Concorde

[Patagonia]

Have just used my years of saving to exchange my BA Miles for 2 one ways to JFK on Concorde with the boyf - ID90 back!

What should we expect on board her?

Ta :D

[Gaza]

Mrs Gaza and I took our first trip Concorde at New Year and we loved it. The whole "Concorde Experience" was very enjoyable. We managed to pick-up a couple of cheap tickets on BA's offer at New Year.

We arrived at LHR at around 8:30 and checked in immediately with no queue. I had grabbed 11 C & D through on-line check-in. We went through to the lounge complex and after dropping bags and coats in the Concorde Room we went down to the Molton Brown Spa. I was nursing a bad (and worsening) hangover so the massage was very much appreciated! We could not get Mrs Gaza a treatment so she retired to the Concorde Room to get some breakfast as she was also suffering slightly from the night before!

After my massage I went back up to the Concorde Room and ordered two bacon bagettes. They were a bit slow in arriving but well worth the wait. Excellent hangover food! The lounge was very busy with First Class passengers and some Concorde pax were getting annoyed that there were no seats available. Paying the sort of prices demanded by BA for Concorde their annoyance was understandable. Perhaps BA should consider restricting access until after Concorde has departed??

Around 09:50 they made an announcement offering to take passengers coats. This is a neat touch and prevents congestion in the aircraft.

Just after 10:00 they made a general boarding announcement. Being able to access the aircraft straight from the lounge is excellent. The bulkhead seats were probably not the best choice as they restricted my abilty to stretch out but Mrs Gaza was very happy. The seat was comfortable although mine had an annoying amount of "free play" that caused it to rock slightly. The recilne mechanism is a bit weird. It seems to tilt the whole seat rather than the just the back rest which is very unusual.

We were slightly late in closing the doors as a pax had gone awol at the gate but we sprinted across LHR to make our slot at 10:45. The take-off was fantastic. The sensation of speed an acceleration was like nothing I ever experienced.

The menu was good with a starter of smoked salmon and caviar followed by a choice of three or four entrees - steak, all day breakfast, guinea fowl and some other. Having already devoured two bacon baguettes and still suffering from my hangover I didn't have much of an appetite. I avoided the breakfast and opted for the fillet steak.

The came around with the traditional Concorde gift which on our flight was a very expensive diary. I've since heard that this has been stopped.

After the meal I snozzed and before long we were arriving in JFK. We cleared Immigration quickly and our bags were arriving as we got to the carousel.

Mrs Gaza decided that she wanted to continue our adventure and insisted we get the Subway into Manhattan! Talk about going from one extreme to the other! It was a little surreal on the shuttle bus. There was us with our Concorde tags on our bags with a group of JetBlue pax!

Would we do it again? Yes! But only if we can get a similar deal. Unless I won the lottery there is no way I would pay £6K+ for a full fare.

[Avman]

I was still a young man (has it been around that long) when I flew Concorde JFK-LHR doing both the take-off (31L) and landing in the front office. I'd just love to do it again!

[knobbygb]

Ask ExiledTyke - he has a similar experience to Gaza which he loves to show off about - I'm sure he'd be glad of the chance.. .. .I nearly have enough airmiles to do this myself later in the year - although I would recommend leaving the wife at home and doing the trip both ways on concorde instead <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="wink.gif" /> - altogether less hassle and you might end up sat next to some model/filmstar etc. (anyone know what Kylie's plans are in November?)

[samsonyte]

Enjoy the flight ... not many people have been (a) supersonic or (b) on the edge of space. Best bit for me was the jumpseat for landing at JFK, closely followed by sunrise over the Atlantic at 2130GMT.

[Patagonia]

Thanx for the info and comments - still excited.

Think I will be until I get there!