Airline: British Airways
Flight #: BA921
Route: STR-LHR
Class: Economy
Seat: 15F
Date: Sunday 10th August 2025
After a great few days away in southern Germany exploring in and around Lindau and the Bodensee, including a lap of the lake visiting four countries in one day, it was unfortunately time to head home. As with our flight out to Germany, we’d be flying back to the UK with British Airways (BA), this time on BA921, their evening flight from Stuttgart to Heathrow. If you want to read the other posts covering this trip to Germany, you can find them here, here and here.
After dropping off the hire car, we got to the terminal around two hours and 20 minutes before departure and immediately ended up walking the length of the terminal building twice, as BA list their flight as departing from terminal 3 however check-in was in the terminal 2 check-in area. Both terminal 2 and terminal 3 are the same building, just opposite ends, so it wasn’t too much of an issue just a bit annoying. When we finally found the check-in desks, it took about 10 minutes for us to get through the queue and drop off our bags and, after a very quick security checkpoint, we were soon through into departures.
Almost immediately after getting through security I received a text from BA advising of a 30-minute delay to the flight, and so we headed to Manfred’s Snacks and Drinks to get some dinner. The food here was alright despite being airport food and Beth went for the traditional Weißwurst (white sausage) whilst I had a schnitzel with potato salad, with us having a pretzel and some brownie to share. Unfortunately, the terminal at Stuttgart is a very loud and echoey airport, so by the end of dinner we were both a bit overstimulated and so despite the delay, decided to head through passport control to the gate in the hope we could find a quiet corner.
Settling down to wait for boarding, I had a quick look at Flightradar and could see that the inbound flight had left Heathrow 50 minutes late, despite the aircraft having previously operated the morning Stuttgart rotation without any delay. Thankfully the padding built into the schedule meant our aircraft ended up landing at 1840, 25 minutes late, so it looked like the 30-minute delay would be fairly accurate. We’d be flying home on G-DBCF, a 20-year-old Airbus A319 and, as with our outbound aircraft, another former member of the BMI fleet that joined BA in 2012 during the purchase of BMI by BA.
Boarding ended up starting just after 1900, with us getting onboard at 1910 and squeezing past the person in 15D to our seats, 15E & F. Row 15 isn’t the best for window placement, with one by your shoulder and another half-blocked by the seat in front. Thankfully we got lucky midway through boarding as the person in 15D decided to move and we ended up with the row just for the two of us again. With pushback at 1928, BA had beaten their predicted 30-minute delay by seven minutes, and after a five-minute taxi, we were taking off from Stuttgart’s runway 07 at 1937.
We were flying on a beautifully clear day and, despite the challenging window placement, I was able to get a reasonably good view during departure and could see the very industrial Hellibron on the river Nacker, as well as the unfortunately named Hugo-Koch-Stadion of VfB Eppingen. As we continued to the north-west, we flew over the southern end of the Rhein conurbation around Speyer and Frankfurt. It was around here the crew began the onboard service, with us once again receiving free bottles of water and biscuits, although we decided not to buy anything from the trolley on this occasion.
We crossed into Belgian airspace just north of Luxembourg and passed on a route that took us south of Liege but north of Brussels and Ghent and very briefly into Dutch airspace. Back above Belgium, we passed over Bruges and the coast after around 45 minutes of flying and joined the standard ‘Essex’ approach to Heathrow over the North Sea. Crossing the English coast near Shoeburyness, we surprisingly didn’t join the North Weald hold and went straight into the winding approach over north London that took us over Finsbury Park and The Emirates Stadium. A final right-hand turn over Newham brought The Olympic Stadium and the O2 into view, before we joined the long approach to Heathrow over central London.
With a flight time of one hour and 19 minutes, we touched down on Heathrow’s runway 27R at 1956, only 11 minutes later than scheduled. After a slight delay waiting for G-DBCH to taxi out as BA376 to Toulouse, we were on stand at 2002 and off the aircraft five minutes late. Unfortunately, whilst passport control was really quick, the long walk to get there from the gate and the 15-minute wait for our bags meant that the 2036 Elizabeth line train into London pulled out of the platform as we reached it.
Whilst the delay was frustrating and ultimately meant we were on a train 30 minutes later than planned, BA did a good job of keeping us informed and overall delivered a comfortable and stress-free flight. Despite the age of the aircraft, it had undergone a recent refurbishment meaning the onboard experience wasn’t any different to a brand new one, and the little touches such as free water and biscuits do make it more pleasant to fly with BA than one of the low-cost carriers. With some more BA flights coming in 2025, will I keep my streak of drama-free flights with BA? Subscribe to the blog to find out!
Lounge 0*
Seat/Facilities 3*
Food 3*
Service 5*
Punctuality 4*
Overall Rating 15/25 (read about my rating system here!)
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