RJ111 AMM-LHR 3 DEC 12 (CROWN CLASS)

Finally almost the last leg! After arrival in Amman, we went through transit area and off to the lounge. The layover in Amman was 6 hours - not long enough to head out into Amman itself and no decent cheap hotels near the airport. However, the Crown lounge have four bedrooms which can be rented for four hours (USD50 for single occupancy or USD 75 for double occupancy). They are pretty much like an internal hotel room - decent size, great shower and a really comfy bed! Managed to get a bit more sleep and nice to have somewhere private to spend the time before the flight. Shower was definately appreciated!

By the time I got up, it was day light outside and the lounge was very busy indeed! Had some snacks and diet coke before boarding was called. Headed off to gate 1 which is a bus gate - although Amman airport is supposedly being rebuilt by Spring 2012, this clearly has not been completed and therefore there are quite a few bus gates still here.

When we were boarding the A321 back to London it seemed much smaller in comparison to the flight from HKG! Although supposedly Crown Class was relatively empty by the time of boarding it was pretty much full. Short taxi and then we were off heading back to the UK. Great views over Tel Aviv as we left the region and then drinks were served (guess what with more mixed nuts - apparently available in the duty free for USD40-50 per kilo!).

Lunch service on this flight was as follows:
Appertisers
- Mixed arabic starters or salmon

Mixed seasonal salad

Main courses (from the trolley)
- Vegetarian pasta
- Beef fillet in sauce
- Chicken cashew in thick oyster sauce
- hamour sayyadiya ( hamour fillet on Arabic spiced rice, browned onions and pine nuts topped with aromatic bagdounsiya sauce).

I had a combination of the chicken and fish - not quite sure what bagdounsiya sauce is, but it was very tasty!

Followed by a selection of cheeses and then desserts from the trolley. I had some cheese and then arabic ice cream. There were four crew looking after crown class during the flight and the service was attentive as the other flights.

Watched a couple of films on the TV during this flight - like having the touch screen. Selection was ok, especially as during the whole trip I managed to find four films to watch!

Arrived 25 minutes late which I think was due to the usual LHR congestion (we left AMM on time). Bags didn't come out with the crown class bags which must have been separately loaded as they came out within 10 minutes and then there was a bit of a pause.....ours came out fairly quickly again....phew!!

Finally we were off home - a bit of a trek on the homeward flights as the actually flying time is much longer and this was added to by the longer layover in Amman.

Final impression - would I do it again? Probably yes as it is great for Executive Club points (you get less Avois though) and good for getting / keeping silver for around £1,600. Also the inflight experience was consistent throughout all the sectors and was professional and attentive and apart from the one meal (HKG-BKK), the rest were really good indeed!

Thanks for an interesting group of TRs for an airline not normally mentioned here !

Thanks for posting these interesting TR's - perhaps they should get the secret service guys to double up as IFT's

Wow gingerflyer, top marks for writing all these TRs

Sounds like an interesting route to take and good spot on the potential BA TP run.. may do it myself one day.

The food service alone makes this sound like a good airline to be flying with should I ever have the need to fly over that way. Still unsure of going back to the angle-flat seats in the 2-2-2 though - Perhaps I have been spoiled too much with VS and SQ over the years

Cheers for posting

Thanks for taking the time to write all these TRs, I would never have thought about flying RJ but it seems it was such a high level of service. I will be checking their fares next time!

Thanks for posting a six-leg TR, that may be a record! It does sound as though RJ has a solid product but it would have to take a good price difference for me to take such a routing over the direct option!

The price difference was BA/VS £3,500 compared to £1,600 on RJ. The other difference was that BA/VS were both non-flexible fares, whereas RJ was changeable and fully cancellable with a penalty of only £50....pretty impressive!