On a cold and foggy morning in November, I woke to a 4AM alarm at Heathrow Terminal 4’s Premier Inn. Despite staying near Terminal 4, I was flying with British Airways (BA) and so headed downstairs to get a bus round to BA’s home at Terminal 5.

After an tiring but thoroughly enjoyable day in Dublin I jumped on an airport express bus outside Heuston station and started to make my way back to the airport. Heuston is the far end of the 747 route and for most of the day buses depart here for the airport every 10 minutes. Between the 747 and 757 routes most of the City Centre is directly accessible by bus from the airport, allowing minimum time on a day trip to be wasted on travel.

t 0530 on a clear but cool morning in late August I arrived at Hampton-in-Arden station to the southeast of Birmingham to start my day trip to Dublin.

After a wonderful few days in Madrid, it was time to head back to the airport to catch my flight back to the UK. As I’d flown out to Madrid with British Airways, I thought I should try their IAG sister airline and OneWorld partner, Iberia, on the way back. As with my flight out I had planned my travel to take advantage of the one wide-body flight a day and was therefore scheduled to be travelling on a Airbus A340.

The first Monday in September saw a vast proportion of Britain’s schools return after the summer break and people returning to work after their holidays. For me however it brought the day I had been excited about for months, the day I was flying to Madrid with British Airways (BA) in Club Europe.