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27 January 2011

BA and Best At It.

Myself (left) and Rachel aged 9 and 10 arriving for the first time in Atlanta, ringing Grandparents to say we'd arrived
[In 1997 my parents were posted out to Montgomery Alabama for 3 years with the military. Rachel and I were at a little boarding school called The Duke of Kent in a small rural village in Surrey.  It was a very family oriented school and did a lot to help out Forces families like mine. At the end of my first year at that school, aged 9, my sister and I made the first of many flights from Gatwick to Atlanta, Georgia. Our grandparents were our guardians so they would drive us to the airport and hand us over to the BA Unaccompanied Minors staff.]

Flying solo with British Airways as a wee thing assures a quality of service that is rivaled by no other.   Whether embarking from London Gatwick, or ‘Atlanna Geeorgia’, you are greeted like old friends by British Airways’ finest representatives and steered into your private waiting room – the ‘UM’s Lounge’.  You quickly familiarise yourself with shelves of sweets or ‘candy’, old-school video games and those low square tables shaped like big dice that are dotted with magazines like ‘Girl Talk’ and ‘Beano’.  This treatment as you may or may not have guessed is reserved exclusively for children flying as ‘Unaccompanied Minors’.   As verification of your status, you are expected at all times to don a cerulean blue rectangular wallet that sits comfortably around your waist or neck, supporting the BA logo, and in which you carry like treasures your passports, tickets, and most importantly your Log Books.  These are presented to you on your very first flight as a solo traveller and feature all the vital facets of your flight – the date, flight number, destination, original location, mileage, accumulative mileage and naturally the captain’s name and signature.  In a short space of time you can accrue copious thousands of Air miles which are accredited as free flights for Mum and Dad, and the 100,000 landmark is rightfully celebrated with orange juice and a card signed by all the aircrew.

There is an overwhelming sense of excitement as you hand over of your log book to a flight attendant at the start of the flight, and eagerly await its return.  Sometimes, once the cabin lights have been dimmed during night flights, and all other less resilient travellers have slipped on their eye masks, stuck in a pair of headphones and turned their backs to the person in the neighbouring seat, a fresh faced airhostess creeps down the aisle to where you and your fellow UMs are busy creating make-shift dens out of your neighbours’ blankets and summon you to the captain’s HQ.  You follow, softly shuffling in BA’s ‘one size fits all’ socks, down the floor-lit passageways, through Business Class, where the seats are leather and spacious, through thick-set curtains into First Class, where snoring floats from cosy looking beds separated by cubicles, past a final set of curtains and up to a tall white door with a no entry sign.  She taps lightly, opens the door and ushers you in.  Two smiling moustaches turn their necks to face you and greet you as old friends, asking how the standard of services compares to your previous journey, whether you had a good holiday, amongst other things.  And as though you’ve never flown before and weren’t already old hands at cock-pit drills and button layout, you ask them to explain how everything works, pointing hither and thither and gazing through the vast windowed expanse at the multitude of other flashing lights that dot the black velvety sky.  Be so bold as to ask to wear the Captain’s hat and you may well be successful, on the basis that if you don’t ask, you don’t get.  Weather and direction dependent, you may also be fortunate enough to catch a glimpse of the glorious Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis in the far distance, adding yet another truly unique experience to your fast expanding list.

On a separate occasion, your captain may be exceptionally forthcoming.  Perhaps he has children of his own and understands parental concerns of young’ns flying alone, or perhaps word has travelled up to the front of the plane of two dismal looking, homesick girls sitting way back in cattle class.  Either way, you are beckoned to the cock pit to meet your heroes and are warmly requested to assist in the landing of the plane – a task that up until now has never been bestowed upon an UM.  (Nowadays, you’d be lucky not to get arrested for approaching within 10 metres of the cockpit and there you are, being offered two seats with the best view on the whole plane.  Nowadays, looking meek and unthreatening says nothing against potential terrorist activity.  Nowadays, people pay hundreds of pounds for similar flight experiences.  But this is the pre-9-11 era, and the world is a simpler place.) Aside from the familiar waist belt with its sturdy metal clasp, you are further secured into your premier seats by straps that slide down vertically over your arms and clip onto the waist belt, (a sensation which you assimilate to the idea of wearing a straight-jacket and having not one centimetre of manoeuvrability).  You don’t even feel a whisper of disappointment when you realise you are not actually required to land the plane, but simply sit back and watch the world come back into sight.