My BA2668 flight departed at 0700AM from the South Terminal in London Gatwick and arrived in Marrakesh in Morocco at 1040AM. I travelled only with hand luggage as I was only going to Morocco for one week. Fortunately BA still allows two pieces of luggage on board and that was just enough for me for this journey.
Checking Into Flight BA2668
They announced gate 27 for flight BA2668 at 0613, which was 47 minutes before departure but at 0635 we were still sitting at the gate waiting to be called to board.
There were a lot of British tourists on BA2668 going on holiday although hardly any Moroccans. Surprisingly nobody was drunk at the time of boarding which is very rare in Britain among the tourist crowd!
As the flight was completely full the stewards started asking people to check bags in free of charge. I wasn’t going to do it as I was only travelling with hand luggage so it would have been a huge waste of time.
I could not believe but the stewards were checking the bag sizes and putting them in bag checker box! If the bag did not fit they forced the passenger to check it in, just like on Ryanair!
I’ve flown with BA short haul several times and I decided to buy a sandwich at the airport as their on-board sandwich tends to be awful. This worked out just fine as they only had stuff I did not like at all – otherwise I would have been left hungry unfortunately!
Also, nowadays you can only get food if you pay for it and they tend to be quite expensive for what they are. BA claims they are quality Marks & Spencer stuff but they did not look very good.
On the way back from Marrakesh I decided to get a few cans of drinks and a bottle of orange juice as I was parched but I would never spend on BA food on-board!
Boarding Flight BA2668 To Marrakesh
We boarded flight BA2668 at Gate 27, starting with group 1,2,3 which were the first class and business class passengers, followed by bronze, silver and gold members then the ordinary common people.
I always wonder why not fill the back of the plane first? That way the aisle wouldn’t be blocked up with the slow passengers and everyone could just get on with their business quicker.
Unfortunately BA is going down the Ryanair and Easyjet path allocating non-booked seats in the very back row, charging £16.99 for front seats plus £13 for any other seat.
I think it is a complete rip-off especially knowing that if you wait until the very last minute you might get a premium seat as all others will have been already pre-booked by others!
At least I got an aisle seat which I thought was going to be more comfortable but not this time. I was in row 27, just two seats from the toilet and traffic was pretty heavy! The queue to the toilet was 12 people long straight after seatbelt sign was turned off!
We were slightly delayed by the time it took for people to board and finally took off at 715.
When we arrived in Marrakesh we had to sit on the plane until they emptied out the luggage hold which I never heard of before. Then, another strange thing happened: the people that sat at the back had to get on a bus but those at the front could just walk off the plane using the bridge. It seemed a bit crazy but we all arrived at the passport control at the same time!
The Seat And Legroom
The seat was pretty uncomfortable and I could seriously hardly squeeze myself in behind the seat in front of me. I constantly had to sit in a strange position as otherwise my knee would have been digging into the back of the person sitting in front of me. Needless to say I hardly slept and I just could not wait to get off the plane.
Overall Impressions
I flew to Morocco for £27 return two years before this flight and I must say there was hardly any noticeable difference between the two except for the price!
