Ålesund; Thursday, 05 September, 2019

After the previous weeks experience of my first time using London Southend, this week I had my first departure from the new Heathrow Terminal 2, though only because of a last minute switch from BA to SAS due to the British Airways strikes – which head led to my return leg being cancelled so I’d had to book with SAS, only for BA to then reinstate the flight a day later.

I had a smooth journey through the airport and down to the furthest possible gate on the satellite terminal before a smooth flight across to Oslo.

As it was an SAS flight it had been given a gate much closer to immigration than the BA flights normally get, so I was through immigration within a couple of minutes of leaving the aircraft, and only about 10 minutes later I was in baggage reclaim awaiting my bag – and maliciously checking FlightAware to see that the original BA flight I was booked on was about 15 minutes late and was only just landing.

My bag came round quickly and I was soon through customs and out into the chill of a Norwegian night to pick up the shuttle bus out to my hotel. The shuttle buses were only every 30 minutes, but thankfully I’d made it through with 10 minutes to spare – even with the best journey through the airport I would have missed it if I’d been on the BA flight.

A 15 minute shuttle ride later, during which I was able to checkin to my room and download the keycard to my phone, I arrived at the hotel and was able to go straight to my room without even needing to interact with another human, and very soon was fast asleep in my very comfy Norwegian bed.