Backwards and Forwards

I have not written much over the last few weeks as I have been backwards and forwards to Europe over the last 3 weeks. The kids and I came back to a very snowy and cold UK for half term, as I said below. We then travelled back to Saudi for a week and then came back to Europe again last week for a weeks skiing in France, arriving back in Saudi yesterday. We are all fairly knackered as our door to door journey over Saturday and Saturday night took 22 hours. We now have 2 and a half weeks before we are back at home for the Easter holidays. The actual flying between the UK & here is OK - just under 6 hours if we fly direct. We travelled with Saudiair 3 weeks ago & I have to say they were surprisingly fine - no booze obviously on the flight but the aircraft was fine with a good in flight entertainment system. Last week we flew back with BA - it is the first time that I have flown anything other than short haul with them for about 13 years - & I was surprised at how bad they were. We left the kingdom at 0920 in the morning and were offered "lunch ? pasta or chicken" before 10am then we had nothing else to eat before a muffin just before landing - I had stupidly assumed that lunch on a flight that lasted from 0930 to 1500 hrs would be served at or around lunchtime! The kids were also less than impressed with the entertainment options - they play the video (all of which were different from the magazine schedule) when they want, it is not a DVD on demand type affair that you get on Saudiair or Virgin where you can select your film, pause it or rewind it etc. On the way home 3 of the seats near us were out of use either because they were broken as they wouldn't come back up after reclining or the TV screens were not working. The service coming home on Saturday night was, to be fair much better, the crew who looked after us were great with the kids making sure they got there meal straight away rather than waiting for all the adults to be served drinks etc. The telling quote was from the kids who have requested that next time we come home we travel Saudiair as they were "much better" - how BA have fallen, and it makes this strike seem much more ridiculous. When we come back for Easter we are flying with BMI so we will have to see how that goes, but at least we know we are not going to have our plans changed by Unite members.