

I used the flight time to work and we were allowed to use all electronic gadgets in the flight mode all the time. Despite the fact that larger items such as laptops were asked to be stored, this was not enforced and I could work all the way till we reach our gate.

It took some time, until we could disembark via the long jet way at our gate at one of the corners of T5A.

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