[Philip Argy]

A taxi trip to the airport at 6am Saturday Geneva time (3pm Sydney time) marks the beginning of the long journey home. British Airways checkin at Terminal M was prompt and efficient but thetypical Swiss efficiency had gone walkabout by the time I reached the Fast Track entrance. The security guard insisted that it was for business class or Swiss Nationals only and that I was none of those. He assured me that class “C” and seat 2A was not business class and that my tax invoice showing “Business Class” and a fare of $11,500 was not his concern. Not being one to give in I tried some Aussie humour by telling him that I’d been made an honorary Swiss national for the week. To my astonishment he said “Oh, that’s OK then” and immediately let me through - The Chaser would be proud of me!
Boarding of G-EUXF commenced early at 7.10 am but the trek out to gate B32 took about 12 minutes as it’s a pod 100 metres out from the main terminal building and virtually in the centre of the parking apron. Amused to see a SwissAir ad for “Shopping Paradise” at Zurich Airport – it was painted on the fuselage of one of its aircraft!

Pushback of our Airbus A321-231 was 5 minutes early at 7.40 am and with a short taxi we were airborne off runway 05 quite quickly. The run along Lake Geneva with the rising sun illuminating the Alps was pretty spectacular but ended too soon with the snow clouds at 4,000 feet. Captain Chris Atwood promised us a flight time of 90 minutes.
A tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, bacon, fried potato cubes and button mushrooms followed about 15 minutes later – exactly my kind of breakfast! The Swedish-made raspberry smoothie was also excellent. British Airways seems to have no problem with all-steel cutlery even though Qantas and many others still insist on teaming plastic knives with sharp metal forks. Go figure!

The white cliffs of Dover appeared through breaks in the cloud to mark our successful crossing of the English Channel,

but then we were told that ATC required us to stay in the air for another 30 minutes giving us a revised touchdown time of 8.20 am London time. That was honoured with a flawless landing on runway 27R and a taxi to gate 19 at Terminal 5. Here's a good view of Twickenham Stadium on final approach:

The Flight Connections signs showed the way to the shuttle bus that took us from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 in about 18 minutes,

and I was pleased to see VH-OQB already parked at Gate 6 as we ended our airside tour through the maze of tunnels, service roads and construction zones that abound at Heathrow.

My attempt to use points to upgrade to first class for the trip home were thwarted by the fact that there were no seats to spare, so I’ll stick with seat 17K on the upper deck.
The British Airways First Class lounge in Terminal 4 is pleasant enough and the wireless network is reasonably good with a current speed of 1.5 Mbps. Time to read some email and do a bit of work before boarding commences at 11.30 for the LHR-SIN leg of my return journey.