AZ201 London Heathrow - Rome
by JFC AdminAZ201 is Alitalia’s second flight of the day to Rome and departs at 06:50. The options for getting to the airport at this time are limited. I aimed to get to the airport before 05:30 to ensure I had enough time to clear security.A few options are available at this time of the morning. The most obvious, a taxi, is also very expensive. National Express dot2dot offers a door to door service for only £16 at the moment (usually £20) for those who live in or near Central London (or staying in a Central London hotel). This would usually be the best option but I was trying to do this trip as cheap as possible.
I decided to use the method I’ve used a few times before - the bus. The night bus service in London is fairly regular, according to the TFL Journey Planner if I leave the house at 03:15 I can be in the airport by 05:00. The route was to take the 453 from home to Trafalgar Square and then the N9 to Heathrow Airport.
Got to the bus stop on time and waited for the 453 which arrived more or less on time. The bus was fairly quiet with a few people sitting at the front minding their own business, at the next stop some old drunk guy drinking a can of Tennents Super got on the bus and sat opposite me.
He looked towards the people at the front of the bus and shouted “fucking foreigner scum” and then started mumbling other racist comments. As I’m white (and English but he’s not going to know that) he probably sat next to me hoping I’d back him up. Instead I notice another bus behind mine so I decided to get off at the next stop and take the other bus.
The bus I got was the N63 which goes to Kings Cross. It goes past Blackfriars station which is only a short walk from Aldwych where the N9 starts its route. Some people in BAA Security uniforms got off the bus at Elephant and Castle, presumably they were also heading to Heathrow to work but the tube isn’t running at this time so they must have been taking another bus. I decided to stick with the bus to Blackfriars and then walk along Fleet Street to Aldwych. It’s quite relaxing walking about The City when hardly anyone is about.
The next N9 departed at 04:00 according to the timetable and indeed it did arrive on time. This journey was uneventful, the bus got me to Heathrow Central in just over an hour, the bus also continues on towards Terminal 5 for those flying or working for BA.
The total cost for this journey was nothing because I have a travelcard. If I had used Oyster pre-pay for this journey it’d have cost me 90p per trip.
I had already checked in for my flight online but I’ve never had any success getting through the boarding pass check at Heathrow with an Alitalia home printed boarding pass, the scanner always returns an error. Therefore, I didn’t bother printing my own boarding pass and went straight to the business class/SkyTeam Elite desk to collect my boarding passes. The check-in area was very quiet as was security. I decided to ask for one of those plastic bags they hand out at security even though I had no liquids. They work great to place your coins, keys, etc into so they’re easier to collect at the other end of the xray.
There was no shoe carnival at the airport security today and since January you no longer need to take your laptop out of its bag at Heathrow. This is about as pleasant a security experience you’ll get these days.
Off to the Alitalia lounge, this was also fairly quiet with about ten people there when I arrived. Most of these disappeared shortly afterwards as they were taking the earlier 06:00 flight to Rome. The lounge is looking a bit shabby these days but considering that Terminal 2 is scheduled for demolition and Alitalia will be moving to Terminal 4 you can forgive them for not renovating this lounge. The move to Terminal 4 will probably take place next year, it was originally scheduled for this year but was postponed due to the problems with BA’s move to Terminal 5.
The food selection is disappointing. Crisps, nuts and muffins is all that’s available but to be fair not many airlines have a decent lounge catering offering for short haul flights. There was a reasonable range of soft drinks as well as beer and a selection of spirits. It was way too early to think of alcohol so I just had orange juice and some water. The water is in large bottles so you can’t easily take one for the plane. Of course, there’s also a coffee machine and there’s a sign saying that spumante is available on request.
Usually in this lounge you can get free wifi by connecting to the service offered by the Iberia lounge but this was not working today, neither was the ‘Linkem for Alitalia’ service, the only working wifi option was the one that’s supposed to be used in the Lufthansa lounge, but that service required payment and I had no urgent need to access the Internet.
The Alitalia Ulisse magazine in the lounge and as I discovered later on the plane was the September issue, it looks like the October issue was either not produced or is late to press because of the financial situation of Alitalia, it looked like their rescue bid was going to collapse. Things are looking a lot more positive for Alitalia now but their survival is still no certainty.
Boarding is announced in the lounge, they normally announce the boarding in the lounge after most of the passengers have already boarded. I find this useful because it means I spend very little time waiting around those awful gate areas in Terminal 2.
The airbridge to the aircraft must have developed a leak because there were newspapers on the floor soaking up the water. The aircraft was fairly empty and my favourite seats were unoccupied despite them showing as occupied during check-in. The best seats on this aircraft are the first exit row (10) which has lots of legroom and the first row of seats in economy on the A/C side of the aircraft. This is because these seats are still in the business class configuration so you are guaranteed the middle (B) seat free.
The seats in the front of the aircraft are adjustable so that they can be placed in either a business or economy class configuration depending on demand. In the business class configuration seats A,C,D,E and F are made wider while seat B is squashed up and is not used as a seat, making a 2-3 configuration. Therefore it’s better to sit on the A/C side as you have a lot more room. This configuration is popular with a number of European airlines including BA and bmi.
The adjustable seats to feel cheap and flimsy but I’ve never had a problem with the comfort of these seats. Before take off the safety video is played, this has not changed since the first time I flew Alitalia. The pilot announced that we would be taking off on time.
After take off it takes a while before the seat belt light is switched off, some airlines (such as KLM) switch the light off quickly, others seem to leave it on too long. Catering consists of a choice of a sandwich or a cake. Based on past experience I tend to like the on board cakes but not like their sandwiches so I chose the cake. For a drink I just stuck with water, not bothering with tea or coffee.
Service was quick, presumably due to the lower than average load. Hopefully for Alitalia people will start to regain confidence in the airline once the rescue bid is confirmed. After the rubbish was collected I didn’t see much more of the staff, there wasn’t really anything else for them to do although I’m sure money would have liked a second drinks service on this route.
In-flight entertainment is provided by drop down screens but no headphones are provided on these short haul flights. There’s nothing shown on the screens that really needs the headphones. The format is as follows; SkyTeam promotional video, fashion show, a short nature clip and then cartoons. Once the entertainment is completed the screens are retracted, it would be more useful if they displayed an online map when the screens aren’t used for another purpose.
The aircraft landed on time and parked at a gate. I thought we’d avoided the bus because an airbridge was attached to the aircraft, but it turns out we parked in the Schengen area because we walked along the airbridge, down the steps and onto the bus.
The next stage was transit to connect to the AZ1475 to Venice.