Manchester from the air

Today it was time t say farewell to family, and head back home. We didn’t need to get a particularly early start, leaving Janet and John’s about 10 am. They get two days off, then they have more family from Guensey arriving on Thursday for a long weekend! Getting through security was fairly straightforward, and we were in the departure lounge in good time. Our Virgin Atlantic plane to New York was delayed, which left us a little concerned, as we had a fairly tight connection onward to Cincinnati. Having taken off, we had a pretty good view over Manchester, including Old Trafford, Manchester United’s football ground!
We had a good flight, and were pleasantly surprised as we were beginning to descend to NYC, when a steward came up to us, and said since we had a fairly tight connection, they were moving us up to the front of the plane - to first class (!) - so that we would be first off the plane. So I can now say I’ve travelled in First class - for all of about 25 minutes! At the top of the jetway, they gave us a Fast track ticket to get through immigration faster, and that worked well, getting us to the front of the line. However, it didn’t work so well when we had to go through security again! There was a huge line, and the first people we showed the ticket to didn’t seem to recognise it, but finally we got someone who did move us up. The end result was we did make our connection, so we’re very thankful for Virgin’s pro active service. I think we will try and avoid traveling through JFK again!
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