A Qantas Tale
In the mid to late 80's, I had to take a short notice trip to Australia. The Qantas flight from Manchester was allegedly full in Business Class so I was routed via LHR.
At LHR the flight number on my ticket did not appear on the departures Board but I eventually found a check-in desk displaying my flight number.
I asked at check-in as to why the flight number was not displayed on the Departure Screens and was told that it was a special 'additional' flight. It was the delivery flight of the second Qantas B744 which had arrived earlier that day from Boeing via a low level fly past at RR's Derby plant.
The flight was superb with only two paying passengers in Business Class and not much more that two dozen in economy. It was obvious that the flight was being used as a Training or a Crew familiarisation flight as the number of pilots on the upper deck vastly outnumbered passengers.
My return flight to the UK was on QF1 (referred to as their Flagship Flight) from SYD to LHR via BKK.