Globaliser

Was it somewhere in the roll call thread?

I would use one in an airline lounge. If you won't have access to an airline lounge, it seems that Auckland normally has a pay lounge called the Strata lounge, although that is not open at the moment (because of the pandemic). It's number 82 on this terminal map. It also looks like there is a public shower just below number 51 on that map. The dotted line seems to be the security border, so you'll be on the correct side if you use that one. I have done this once, in Sydney, and it basically involved remembering to bring a camping towel (one of those zero volume things that's actually more sponge than towel) and some shower gel. It wasn't luxurious, but I'd just flown from London to Sydney, I had no lounge access in Sydney, I had two more flights to get to Dunedin, and I had to be presentable and sociable as soon as I got there - so it was worth the effort.

What's wrong with three hours between flights? Given a choice, and if all other things are equal, I would go for the 3-hour connection over the 1-hour connection here. You won't be sitting around waiting for three hours. It'll take you half an hour to do the circuit through the transit/transfer stream, and you'll need to be at the gate about half an hour before the scheduled departure time of the next flight. So it's actually only two hours of waiting. For me, that's time to have a shower, drink some water to rehydrate, and get a decent and unrushed breakfast.

Ashland is in at least some of the relevant threads: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2854348-amsterdam-rcl-debark-times-and-getting-to-ams-airport/?do=findComment&comment=63262886 https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2850267-time-needed-at-amsterdam-airport/?do=findComment&comment=63169275

As far as I can see, the published Minimum Connecting Time for this is almost certainly 55 minutes. The airline won't allow you to book a connection that's any shorter than that, but at 55 minutes it expects that most passengers will make the connection most of the time. The airline has an incentive not to make it too short, because it incurs costs whenever someone misses their connection. AIUI, the transit/transfer stream simply requires security screening. That would be consistent with an MCT of that kind of duration. There's not a lot of margin if something goes wrong, but there should be plenty of alternative Auckland-Sydney flights to be reaccommodated on if you do misconnect.

Do multi-hour-long queues for security count as disruptions?

My crystal ball isn't feeling very well today. But my guess is that we are likely to see only moderate improvements during the remainder of northern summer 2022; although there are likely to be some increases in capacity, the summer demand peak is yet to come. Then we will enter the season of sickness, and who knows that that will do to the industry this year. June 2023? It seems like next century, so far as predictions are concerned.

Cathay does not make two award seats available in first class. And for the foreseeable future, there are bigger problems with booking on Cathay Pacific in any event.

In the absence of other input, is either of those things a problem? Stansted Airport is not easy even in the best circumstances. Three sophisticated and nearly-middle-aged ladies perform a well-known art song that includes a verse dedicated to the joys of a journey there.

No other country requires you to test and to be negative before you fly there? No other country in the whole world? Really?

It's a matter for you, but even that train time leaves you with very little margin for anything to go wrong. On a planning basis of 90 + 90 + 90 = 270 minutes, that's all of your 4½ hours. If your flight is even a couple of hours late, you're toast. What is your backup plan if you miss your train? Hope is not a strategy.

Global Entry and TSA Pre-Check are American things and have absolutely no relevance at Heathrow or any other UK airport. If you are going straight to Paris from Heathrow, the first piece of advice is to fly. Preferably on a through ticket so that you don't have to deal with clearing immigration, collecting your luggage, clearing customs, or transferring to St Pancras - all just to take a form of transport that will take much longer to take you to Paris (measured station-to-station) than flying (measured airport-to-airport). And so that you avoid the misconnection risk. Even if you have to buy a separate ticket for Heathrow to Paris, you take a great deal of the risk away by flying. The next piece of advice is to work out what kind of Eurostar ticket you are going to buy, and what happens if you miss the train that you've booked. Misconnection risk is something you always have to plan for, and a train ticket is no exception. For safety, I would personally allow for 90 minutes from arrival (aircraft parks at gate) to clear at the airport (although it should normally take only about half that). You would want to allow 90 minutes for the journey to St Pancras. I think that Eurostar minimum check-in is something like 30 minutes. Then ask yourself what you'll do if your inbound flight is three hours late (which is far from rare). More advice in a similar context in this thread: https://boards.cruisecritic.com/topic/2856108-time-needed-to-clear-customs-and-catch-the-bus-to-southampton/

This should be an absolute rule for pretty much all major airports everywhere in the world: always go to the official taxi rank.

Sorry for the pedantry, but to avoid confusion for the OP at the airport: VA = Virgin Australia VS = Virgin Atlantic VX = the former, but now defunct, Virgin America

Even better, stay on the SS Rotterdam herself: https://ssrotterdam.com/

If it helps to avoid people thinking that the ONS numbers are the same as the PHE / UKHSA numbers, I'm all for it.

And also, what is the 11-hour window? Is that published arrival time and departure time? Because if they are, then you'll lose time off either end because it may take you some time to get off the ship, and you'll have to allow some margin to sure of getting back to the ship before the time by which you have to board. So you may only have about 9 hours that you can plan to use, of which the best part of 3 would be spent simply driving to and from St Andrews.

Figures from the ONS, or more-accurately PHE, have been in a mess since the govt stopped publishing figures for friday thro monday plus the plethora of bank holidays. Isn't the ONS work independent and self-published? The media don't always make it clear, but the ONS' methodology is set out here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/methodologies/covid19infectionsurveypilotmethodsandfurtherinformation

That's because there aren't any. Many places (eg theatres) will request that you do not go if you may have Covid, but this isn't a rule and it isn't enforceable. So the approach is basically the same as if you have a cold or if you have flu. Most people I know are being responsible by staying at home if they have Covid, but it isn't because any rules require them to.

I think that the current problems at BA are largely a consequence of BA doing exactly the same thing to rein in an over-ambitious schedule.

Presumably, though, getting an ETOPS ticket is something that requires some additional training on specific procedures and differences for a pilot who already knows how to fly that aircraft? If nothing goes wrong, flying from Seattle to Kona shouldn't in itself be that different from flying from Seattle to Fort Lauderdale. What's different is all the "what if" stuff that goes in to ETOPS.

The National Express website gives some clues: Fri 27 May 2022 HEATHROW Airport London T5 (LHR) National Express Service: 204 Departs: 09:45 Winchester Departs : 10:50 SOUTHAMPTON Coach Station Harbour Parade Departs : 11:25 Ringwood Departs : 12:05 BOURNEMOUTH Station, off Holdenhurst Rd Arrives: 12:25

No, it wasn't quite like that. IIRC, the first officer (who was properly licensed for airline flying and for that aircraft type) still had one more flight to do under the supervision of a training captain within Virgin Atlantic's line flying training, before he was fully released to line flying. After takeoff, some chat between them revealed that the captain of that flight wasn't a training captain, so they decided that the best thing to do was to return to Heathrow. Obviously, it was a rostering stuff-up, but it wasn't nearly as dramatic as the media made out. I imagine that each of the pilots assumed that there was no problem with them flying with the other one. I remember reading something on another board that said that a crew that's rostered to fly together on a trip doesn't usually start by challenging each other's qualifications in the briefing room, which seemed quite reasonable to me.

T5A has lots of signs telling you how long it takes to get to even the furthest gates. Even if you don't know your way around the airport, the airport has gone to some trouble to make sure you are informed. One reason for that is below. (In truth, the posted time estimates are about double what it actually takes, even if you don't rush and take everything at a gentle pace. I reckon that I could probably match the posted time estimates by "walking" on all fours along the way.) I have no doubt that keeping people in T5A near the shops and facilities to encourage them to spend money is one reason behind the policy. It's very fashionable to be cynical about this, but there are actually plenty of people who go out of their way to spend money in the shops and facilities, so it's not exactly as if this is a universally unpopular aim. And those who spend lots of money in the shops and facilities are helping to keep costs down for those of us who don't. In any case, there is actually another perfectly good reason, linked to something that fbgd says. Once you leave T5A and go to T5B or T5C, it becomes difficult to get back to T5A unless you really know your way around the terminal. You shouldn't just take the transit back to T5A, mostly because if you stay on board and go back to T5A, you've crossed the security border and you will need to clear security again before you can go to your flight. But you won't even get let in to security screening with your existing boarding pass, because it will have been marked as used and won't work again - so you have to get a new boarding pass before you can even go to security. The airport therefore wants to make sure that people do not need to go from T5B or T5C back to T5A unless it is absolutely necessary. So you're strongly encouraged to disembark the transit at T5C before it turns around and goes back to T5A to avoid this problem. You can walk back to T5A, but you really need to know how and where - fbgd and I would have no qualms about doing this, so we would be happy to go to T5B a long time in advance, but we know what we are doing and where we are going. Passengers who go to T5B or T5C too early may be disappointed by the lack of facilities there, as fbgd points out. So they may try to go back to T5A, and cause themselves a whole heap of problems in the process. Better to encourage them to stay in T5A with all the facilities that they could want, until they really need to go to their gate. The same also applies to possible aircraft re-allocation. Although the planned gate is known much longer in advance, this can change. One common reason is that "your" aircraft at "your" gate is suddenly used for another flight because the original aircraft for that flight has developed a fault. Then there is a gate change which is really an aircraft change, often coupled with a delay to your flight. If you've already gone to the wrong place and you find that your flight is now delayed, you may then want to go back to T5A to wait - and you may then cause yourself a world of pain if you don't know your way around the terminal. So for all of these reasons, it is genuinely better to stay in T5A until nearer the time of the flight, when everyone can be more confident that the gate really is confirmed and there will be no late changes. It's not just a cynical exercise in extracting money from you. There really is such a thing as "it's too early to go to your gate".

I happened to go through Victoria today, so I had a quick check. There is a lift to the main entrance of the mainline station. The lift route from the District Line platforms takes you through the Victoria Line ticket barriers, although you won't need to know that if you're travelling to Victoria.