Who am I?

My name is Neil Scrivener and I am an aviation geek – and also a pilot, but that’s a whole other story.

I have a bit of a mixed career. My professional background (from my teens) is in major global events and high-end hospitality (see my other website). However, I’ve recently I also worked with airlines at management level on Service, Training, Cabin Crew excellence, Customer Service, and other areas of airline management.

Why Blog?

There are many other other Blogs which are more US-centric, so have prices in $USD and refer to Credit Cards you can only get in the USA. Because of this, I figured I could offer something different, going the other way – and in £GBP.

I’m not a food or wine connoisseur (or snob) – so, I tend to either work or sleep on the plane. Because of this, I look at flights on a practical level for business travelers, or those looking to travel for pleasure – as opposed to comparing them to afternoon tea in Dorchester or a bedroom in the Ritz.

I do travel with many different airlines – and will point out the differences (good and bad).

Strangely, I tend to find myself in all kinds of weird and wonderful situations in airports – so I’ll review my customer service experience!

Which Alliance?

This blog started off as predominately OneWorld blog, with British Airways being my home airline.

Slowly BA’s service both on board and in their lounges has eroded, whilst prices on Star Alliance (and some SkyTeam) airlines were more competitive. I stuck with BA/OneWorld out of loyalty – and then in December 2024 British Airways announce a huge change in their loyalty scheme, which ultimately was a deciding factor to look much further than the OneWorld alliance.

I explain my fall out in this post, and what I’ll be doing going forward.

Why is OneWorld a favourite?

My main airport is Heathrow, where all major OneWorld airlines are based from – including British Airways, American, Qatar, JAL, etc. I can fly from London to anywhere in Europe, the US, Middle East, Asia, etc without connections. A fair amount of the flying I do is short-haul, and BA have a huge amount of flights to Europe, so they are perfectly set up.

The same could be said for Star Alliance carriers – but I’ve found their direct destinations from Heathrow to be much more limited. The same applies with SkyTeam. In both the cases of Star Alliance and SkyTeam, flights to Europe are almost a certainty connections in Frankfurt or Amsterdam respectively – not always practical if flying to Barcelona or Milan!

Another point about OneWorld, is what I call the ‘home airline principle’. Where I can, I like to fly from the Airport the airline is based at – the reasons for doing so are things like the check-in desks will be open more than 3hrs before the flight, etc. This can be extremely useful if you’ve lots of work to do and are a loose end – and several times before I’ve got to the airport early and had to wait until T-minus 3hrs.

My Travel Patterns

Generally, I find myself on a mixture of short-haul flights to Europe and long-haul to the US – with a fair bit of travel to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong too.

In advance, I should apologize that my pictures are either bad, or sometimes non-existent. This is because I forget, sometimes!

A few fun facts;

Base Airport: London Heathrow

Preferred Alliance: OneWorld (BA, American, Cathay, Qatar, Qantas, Finn Air, JAL, etc)

Status: BA Gold (OneWorld Emerald)

Favourite Plane: Boeing 747-400

Favourite Airline: At the moment Qatar Airways and JAL

Favourite Route: Daytime HND -> LHR; Nighttime LAX -> LHR.

Do keep an eye out and/or subscribe to my posts – and if you’re an airline, feel free to reach out too!