March 12, 2008 Home * Travel Deals * Website of the Week Webcams * Travel News

Cheers from England! This is the first leg of my ‘round-the-world trip. That's right, baby! I'm circumnavigating the globe for my second time in 15 months and the experience is not only exciting ... it's addictive! This week, I'm in London for a sneak peak of Heathrow's state-of-the-art Terminal 5, or T5 as it's called. If you haven't heard about it yet, you definitely will once it open its doors to the public on March 27th. To learn how this new terminal is going to change air travel to London and to find out what it's like in one of British Airways' plush Club World seats, grab your bags and your passport and let's hit the road! Once we arrive, we'll be checking into the swanky May Fair Hotel and you'll see how you can experience piloting a wide-body plane for yourself. If you'd prefer to stay closer to home, then join Richard Frinta as he tours us around the cowboy town of Republic, Washington.

ONEWORLD LOUNGE
My journey began at Los Angeles' Tom Bradley International Airport (LAX). Checking-in at British Airways (BA) took less than a minute; the agent was not only efficient but friendly, too. I was handed my boarding card and a pass to the new OneWorld first/business class lounge and I was off. The lounge is wisely positioned on the other side of security, up on level five. Don't you just hate the lounges before security? The elevator wasn't working so I hiked up the two flights of stairs, toting my two bags. That's right ... even on an around-the-world trip, I only took carry-on. It's the only way to travel.

The OneWorld lounge opened in November 2007 and its codeshare partners British Airways, Qantas and Cathay Pacific share it. The business class section can hold up to 210 guests and first class has room for 90. Both have aesthetically pleasing designer interiors: the carpet is brown, the trim is teak and green leather chairs are situated all around. You'll find the usual free newspapers and magazines and food and drinks, but there are also showers, which are cleaned after each use. The best part is that they also offer free Wi-Fi. If you're not traveling with a laptop, there are a slew of desktop computers, available for use at no charge. While checking email and quietly chatting on my cell phone, I sampled the chicken chow mein, beef Wellington, fresh fruit and picked at a chocolate muffin. Not bad at all!

FLIGHT 268
BA has three flights a day from LAX to London and I was on flight number 268, which is the latest departure at 8:40pm. This flight is nicknamed 26 LATE. It's the last plane out of Europe and taking into consideration the domino effect, it's the one that tends to suffer the most. Jean Reno (from The Da Vinci Code) was on my flight and the special services agent escorted us onto the plane together. That was pretty cool. He's tall and skinny and judging by the number of doubletakes I saw, a good amount of people recognized him – but no one broke his stride. He must really love BA's first class service because he was flying to Paris via Heathrow instead of taking a nonstop flight on a different carrier. We chatted for a while and he wasn't happy about the 40-minute delay because he was going to miss his connection. I wasn't bothered by it at all as I had nowhere pressing to be.

LOS ANGELES TO LONDON
Club World is the name of BA's business class. The moment I stepped on the plane, I noticed the cabin's mood lighting and two round lampshades hanging from the middle of the ceiling. Pretty cool, huh? The 2-4-2 seating configuration on the 747-400 was strange to look at but pleasing to use. People who are traveling together definitely want to sit in the two middle seats as they are the only ones next to each other and make almost a full-size bed. Those seats, as well as the window seats, face backwards but don't let that freak you out because you don't feel a thing. Believe me, I didn't think I'd like it either as I tend to get motion sickness but that's not the case at all.

SEAT 20A
I was in seat 20A and according to SeatExpert.com, it's one of the best seats in Club World. I have to agree. The seat is like your own private apartment and you don't have to step over anyone. There are two windows and lots of privacy. All the Club World seats have an electronic divider so if you're sitting next to someone you don't want to look at or speak to, just flip the switch and say, "talk to the divider because the ears ain't listening!" In fact, there's so much privacy that I actually forgot I was on an airplane. I was lounging in the 180-degree, fully flat sleeper seat, watching one of the 25 on-demand new release movies on the 9-inch screen when the flight attendant popped his head over, bringing me my dinner tray. He startled the heck out of me and for a second there, I thought it was the Jolly Green Giant coming to get me for not ordering any veggies.

CLUB WORLD
If you're anything like me and have difficulty sleeping on a plane, you'll definitely appreciate the power port, perfect for working on your laptop, and the wide selection of movies, TV shows, video games and audio options – all available with the quick touch of the screen. To increase your enjoyment, they also provide noise-canceling headsets. The only thing I didn't like about these seats was that the tray tables and video screens were a little difficult to open up and the tray wasn't that sturdy ... no big deal, I know. The seats also lacked storage space. There were no compartments on the side nor a pocket to put your cell phone, camera, book, iPod, bottled water or the designer amenity kits they handed out. However, I am told that there is storage space on the floor but I somehow missed it. The overhead compartment is huge and has a cool safety netting so when you open the bin, the contents won't fall on your head.

BA'S FLIGHT ATTENDANTS
The flight attendants' service was excellent for the first and last portions of the flight. But they were non-existent in the middle of the night. Right after takeoff, they served drinks and dinner, which came out quickly. I passed on the lobster tail and mushroom appetizer but had the salad and steak and chose fruit over the chocolate brownie cheesecake. Once the food service ended, essentially so did the flight attendants' service until breakfast 90 minutes before touching down. Most passengers were sleeping so they didn't even notice and I like to get up and stretch my legs so I frequently visited the Club Kitchen set up in the galley and stocked with food and drinks. Overall, the next generation Club World seats made the 10-hour, 15-minute flight a dream and I can't wait to do it again.

DOLLARS TO POUNDS
All prices below are in British pounds (£) unless noted. To convert into U.S. dollars, double the amount for an approximation of the price.

HEATHROW TO CENTRAL LONDON
When we landed at Heathrow at 4pm, it was a race to passport control. It was a long walk but once there, it took just two minutes to clear and there was no line at customs, one of the benefits of not checking luggage. I followed the signs to the Heathrow Express and used one of their self-service kiosks to get my ticket. To get to the trains required an elevator down and another long walk (they do have free carts). What's great about the Heathrow Express (cost one-way is £15.50, £2 more on the train, £1 less online) is that it takes only 15 minutes to get to Central London (Paddington Station) and the trains depart every 15 minutes so there's no need to rush. Surprisingly, there was no taxi line at Paddington. If there had been one, I would've taken the tube but it was rush hour and I didn't feel like schlepping my bags in the madness. A taxi to May Fair took 10 minutes and cost a whopping £8 without tip.

THE TUBE
Don't get me wrong: the tube is the best way to get around London and I love taking it – just not at rush hour. To save money, get an Oyster card. This transit card has a £3 refundable deposit and you can add as much credit to the card as you like. Plus, it's good for traveling by bus as well. The Oyster card makes those £4 rides turn into £1.50 (more for those traveling longer distances). The blue cards can be found in a number of places including most tube station ticket offices and online at the Oyster website.

MAY FAIR
I was staying at the luxurious May Fair Hotel, which was opened in 1927 by King George V. The hotel is in the heart of the exclusive May Fair district and is just a block or two from Green Park (and the Green Park tube station), Bond Street (where the expensive shops are) and a couple of grocery stores including Marks and Spencer. A brisk 10-minute walk away is Piccadilly and Leicester Square, where you can score half-price theatre tickets, and Chinatown.

MAY FAIR HOTEL
When my taxi pulled up to the May Fair Hotel, I had a funny feeling that I'd already stayed there before. I thought I'd been there in 1998 with my mom, when we took our first trip to Europe together. But walking into the lobby, it looked completely different so I couldn't be entirely sure. There was a long line at the front desk (and Italian group had arrived just a few minutes ahead of me) but the agents worked quickly and my wait time was just four minutes. The woman checking me in was Eastern European and had a thick accent. I asked her if this hotel used to be the InterContinental Hotel and she confirmed that it had been but that Radisson had taken it over four years ago. I had no idea that a Radisson hotel could be so nice but I suppose that's what you get when you pump $140 million into a refurbishment.

MY ROOM
The new contemporary interior has creations from some of the world's top design houses including chandeliers by Baccarat, sofas and chairs by Fendi and paintings from St. Petersburg. The hotel has 295 rooms. I was in a junior suite that featured a croc skin (I'm hoping it was faux) bench and framed the mirror and the bed. The bathroom had white marble and a black granite floor. I was shocked and stoked that they had free wireless Internet, a couple of bottles of water and an outlet for U.S. plugs. The bed sheets felt starchy at first but once I was underneath, they were quite comfy. What I didn't care for were the bulky pillows and the hallway traffic noise, including the ‘ding' from the elevator. They also had one of those evil mini bars where even just taking something out to admire or fantasize about it automatically gets charged to your bill. Yikes! That's one of the disadvantages of technology. But the worst was when I received a 7am wake-up call when I asked for 10am call ... and they didn't even apologize.

MARIAH CAREY
Busty Mariah Carey happened to be in the hotel for the release of her new single to the English press. They used the hotel's 202, Ferrari-leather-seat movie theatre to show her video. It's also where they held the world premiere of the movie The Queen. Believe it or not, Mariah is probably the least famous person to stay here and I got a chance to take a peak at where most celebrities stay. The suite has two bedrooms, a private elevator and costs £5,000 a night. What a waste. Before heading out for the day, I had the hotel's breakfast buffet. It was very good but limited, just a nice selection of fresh fruit, incredible muffins and juice. The eggs and meat could have used some help but really, I didn't care. I was sitting alone at a table facing the street, reading the paper and sipping my tea when I realized, I'm in London! How cool is that? Rack rates at the May Fair Hotel are not cheap but for their best rates, log on to lastminute.com where they can be found for £120. The May Fair, Stratton Street, London; Tel: +44 20 7629 7777.

TOUR OF T5
I have never seen as much hype over a new airport terminal as I did at London Heathrow's Terminal 5. The progress has been periodically reported in the U.S. papers but I had no idea what a huge deal it was until this moment: I was sitting in the British Airways headquarters just before my exclusive tour. It was such a privilege that the majority of BA's 47,000 employees hadn't even seen it and the ones I spoke to were actually jealous. They all kept asking me afterwards what it was like. "What do you think? Will it pay off for BA?" Well, I wish I had pictures or video to show you just how amazing this place is but unfortunately, cameras were not allowed. They don't want competitors to steal their ideas and they want everyone to be "wowed" when they see the finished product with their own eyes.

HEATHROW AIRPORT
Heathrow has over 1,300 daily flights from 90 different airlines. If you travel to London frequently, you know that this place has always been a nightmare. They are way over capacity, they've implemented draconian baggage rules (only one carry-on per person), they've got the most lost bags and an endless cycle of construction. But no construction project has been bigger than that of T5. The project cost £4.3 billion! Now, things are starting to change for the world's busiest airport. On January 7th, the carry-on baggage rules changed, which will help alleviate the lost baggage problems and the much-anticipated T5 is opening up in a couple of weeks.

IMPROVING CUSTOMER RELATIONS
The good news for the 60 million people passing through Heathrow Airport is that T5 will be able to handle half of them! British Airways operates almost 40 percent of Heathrow's flights and only their planes will have access to T5. Not even their codeshare partners will use it ... they'll use T3. BA's number one goal for this project is to improve their customer's experience, which in turn will make them more money. So they polled their customers to find out what mattered most to them. They discovered that customers wanted to spend less time in line and more time in the departures area. They wanted their baggage to show up and in a timely fashion. And they wanted to depart and arrive on time. Yeah, no kidding. Besides arriving safely, I couldn't agree more.

GLAMOUR
Kudos to BA and the BAA (British Airport Authority) for putting all their chips on the table in creating T5, which will handle 80,000 passengers a day. They hired Richard Rogers Barajas, the same architect who designed Madrid's Terminal 4 and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The goal was to make it contemporary, bright, and stress-free. Parts of the 40-meter high, 396-meter long building are eco-friendly: 85% of the water will be recycled rain and they've planted 300,000 shrubs and trees. Here's a list of the other green features. There are 140 customer service desks, which include 96 Fast Bag Drops for the 80% of customers who check-in online 24 hours in advance. In addition, there are 96 check-in kiosks (in five languages).

T5 SECURITY
Security will be state-of-the-art as well. No more taking off shoes or lugging your computer out of its bag. Domestic passengers will have their photo taken and their fingerprints scanned at both security and at the gate so gate agents can verify that it's the same person boarding. (British driver’s licenses don't have photos.) To get the planes out on time, T5 was built close to the runway for less taxiing. But also, passengers will now need to be at security 35 minutes before the flight or they won't get on their flight ... no more exceptions.

BAGGAGE
The baggage system can handle 12,000 bags an hour and baggage claim will feature screens that alert passengers to the amount of time before luggage will be coming down the carrousel. I love that! They will also be x-rayed after receiving them and before releasing them to make sure all the contents are safe and to stop insider thieves. The goal is to have passengers travel from the curb through security in 10 minutes. In doing so, they will bring the glamour back into travel. They think that with their new facilities, passengers will arrive earlier to shop or just to hang out.

SATELLITES
Terminal 5 will have three departure areas. T5A will be the mother base with 19 gates and the majority of the retail outlets. T5B is one of their two satellites and will have 14 gates, mainly used for long-haul flights. T5C, which won't be open until 2010, will have 14 gates including the ones servicing British Airways' A380. FYI: To get to the satellite terminals, passengers jump on a 45-second transit system ride that will whisk passengers back and forth every 90 seconds.

FACILITIES
Now for the good stuff! T5A and B will have 144 stores and restaurants. They will feature shops found on Bond Street, like Gucci, Prada, Coach and Tiffany. But it will also have the more affordable shops that can be found on High Street, like HMV and Boots. In addition, there will be the second largest Harrods in the world and a separate Harrods food court. Speaking of food, Gordon Ramsay, England's acclaimed chef, is opening up a restaurant called Plane Food that he hopes will be the first Michelin star restaurant that's airside. Other eateries will include a sushi bar, seafood restaurant, Wagamama, Italian cafés and many others. For better or for worse, they will even have a Krispy Kreme.

BUSINESS LOUNGES
If you want to kick back, there's an Elemis Spa to book a pre-flight massage. If you want to work, you can log on to the wireless Internet throughout the building (it's free in the lounges). If you're flying in premium class or have a lounge pass, there will now be six lounges all together. They are collectively known as galleries and can hold up to 2,500 passengers at once! Inside will be 95 showers. If you want more than a shower, next-door is the new five-star Sofitel. From many of those rooms and inside the terminal, visitors can see Windsor Castle on a clear day.

MARCH 27, 2008
Hopefully, you will be flying through Heathrow on or after March 27. The first flight to arrive into T5 is going to be BA26 from Hong Kong. The first flight to depart is BA302 to Paris. Ninety percent of BA's transfers will take place at T5, making it easy to connect. I wouldn't mind being on either one of those flights because those passengers are definitely going to get ... wowed!

FLIGHT SIMULATOR
After the tour, the BA reps asked if anyone wanted to fly a 777 using the flight simulator. How many chances do you get to fly a wide body plane? Obviously, it's not the actual plane but it's as close as it gets. In fact, 50 airlines from around the world use BA's training facility where they have 14 full motion simulators and four fixed base. The machines are in use 24/7 and before jumping in the Captains seat, I had a briefing with my instructor Ben. Everyone is taught by an actual BA pilot ... I know Ben looks young but he's a seven-year veteran. He went over all the safety briefings just in case there was a fire and told us what to expect.

INSIDE THE COCKPIT
The simulator is so much like the real thing that everything in that cockpit can be used in the actual plane. It's all the same (except an emergency switch to stop the motion). I was in one of the full motion 777-200 planes. One of my concerns going in was that it might trigger my fear of flying. You couldn't pay me to get on a plane between the ages of 18 and 21. Sometimes, my attitude is ... it's best not to know what exactly is going on. But Ben and the operations manager said that that couldn't be further from the truth. In fact, it's recommended for people with a fear of flying to see how safe it really is.

SWITZERLAND, HERE I COME
I was first up and I jumped in the Captain's seat. I put my seat belt on, moved the chair forward and we were off. You can fly in and out of pretty much any airport in the world but they chose Geneva, Switzerland because the graphics looked the best. The graphics were awesome but I'm sure they can be improved. There are also different options to choose from. I went with a clear day instead of a storm; they also had different settings of turbulence including severe. Ben said that no one likes turbulence and all pilots do everything they can to go around it but sometimes, it just can't be prevented. He also said that they are never scared of turbulence but that it is rough on the body and makes for a long day at the office.

HOW YOU CAN FLY A PLANE
I'm not sure if Ben was just stroking my ego or not but he said I was doing an incredible job – then it was time to land and my palms were sweating bullets. These things cost £10 million and are definitely the ultimate video game. The best part is that it's no longer restricted to just airline employees. Eight months ago, BA re-opened it up to the public for the first time after 9/11. Anyone can do it but it's not cheap so mainly it's corporations that offer it as an incentive or a team-bonding exercise for employees. The minimum age is 14 and the maximum number of participants is two. Flight Simulator Experiences are available at a price of £399 including VAT for the Boeing 737, 757 or 767 and £449 including VAT for the Boeing 747 or 777.

VIDEO
Here's a two-minute Johnny Jet video of my trip to London including some shots in the cockpit (they wouldn't allow video). We also have all the Johnny Jet videos ever made on YouTube.

NEXT WEEK
Join me next week for the second stop on my around-the-world journey! I'll give you a hint – it's in a region I have never stepped foot in before and I'm so excited, I can hardly wait to tell you about it!

Happy Travels,
Johnny Jet

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Note: This trip was sponsored i by British Airways.

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