I'm departing from the regular I.T. techie post. It's my blog, I can do what I want. I've gone on vacation to England for starters. However, before I go into England, a word about the airline I used to get here. British Airways (http://www.ba.com/), I've never used this airline before. Prior to departure I wanted to change the date/time, but was met with an awful $300 fee plus whatever the flight difference was (had I made the change I wanted to, it would have cost as much as the original ticket... not much of an option). I stuck with my original booking... the flight was near empty as far as a 777 goes. An exit row was easy to get and lots of rows had no one in them (easy to stretch out and try to get an hour or so of shut eye). Hopefully for their sake this isn't a normal occurrence being so empty. While I was annoyed by the inflexibility of the airline, I have to say they won me over. Once in the air they came around with the cart and asked what I'd like. What I didn't know at the time was that alcohol was free on British airways!?! The fellow sitting to my left (beyond the empty seat between us, ordered up a couple of little bottles and fizzy water (he was English ;). A quick chat and I found I could order anything I wanted without charge. I've flown around quite a bit in the US. Sometimes you're lucky to get peanuts, much less booze. While it was a nice surprise, that's not won me over. While contemplating in my head which powerbar I would eat to ward off hunger, I was asked "beef or pasa" in an thick English accent. I replied "uh?", "beef or lasagna" she thought I miss heard "pasta" (which I did, but compounded by my loss of comprehension that there could be hot food on a flight anymore.. did we loose that to terrorist or something..lol.. I'm kidding, but you get the idea.. there hasn't been hot food on US flight for.. what.. 20 years?). I went with pasta (which was also vegetarian as she pointed out). Even though I'm not a vegetarian, this was damn good lasagna. I mean for how they have to keep it hot, and servable on a plane.. just top notch British Airlines (I'm picking up some proper English, hence the "top notch" ;)). If we could some how combine southwest flexibility in booking and British Airways service.. we'd have an airline everyone would flock too. Anyone wanting to give this airline a go, I'd be happy to run the I.T. department of such a company. We would have to beware of the unions and strikes. I was unaffected by the strike British Airways is dealing with right now.
