The Next Trip - An Aviation and Travel Podcast · Doug and Drew

Boarding Pass 328: The Concorde Room

·1 hr 6 min·2 clips

Doug tells San Francisco tower he has a London slot time ten hours away that they cannot see, then thanks them for the delay.

1. Boarding Pass 328 of The Next Trip, recorded March 16, 2026, reviews a British Airways 787-9 first-class flight from Heathrow to Dulles before moving to news on IndiGo, Boeing and fuel prices. 2. Hosts Drew, an airport ops manager, and Doug, an airline pilot, are joined by Hunter, the 'professor of points' who writes for the Points Analyst and volunteers at Traveler's Aid at DCA, where he met Drew. 3. Hunter and Drew, who traveled to Germany together the previous week, score the British Airways trip from 1 to 5 across check-in, lounges, seat and service. 4. Doug describes a San Francisco-to-London flight in which the crew sat 25 minutes at the gate, then radioed 'Thanks for the delay' to the tower and sounded rude to other crews, and Gander Oceanic refused his request for Mach .81 and assigned Mach .82. 5. Hunter gives check-in 4 out of 5, citing the 'first wing' in Terminal 5 and the security tunnel into the lounge, while Drew gives the Concorde Room 5 out of 5 for champagne, sit-down dining and the Concorde burger and Hunter gives it 4 because the shower felt 'cheap' next to Doha's Q Suites Garden Lounge. 6. Both rate the seat 4 out of 5, with Hunter saying the A380 first-class seat is larger than the 787-9's but the 787 screens are better, and service gets 5 from Drew and 4.5 from Hunter after purser Carmen held real conversations and crew addressed Hunter as 'Dr. Threadgill.' 7. The second meal was never served and the crew did not explain why, which Hunter faulted, while Doug said crews can skip service on turbulence reports because injured cabin crew are a serious risk and he recalled a Lufthansa 747 from LA to Munich where carts nearly 'levitated.' 8. In the news roundup, IndiGo CEO Peter Elbers, who came from KLM, resigned for 'personal reasons' after the airline canceled 4,500 flights in December, with co-founder Rahul Bhatia taking control, and Boeing slowed 737 MAX deliveries for wiring scratches from a machining error. 9. Boeing is building 47 737s a month with a plan for 60 by 2028, and Hunter says United will cancel its -9 orders and convert them to the -10 once it is certified. 10. Brent crude rose from about $70 to as high as $120 and sat at $98, Cathay Pacific said it would roughly double fuel charges from March 18, and the hosts calculate United's 2026 fuel bill rising 31% to $14.9 billion at $3.71 a gallon.

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