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Birmingham (bhx) to Edinburgh (edi)

 
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kam
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Joined: 27 Jan 2007
Posts: 54
Location: CVT

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:22 pm    Post subject: Birmingham (bhx) to Edinburgh (edi) Reply with quote

Birmingham to Edinburgh

Flight number WW1005
737-500 G – BVZE “Little Costa Baby”
Friday 23rd November 07
Dep 15:20
Arr 16:15


Took this trip with my wife to celebrate / commiserate Wink our 13th wedding anniversary, BMI Baby are the LCC off shoot of British Midland operating to various UK destinations and popular holiday resorts and cities in Europe.


The trip to the airport isn’t very taxing as it takes 20 – 25 minutes to drive there from our house depending on traffic conditions and how heavy your right foot is! We decided to leave the car in one of the airport car parks during our trip the cost (19:00 GBP) and the location of the car park made it very reasonable (5 min walk to the terminal)

The Airport is split into two Terminals 1 & 2, Terminal 1 caters for charter holiday flights, LCC’s, Air India, Emirates, Turkmenistan, PIA and Uzbekistan Airlines. Terminal 2 is called the Euro Hub and caters for most of the major European scheduled airlines.

BHX is best described as a functional airport as it doesn’t boast any real architectural beauty or features and as the case for most airports these days they are nothing more than shopping malls that happen to have aircraft landing and taking off.

The one thing that is excellent about BHX are its transport links major motorways skirt the airport and its next to a main line railway line with the station being a very short 3 minute hop via a real funky mono rail system from the station which also services the National Exhibition Centre.

Check in was very quick and very efficient as you can see from the picture of the BMI Baby desks, weren’t very busy along with the rest of the terminal, but this didn’t stop a moron cutting the queue must have been a real busy person as it must have saved him all of 10 seconds. We didn’t have and bags that required checking in which added to the quickness of the check in process. BMI Baby encourages passengers not to bring luggage to check in and charge a fee for each piece of luggage that goes into the hold, how ever there is no limit on the weight of your hand baggage as long as you can place it in the over head bins on the aircraft and you are limited to one item only. The lack of hold luggage helps speed up the time it takes to turn round the aircraft. We also pre booked our seats which a charge is made.

BMI Baby check in desks


Empty general check in area


Air India's Check In Desks


Public Side eating / shopping area on upper level


the only bottle neck was at the security check, the term bottleneck is a relative term. Apart from the usual things you have to decant into the trays for x-ray (mobiles / laptops) I had to for the first time take off my shoes and belt!
The airside waiting area was the usual collection of overpriced retail outlets bars and coffee shops and a stand selling tickets for a raffle where you could win a Ferrari or Porsche sports car 20 GBP a ticket or 100GBP for 7 I declined the numerous offers to take part. The waiting area wasn’t very busy quite sparse to be honest. Saw a number of Indians waiting looking quite resigned waiting for the delayed AI 187 coming in from ATQ for its onward trip to YYZ.

Airside Eating / Shopping Area



Ferrari for £20!!!



Air India and the word delayed are so common together Smile


We were allocated gate 60 which was a non air bridged gate, boarding was in two stages. Boarding passes where checked against your id and you them proceeded onto the tarmac to be shepherded across an access road and then up the steps to the aircraft. The state of the cabin wasn’t particularly brilliant and had the look of having lived a hard life. We were seated in the last row of the aircraft (24e & f) and luckily the other seat was vacant enabling us to spread out a bit more during the flight. Seat pitch was ok when considering this was a LCC flight and the flight time was around 55-60 mins there wasn’t much to see from the aircraft on the tarmac which probably accounted for the relative emptiness of the terminal buildings.

Our Aircraft




Tarmac Shots







Shortly after take off flight attendants brought round a trolley with over priced snacks and drinks. There was no I F E of any kind no over head screens or music. There was a rather tattered and dog eared in flight magazine that was full of advertising and there was the safety card. None of this was a problem at all, after all it was a LCC and the flight lasting roughly an hour and we paid 52GBP each for the return trip.

Cabin View




Over Scotland


The approach to Edinburgh was nice the rolling hills of the Scottish lowlands giving way to the Firth of Forth enabling you to see the famous Forth rail and road bridges.

Edinburgh airport in comparison to Birmingham was a hive of activity hussle & bussle once off the air bridge the airport conveyed a warm welcome there wasn’t a separation of departing and arriving passengers, im not sure if this is the case for passengers arriving on international flights as they would need to be funnelled to immigration desks.

It couldn’t have taken more than 5 – 10 minutes to get through the airport bearing in mind we didn’t need to wait to collect checked baggage or go through immigration. A short taxi journey took us to our hotel and a wonderful weekend in the Capital of Scotland where the weather may not be the warmest but the warmth of the Scottish people makes up for that!

Welcome to Scotland (this was takem on our return trip but i though it would be nice to finish the TR with)
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Birendra
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Joined: 15 Feb 2007
Posts: 1411

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Loved the pictures. Smile
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Prajay
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Joined: 11 Feb 2007
Posts: 217
Location: Mumbai, India

PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2007 10:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Not Surprised with AI 187 BHX-YYZ was delayed.

Great TR anyways

Very Happy Prajay
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stealthpilot
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 2325
Location: BLR, DXB

PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 11:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

screw the flight, i want the car Smile
Nice TR!
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saurabhm_101
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Joined: 19 Dec 2006
Posts: 529
Location: Mumbai

PostPosted: Sun Dec 02, 2007 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

lol AI seems to be the only one delayed!! hahaha
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