Having had the pleasure of travelling on several different airlines we decided to pick British Airways as our airline of choice for the long flight to Hong Kong. Our previous trip had been with Emirates down to Cape Town. This had been an excellent experience (as far as flights go!) but we felt a direct flight was necessary in this instance.

Without boring you to death with airport descriptions, Terminal 5 at London Heathrow was very efficient and we got through to the departure area relatively quickly.

From here, unless you are travelling first or business class (sadly we weren’t!) you are then on your own as far as getting a drink or a nibble is concerned. We plumped for the well positioned Gordon Ramsay Plane Food restaurant that also doubles up as a bar and popped in for a couple of glasses of fizz to calm our nerves and to reassure my wife that flying is not quite as terrifying as she often fears it is!

Snacks and nibbles done, we hopped aboard one of the newest planes in the British Airways Fleet – the Airbus A380. For those of you who are not plane geeks simply put it is a huge plane with two decks and we were sat right in the middle of the upper deck in World Traveller Plus – a fancy name for Premium Economy.

Sitting down and starting to pick out the entertainment options (not bad and rather varied) we were presented with a lovely little glass of sparkling wine and settled down to get ready for take off.

About an hour into the trip our meal arrived – although we had previously been presented with a menu to inform us of the options available. My wife and I both chose to enjoy the beef option, which was a piece of steak with roast potatoes and vegetables. While I can’t say it was the best steak I have ever eaten it wasn’t a bad bit of plane food and although the additional sides and salads were not fantastic, again nothing was appalling. The wide variety of drink options also helped to pacify any dislike for the meal!

Sadly this is where my positivity ends. I often question why the likes of McDonalds and other fast food chains offer ‘eggs’ for breakfast when eggs can be repulsive if slimy or left to stay warm. For this simple reason, re-heated scrambled eggs at 40,000 feet for a breakfast after 10 hours of flying simply did nothing but disgust us, as they truly were repulsive. That, I should add, was part of the full English breakfast option that I chose – I shall leave you to make up your own minds as to how awful the “frittata” my wife chose was!

All in all, the A380, entertainment and drinks were very good. The main meal (a business class option) was palatable and the breakfast (economy) was truly horrific. For that reason we will likely stick with British Airways in the future as the direct flights make the journey much easier and we now know just to avoid breakfast and pretend we are still asleep!