Stormy Travels: Heading Home

Note: This post is very delayed and I am now posting for completeness. It's been over a year since this trip due to Covid. Here is what was left for the last post before the Covid shutdown.

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Feb 21st we left Jerusalem very early and flew to London. Our bus left at 4am and we had fun trying to find which empty bus stop it departed from in the middle of the night. Eventually, I talked to a local girl who helpfully pointed us to the right one as we were in completely the wrong spot. We both dozed on the hour long bus ride back to TLV, once we got there we were ready for the legendary Israeli airport security, but it was actually really calm. We both got through fairly quickly and without too different of a process from that that you would find in the US. There was a small departures lounge in TLV that we headed to where we stocked up on Diet Coke and had a small breakfast as the sun rose. The flight was quite long on a new carrier, El Al. We were on a Dreamliner again, our 4th of the trip and it was nice although we both agreed that we preferred Royal Jordanian's service. We got Kosher meals that were alright but there was only one drink service on the entire 5 hour flight. We arrived in London in the early afternoon, just too late to make any of the flights to the west coast of the US for the day. The last one left about 30 mins after we got in, but with a Terminal change there was no way we would have made it. We headed back to the T4 Holiday Inn our standard LHR hotel, but had a much shorter walk than usual as El Al actually arrived at T4! T4 also has an arrivals lounge which we stopped through for a quick meal before heading to the hotel. We had some yummy Indian food including samosas and butter chicken. We weren't too tired so Hunter got us a suite so I would have more space to work on my homework. We checked in at hotel, and I worked on homework while Hunter napped, I guess he was a little more tired than he had said. After awhile we decided we were hungry so we went to Wagamama, our favorite chain in London, we took the tube in to Hammersmith since there are no locations outside security at Heathrow. Although there were 4-5 physically closer Wagamama locations the closest by transit turned out to be the straight shot to Hammersmith. We both enjoyed walking through the cool spring air of London before we returned to the hotel and went to bed.

The morning of the 22nd we woke up early to check loads, things looked ok, for our planned flight, the first of two AA flights from LHR to LAX so went back to sleep, waking up just in time for the solid hotel breakfast. We then headed to the airport, and checked in with AA. It took them awhile to figure out our through status which allows us to skip the hefty UK departure taxes but they eventually did and we were off to the fast track security. The Fast Track is a bit of a mixed bag and very inconsistent. Sometimes they don't want liquids sometimes they do, this go around they decided to freak out about Hunter's shampoo. This is despite the fact that they had cleared it to fly 5 days prior on our way to Jordan, as well as 3 times over our New Years back and forth. We ended up having to ditch the shampoo when it became clear they weren't going to budge. We returned the universal charger I had bought on our way to Jordan after Hunter forgot ours as it was not to our liking, the plugs were bizarrely too far apart so it had to be forced into every outlet. From there we headed to the lounge where things were nice and calm. We ordered food, I would highly recommend the NO1 Lounge in LHR as it is by far our favorite. We headed down to the end of T3 where our flights normally depart from and after a slight delay due to gate availability were given seats 15D and G in business. We were excited to be off to LAX on a great 12 hr business class flight! Hunter and I decided to watch a comedy movie, called the Long Shot, and we enjoyed our welcome aboard drinks and plugged in the excellent noise cancelling headphones.

However, it was not to be... taxi times were long due to bad weather and it took us an hour to reach the runway end area. When we reached the end of the runway and some FAs ran to the back of the aircraft. Hunter then became very confused as we taxied down the runway in LHR. The runways at Heathrow are often considered some of the most expensive real estate on earth with planes arriving or departing every 90 seconds so this is highly unusual. Eventually, we were told someone wanted off the plane so we had to go back to the gate.When we returned we had to wait some time for a spot, eventually parking on a remote pad. Hunter and I weren't overly worried as we were in business and were enjoying our movie. However, as more passengers tried to get off they eventually told us we all needed to get off due to a possible maintenance issue. It turns out the guy who wanted off had heard a noise that he didn't think was right. As they ordered us all off the plane it was a little chaotic as there was very little instruction from the crew. Behind us was another non rev who Hunter started talking to, he was a pilot for Envoy, another US regional, and was trying to get back to LAX from a ski trip to Switzerland. We were loaded into buses down an air stair and Hunter and I actually ended up on separate buses. From there they dropped us off in a holding area with no instructions or anything. our pilot friend, Olaf, and us were very much at a loss of what to do as nonrevs. We wanted to make sure to keep our through status to skip the taxes on leaving LHR. The other LAX flight that was supposed to be after ours had already left by the time we got back and there was one flight to JFK left that night on American. But, looking at loads it basically seemed like we were either going to get stuck in LHR or in JFK and since we both preferred LHR and it had cheaper hotels it made sense to stay on this side of the pond. Eventually we found a nice AA supervisor who explained the roll over process to us and we started looking for a hotel. Our new friend had shown us how to book Hilton's with an airline discount which was awesome as we were able to find one for 32GBP! It was a DoubleTree and looked really nice. I got out my laptop to book it while Hunter bought a candy bar because his bloodsugar was low from not eating for so long. We then headed to the T2 arrivals lounge as we were both starving. We had a nice simple meal and then headed to the central bus station which is right next door. You can take buses for free in the area right around LHR and the free bus got us to the hotel nicely. We were greeted with a cookie by the friendly check in agent and both headed to bed as soon as we could. Who knew doing nothing could be so exhausting?

We got up very early to head back to the airport, although LAX had left at 1130 the day before today we were going to try to go at 0900 and Hunter wanted to be there early to make sure we got checked in okay. The bus back was 1.50 GBP each so it was a pretty good deal and we got back to the central bus station without a hitch. We got there right at 0545 and actually beat the check in agents who arrived at around 0600. It took awhile but eventually they figured out how to give us boarding passes for the flight today which had been renumbered from the original AA109 to AA109P since there was another AA109 for today. It was hard to track seat assignments but Hunter found a back door that allowed him to watch the loads, not surprisingly a lot of people had gotten other flights so it was pretty empty and we looked good for getting business class again. We went through security again and once again they decided to be an inconsistent pain about our liquids. Hunter and I were certainly looking forward to getting out of London. We headed to the lounge and both had a yummy avotoast breakfast. After eating and some sparkling water we headed to the gate, when we got there we saw the same guy from yesterday talking to the pilots... he didn't look happy but you could tell no one else was either, no one wanted him on that flight. Eventually the pilots told him he was going to need to take a different flight. We were sitting next to the flight attendants and they were all very happy to hear he wouldn't be on our flight as he'd been a pain recording them and freaking out in general the day before. There were a few non revs from the day before left over but last minute some mainline people got added with J standby codes. Hunter hadn't told me yet but we were actually looking good to get full Flagship First and not just business so they made him wonder. However we asked tow ait and see who all showed and were eventually given First seats. I was in 1G and Hunter was in 1D, our same seat assignments as the flight over but in an even nicer plane! I was really excited for an 11hr flight in an amazing seat. The first class cabin was initially all nonrevs but we then waited for two people with two babies to show up for the flight. They were.... interesting they seemed to be dating but not married, both had small kids, and the small kids had different parents. By the end of the flight we still hadn't figured it out.

As we boarded the Captain announced that as Hunter and the pilot Olaf had suspected there was nothing wrong with the plane the day before and the noise the guy heard was entirely normal. We eventually pushed back and as an added precaution one of the pilots sat in the window seat where the guy had freaked out yesterday to make sure nothing weird was going on. We were a bit late, but better late than never! Only 22hrs after we were supposed to our half empty flight left Heathrow bound for LAX. The flight was lovely and we were both extra hungry so we got to fully enjoy the massive Flagship First menu including literal steak and lobster, extensive desserts, tons of snacks and lots of space. We were both stuffed and very happy with all the amazing food by the time we landed. I spent the flight mainly working on studying for my midterm exam while Hunter, who was still feeling a bit weird, napped lots. It was fun we went right over Jackson and St George so Hunter was able to literally see his home. When we got to LAX we got put into a slow line in that fed into the containment arrivals area where they were processing high risk coronavirus passengers from Asia. Hunter and I were both more than a little unhappy as the line was very long and slow and they insisted this was the way we had to go despite us having connections soon. Then we got sent to secondary screening despite having nothing of note with us. At this point we were really tight for a UA Skywest flight to Seattle that was 4 terminals away and going in 30 mins. We went back through security as soon as we got out and absolutely ran all the way to the end of T8, Hunter's legs cramped badly and we both got all sweaty and gross trying to make it. We actually made it to the gate, and found out two people hadn't showed up but they decide to wait for them and they show so we missed the flight to Seattle, we considered going to PHX next since they had a direct ZED to YLW on Westjet and Hunter had gotten loads showing it fairly open while we were still in London. Unfortunately, it had now filled up so we decided to try a few other Seattle flights including one to Everett (PAE) where they make Boeing jets. Unfortunately we didn't make any of them so Hunter came up with a fallback plan where we would take a SkyWest flight to Eugene Oregon, spend the night there, and then I would go to Seattle in the morning. His plan worked and we went to the crew hotel with the SkyWest crew in EUG. It was a nice little place on the river although I was only there about 4 hrs as I had to make an early morning departure out to Seattle. Hunter meanwhile said goodbye to me and got to stick around, enjoying a walk on the river and a local breakfast burrito place. He ended up going home via PHX at noon getting home around 9pm, I had gotten home 10 hours earlier than him at 11am and we both were ready for some sleep after our complex adventure.

I had flown 17,142 miles for my reading break using 10 flights on 6 different airlines while Hunter flew 17,477 miles on 9 flights using 5 airlines. It was certainly an exciting trip and we both had a ton of fun exploring a World Heritage site we had never dreamed of being able to visit, along with the Holy sites of several modern religions.