Hungarian Rhapsody

An overnight trip to Budapest – a city I’ve always enjoyed visiting.   The first flight isn’t until quite late, 0945, so I could leave home at the normal time and the routine of High Speed to St Pancras, Circle Line to Paddington and Heathrow Express works as well as it usually does and got me to Heathrow by 0845.   2 hours is a reasonable time for this journey, all told.   It could have been quicker but unless the circle line comes just exactly as I hit the platform at King’s Cross, I just miss a Heathrow Express.

A shame that the plane was 30 minutes late  but it could have been worse.  And what a contrast of weathers between Kent and Hungary.   As I walked to the station at Chilham it had started to bucket down with rain, and even with an umbrella, my shoes and trousers were soaked, one sleeve of my jacket was soaked and the rain had even got inside my bag.   Budapest, on the other hand, was sunny and 36º . 

The airport was easy to pass through – no queues and it was only half an hour to the hotel in a taxi, but I was so hot that I needed a shower straight away.

The Hungarians like to make a bit of a show of everything and after meetings we went on a tour of a network of wine caves before dinner.   But wherever we went we had to wear decorated capes which they said were for ‘wine knights’ but I thought made us look more like wine bishops.

Coming home was just a bit of a pain.   Tony offered to share a taxi to the airport but his plane was an hour and a half before mine and he was intending to allow himself an hour and a quarter to get to the airport when it only took about 30 minutes.   So I went with him on the basis that I would just sit in the lounge.   This was beyond passport control and when I got there I found the inbound plane was expected an hour late.   So three hours to wait.

As it was, the plane was only 45 minutes late arriving and the crew did an excellent job turning it round.   We were about half way through boarding when the captain said we had 13 minutes to be airborne and so would everyone help to get us going quickly – and, blow me, everyone cooperated and we were duly airborne 13 minutes later.

The layout of Ferihegy airport helps as the terminal as between the ends of two runways pointing in opposite directions.   This means that the runway for landing is always the one pointing to the terminal, giving a short taxi to the pier, and the one for take off is also the one where the end is by the terminal.   This certainly helped get us going quickly.

At Heathrow we were back at terminal 3 with buses to take us to the terminal.   For the first time, club passengers got their own bus which sped off one third full.   This got me through the terminal quickly and I just caught a Heathrow Express with, then,  plenty of spare time to get to St Pancras for the 2212 train.   All on time going home.⨪

Bad choices

I went to Amsterdam for a meeting at Schipol Airport with IFSF (the big oil companies) on standard payment protocols - you may well yawn, but in the rapidly changing world of electronic payments, this really matters.   Anyway the trip out was largely event free, even though it meant an early start.   I was out of the house by 5 and drove to Ashford to pick up the second high speed train of the day at 5.43.

I actually needn't have left so early because I was on the platform before 5.25 but better early than late.   Even then, I was into the lounge at Heathrow by 7.20, showing that 2 hours is a reasonable target.   The plane left from the C satellite at T5 which meant a longer transit ride but still pretty quick.   Revealing to see that the plane at the next gate but one, going to Barcelona, was a 767 while the next door gate, with a plane for Athens, had only a 319 - so much smaller.

Our meeting at Schipol (I didn't even leave the terminal building) was over quicker than I thought and I went to check if I could get on the 1455 to Heathrow, instead of the 1620 to City, which I was booked on.   The BA agent was friendly and transferred me, even though I think he should not have done, so I thank him for that.

Bad choice, though.   The 1455 was marked as expected to be 20 minutes late, but we didn't actually leave until 1535, 40 minutes late, arriving at T5 a bit up, at 15.40, but still 30 minutes.   I breezed through the terminal but the plane did arrive at B satellite and I did stop for a pee so I missed the Heathrow Express by less than 20 seconds.   But, as they say, for the loss of a nail, the shoe was lost.... and my pee meant that I missed the train at St Pancras by a minute or two and hence didn't get home until 1815.

The annoying thing is, I checked the time of the plane to London City and it had arrived early at 1610.   I could easily have made the 1649 from Stratford International and been home 30 minutes earlier.   Bad choices!

Are we secure?

I cannot be the only person to think that airport security has got out o hand in places.   This is not to say that I do not value the need for security but simply that some parts appear to serve no useful function but do cause inconvenience for passengers and cost for operators.

A few years ago I was lucky enough to get bumped up into first class on a flight to San Francisco.   Here there were very comfy seats and a glass of champagne was thrust into your hand almost before you could sit down.   All through the flight bottles were left out for you to help yourself.  And when it was time to at there was a fine table cloth with very nice bone china plates - and plastic knives and forks.   Why plastic, I asked?   I was told it was FAA regulations because metal cutlery was considered to be a security risk.   Presumably in a way that broken bottles or broken china was not.

That bit of nonsense got changed, but other examples abound.   British airports are obsessive about ensuring that departing and arriving passengers cannot mix.   In some parts of Heathrow this actually means staffed junction with movable partitions where the inbound and outbound routes cross with one rote blocked while the other is open - a bit like a level crossing on the railway.

Yet most other airports don't have this worry.   In Amsterdam, from where I am writing this blog, incoming and outgoing passengers mix happily making a cleaner design of airport and a reduced call on staff.   If they can manage it, why can't UK airports?   And please don't say it's about security because it's all airside and everyone has been checked through security somewhere.   You can't get there without either having a valid boarding pass, having been screened, or having arrived on a different flight, having bee screened before you boarded there.  Nor can it be about customs, for the same reason.   And if it's about immigration then you have to go through passport control again if you want to leave.

It's just another example of a failure to consider security from an overview and to understand that the chain i only as strong as its weakest link.   And don't mind anyone else's cost or convenience.

Ticket Gates

Ticket check gates at stations can protect revenue, and we know that the Department of Transport is obsessive about them.   This can lead to absurd arrangements.   Take Waterloo East, for example.

The east exist leads only to Southwark Underground station and here we have two lines of gates - one for South Eastern and one for London Underground - separated by about three metres.   There is nowhere to go once you are through one ticket line but through he second.   But both are there, both independently staffed, and both usually needing different tickets to make them work.   Given so many national rail/LU interchange stations have barrier free interchange it is hard to see the justification for even one barrier line, let alone two.   It is hard to see how the costs are justified, although it makes it administratively easier for London Underground in the case of ticketless passengers arriving at the street exit from Southwark station.

It might also have been easier to understand if the Western exit from Waterloo East was fully gated, but it isn't.   The bridge to Waterloo is too narrow to have a gate line big enough for the passenger flow.   So tickets here are checked manually and are likely to remain so.   So money has been spent at the eastern exit plugging one hole, but the much bigger hole at the other end is still wide open.

But it gets worse.   There is a flight of stairs from the bridge linking Waterloo East and Waterloo, lading to to Waterloo Road.   This flight of stairs is on the street side of the manual check of tickets coming from Waterloo East and also on the street side of the ticket line for Waterloo.   However, there is a line of gates at he top of this flight which seems to serve no purpose of any sort because no ticket is needed on either side of it.   This can only be the DfT's obsession really getting hold.   And complete absence of brain power.