rog747
It was a DC9 back then, and the inflight service I believe was called Diamond Service or something like, but it was quite a while ago so I could be wrong. I flew on your service into Liverpool once in about 1985/86, and it was one of the quietest flights I have ever been on, mid morning from memory and I think something like 8 passengers on a DC9. The route was dropped shortly afterwards.
I do not remember flying on Viscounts with BMI, it was DC9, ATP, 737 when I was using you in that period, and before that I was using London Airways with 1-11 and Tridents. I changed company in 87 and they had a policy of using London Airways so that was my last period of flying with you until early 2001 when I was a regular on the Man - Chicago flight for a while. You were a very good airline in my humble opinion back then, and the Diamond service was considerably better than the opposition in the UK.

mr mac

yup things were nice in those days!

Most of my flights have been between USA and UK and the in-flight meals may not be the world's greatest food but it is part of the fun of travel and I enjoy them - and the drinks! No cooking, no washing up, what's not to like?!

I have frequently paid £10-20 extra to get the best airline food and drink on my route, and that has often been BA. AA has been pretty poor and the flight is a worse experience because of that.

Ah well, if you're clever (and of course if you have the choice) you fly out at the end of one month and fly back at the start of the next...

Regarding airline meals I've never had a problem with SIA both biz and cattle. The only problem I find is when doing Oz-UK biz is that you get a 2 hour stopover in Changi and tend to hit the lounge buffet. Then it's just bad manners to refuse their very good tucker when you get on the next leg of the flight, so finish up getting off at LHR liked a bloated whale. I might add I have no self control.

I've had trips where I didn't want to watch any of the movies available. Normally I spend ten minutes constructing a playlist from the audio section and listening to that while trying to sleep. Generally I find sleep on long-haul to be more valuable than movies.

Yes, well, that's why god (or at least Apple) invented the iPad.

Those of us who travel regularly no doubt already have a laptop in the bag, so adding 1 x iPad and 1 x Charger cable (which is the same for an iPhone) is not exactly taking up much extra room in the old hand luggage. :E

It's a true story.

The airline business is cyclic and the cycle is usually 5 years. Every 5 years we would go on a save weight onboard exercise - once involving the entire company in a suggestion process. It's amazing how saving weight can save money. The trick is to not let good customer service get bashed by it. (if you care about customer service that is).

I have generally stuck to my own airline for most travel and the food is almost always decent with one notable lav scramble incident.

Out of the UK I always bring two bacon sarnies with me for the hell of it and always enjoy them.

I fly 5 times a year LGW-TPA with BA- excellent vegan meal and tasty late afternoon vegan snack- no complaints:ok:

Mr Mac


I flew with BMI from either CDG or AMS to LHR - I forget which - in economy in diamond service days, a 40 min flight. The cabin crew got up & started serving full meals almost as soon as the plane rotated on its take off run. In a way very impressive, but I wonder what a CAA inspector would have thought. I don't think that BA would have pulled it off at the time.

On most airlines these days the catering, in terms of meal portions, is liberally dosed with either loperamide, diphenoxylate/atropine or loratadine. This ensures that passengers, generally, have a safe and comfortable flight, untroubled by any unpleasantness which they might have contracted by way of an intestinal infection either en route or prior to departure. Aircraft meals thus serve an extremely useful sociological function without which embarrassment of a ghastly eructational or even green slimy and ghoulish nature might be more common place. So eat hearty on board and put up with the occasional bout of post long haul phantom constipation.

cavortingcheetah You do enjoy a joke. :p

Chortle!

A friend of mine had a few flights on AA and regularly found that the vegetarian meal she ordered contained chicken. One flight attendant assured her that chicken is suitable for vegetarians and that if she did not like it she could "just eat around it"!

Peter 47
I know what you mean about the cart being out soon after rotation !. Only other airline at about the same era with that ethos was Finnair. On a Friday night flight back to Helsinki from London, I think the crew and cart were on the starting blocks soon after the gear came up, and never seemed to stop going up and down A/C all the way there !!. Some very merry Finns by the time we got to Helsinki, I commented on this to one of the crew and was told wait till you see price of booze in Finland, and that this was quite normal on that flight !.

Late last year I flew BA ..... IAH - LHR and was sitting next to Jewish gentleman in WT+. I am not sure what he had but the smell had me gagging literally until his tray was removed. In general the food is not bad, I do however go for the veggie meal out of choice.

I know what you mean, Ainippe. I cannot stomach the smell of spicy food. Nowadays, airlines like to offer curry items. Even though these are described as 'mild' that is still x10 what I can take.

One of the worst was coffee. As with spices, I cannot abide the smell (leave alone the taste) and there was a BM service in Biz (Diamond, I suppose, not a regular on BD) from LHR to ABZ the first out one morning. They were boasting about their filter coffee and the chap next to me had one of those large flagons of the stuff and was waving it around saying how fabulous it was.

I was holding my napkin over my mouth and nose, as the English breakfast was very good and I didn't want to lose it ... :uhoh:

I like the smell of coffee, much more than I like the taste.

It's unwise to drink tea on Lufthansa and a poor idea to swill coffee on British Airways. On British Midland though, BA's sister company(?), the airline apparently uses Kopi Luwak coffee which is a little more pungent and considerably more expensive than the normal black manure pit run off served on the UK national flag flapper.
Comair in South Africa, which is reputedly a BA sub servant airline is believed by some to produce in flight coffee by boiling the buttons cut from the uniforms of the dead of the 24th Regiment of Foot, (2nd Warwickshire Regiment ) after the great battle of 22 January, 1879.

In the good old days CP Air (before they became Canadi>n) used to have a coffee drink called, I think, Empress … something or other. It was exquisite ! Good coffee, some good Canadian whiskey, cointreau and whipped cream. They used to mix it seat side and ask you how much of each ingredient you wanted. They were very generous. This was also before there was a domestic business class. Just First and Economy. This was Economy!

Meals were served on china, with a silver service.

To die for on the evening flight out of Toronto back to Vancouver.

On Caribbean Airways (aka Laker) to/from Barbados they served a complimentary Basian rum punch ... We got thru a gallon of it one night shift and bl00dy good stuff it was ...

Well it would appear the cabin crew weren't mixing it sufficiently before serving it so a memo went around something to the effect "The passengers at the front are sitting there as if they're in church whilst the passengers down the back are singing" :)

However much some people might not like the smell of airline catering I reckon it would be far worse if everyone brought on their own. Burgers, Kebabs and KFC stink in a plane? No thanks, London Tubes and buses are bad enough for that, and you are usually on them for only a few minutes!