Not quite an 'Upper Deck Lounge' story, but a 'trip in the cockpit' story ...
Late 70s, family holiday to Malta. I think that this was the 4th time we'd been there as a family; oddly enough I remember all the previous trips out and back (two trips out/back on a Vanguard, one trip out/back on a Trident via Rome), but for this holiday I cant remember what type we flew on to get to Malta. Given the events that unfolded on the return trip, it was probably a TriStar ...
Dad worked for BEA (and subsequently BA), so we were travelling on staff tickets.
Two weeks longing around in the summer sun. Turn up at Luqa for the return flight to London, only to find that we're going to be offloaded due to over-booking. I don't think that any of us were really too bothered. We were given some meal tickets and they said that they'd call us over the PA if they needed us. Upstairs, we sat down to eat, and had just ordered our meals, when our name was called over the PA. They had managed to find us 3 seats, so Ma and Pa stayed in Malta and myself and my two brothers came back to the UK.
The three seats were the two jump-seats in the cockpit, and one of the fold-down crew-seats near the galley. I'm not sue how we divvied-up the boarding-cards, but I ended up with one of the cockpit jump-seats.
The cockpit of the TriStar seemed to be huge when compared to the likes of Tridents and 727s which I used to frequent going to Paris in the 70s. It seems hard to believe, but there were 5 of us in there, nowadays the cockpit seems crowded with just two!
It was a day flight, so we had a good view of the sea and land all the way back. I distinctly remember the pilot pointing out Rome to us off to our right as we flew up the Med. We passed to the east of Paris, which was under a blanket of cloud, but it had cleared-up by the time we got back to Heathrow.
Last edited by Geezers of Nazareth; 14th Oct 2013 at 16:41.