A BEAstly journey After the most wonderful Whitsun I can
re- member, spent blissfully with friends in the Scot- tish border country, I was reluctantly obliged to return to London on Tuesday morning. The plane was due to leave Edinburgh (Turnhouse) at 7.55. When I arrived to check in, some twenty minutes before, the weather was fine but there was a ground fog which would obviously soon clear (I subsequently discovered from the meteorological office at Turnhouse that it had cleared sufficiently to allow normal flying by 8.20). BEA, however, had other ideas. All passengers were re-routed via Glasgow, and a ghastly charabanc was pro- vided to take us to Renfrew airport (duration of journey: one hour and thirty-five minutes; flying time Edinburgh-London: one hour and fifteen minutes).
Then followed a long wait in cramped condi- tions at Renfrew, while first nothing happened and then baggage was loaded (why can't pas- sengers board while the luggage is being loaded, instead of always waiting?). Then a further wait on board the plane—and all this time no word of apology or explanation—as it is suddenly and be- latedly discovered that no catering facilities have been taken on board (that it should be thought that those who travel by air would rather be seri- ously late than miss their abominable BEA coffee and rolls shows a staggering lack of understand- ing of the customers the airline is supposed to be serving). Then, at last, after an overall delay of fifty minutes, the plane took off, arriving at Heathrow a total of an utterly unnecessary two and three-quarter hours late on a one-and-a- quarter-hour journey—and in fact a few minutes after the arrival of the 10.30 flight from Edin- burgh. And this is the airline that has the im- pertinence to try to prevent free-enterprise lines from flying on its routes. I, for one, shan't fly BEA again if I can help it.
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