• Flying from Orlando to Glasgow via LGW for a change
What’s going on here? The trip itinerary says I should have been on BA2960 LWG-GLA? Well if you’ve followed my trip reports, well done! (and sorry, last one) BA had delivered us to Gatwick 2.5 hours late for unspecified reasons meaning we’d missed our final flight by 30 minutes. There was actually a crowd of 56 due to transfer onto the Glasgow flight, so we all met at the end of the jetway and were told we had time to go to toilets etc so I went to change the wee man (complete lack of infant changing facilities in Gatwick toilets had to do it next to the sinks
) and returned to find they’d left without us. We caught up with them at immigration which took 10 mins then told we were transferring to London City so had to collect our bags and take coach. 
The main reason I was going via Gatwick was cost, much cheaper due to the difference in Scottish and English school holidays. The main reason I was with BA was due to 3 kids and 7 items of baggage, I didn’t want to pick it all up and have to check it all in again otherwise we would have flown Virgin. So I wasn’t particularly happy to be collecting all my luggage and have to transfer it myself.
I asked if we could transfer onto another Gatwick flight but was told the next one was full and they would only be able to get us on the 9pm flight (it was 11am). Nothing available from Heathrow either, apparently.
So it was the 5pm from LCY.Cases, prams, car seats collected, we then sat outside WH Smith and were handed £5 vouchers to buy some lunch, was told these were accepted by various shops in Gatwick. WH Smith refused the vouchers so had to go to M&S for supplies. Weren’t that hungry anyway and still had the breakfast boxes from the plane. Made our way to the coach thankfully the ground crew helped as we had 125kg of luggage and tired kids. Coach delivered us to LCY at 2pm for the 5pm flight. Took the bags to check in to be told we couldn’t check them in as we were too early for the flight, and “it wasn’t BA’s fault” but airport rules, at this point I ashamedly lost it with the BA man
because the only reason I was at the airport was BA’s fault.So we sat in a coffee shop, all 56 of us, bags and all and deliberately made a nuisance of ourselves, the airport seemed to have an audit going on so having the inspectors climb over our luggage was humorous. I hope we made the point that they either should have accepted our luggage or provided a room to store it. Phone charging facilities at LCY are excellent, by the way. Free wifi too. It’s my favourite London airport and I use it regularly but normally myself and travelling light.
Finally we were allowed to check in for the flight, and went thru to the departure lounge. We had lounge access at Gatwick but of course BA don’t have a lounge at LCY
but the seats overlooking the apron and runway are excellent the boys loved them. Saw our plane land and park in front of us, saw our cases and pram being loaded and finally it was time to board the Embraer 195.Nothing much to report about the flight, took off on time, had a beer, the baby slept all the way (and landing). We were sat next to a rather famous band (if you listen to Radio 1) who were making their way to Glasgow to perform for the BBC at the Commonwealth Games, my kids chatted away to them, they were really nice. Think cool band rather than boy band (certainly wasn’t 1D). Not sure if I can name drop them as they’ve tweeted about it.
Finally landed in Glasgow, picked up some shopping from the Tesco in the terminal, was asked by a helpful Gamesmaker if I was an athlete
(that made my day, must have been holding in my tummy) and home by 8pm only the 9 hours late.As we arrived home Mrs Fuzzy realised she’d left an iPad on the plane so it was back out to the airport.
(If I had done that there would have been hell to pay.) iPad had been handed in to BA’s ground agents but we had to pay £5 service charge, which after all we’d been through was adding insult to injury. 
My kids had been fantastic throughout this, they just got on with the job. Maybe having such a good sleep on the plane helped but after 28 hours of travelling I was really pleased with them.
So we were perhaps unfortunate on the way out to have a poor plane, at least we had a seat when others didn’t. On the way back it was a great flight and great flight crew and the ground grew (at LGW) were pretty helpful too, but transferring to LCY wasn’t clever. But it’s put me off, I wouldn’t do indirect again with the kids so young and I wouldn’t like to fly BA on a leisure route again. They gave me problems pre-flight, contacting their customer service was a pain, and quite simply their product isn’t as good as Virgin’s. So next time:
Plan A Virgin direct from GLA
Plan B Virgin from Manchester (with hotel). Previously a discounted option but at least if the plane is late my car won’t go without me.
Plan C Virgin PE from Gatwick with hotels before and after.
And VH have given us a pretty good deal so you’ll never guess what… the day after we returned booked up to go again.
Plan A. 
Food 2* beer and pretzels mind you on such a short flight not expecting dinner
IFE none!
Seats 4* the wee Embraerers are lovely planes! Overhead storage not as big.
Crew 3* LGW ground crew were good, LCY ground crew annoying, cabin crew were fine
