Monday 27th October
In the end, we actually left the runway at 11:58pm. Although we were all apparently boarded by 11:45 we seemed to sit for a while before moving off and we also appeared to drive along for ages before we got to the start of the runway.
421 people on board with 15 crew. Estimated fly time of 7.5 hours which was actually a little quicker in the end as we landed at 12:16pm.
The flight itself was fine and was one of the better night flights we've taken in our opinion. Even though we took off at midnight, they still served a meal - how anyone had an appetite by that time of night I'll never know. We skipped both the meal and the coffee and tried to sleep as soon as possible.
This was a bit tricky at first as we encountered some mile turbulence around the New York area. But once that passed both Linda and I managed a couple of hours sleep. I awoke about 2 hours from landing - pretty good overall.
Once back, we picked up our cases - we had to wait ages for the blue samsonite - turns out it had been opened and inspected by the TSA in the US. It had the remains of our coffee packet that we'd been using during the week and were loath to throw out. I guess the sniffer dogs were attracted by the smell in case it was concealing other items.
Picking up the car was very easy - drive home not so, the Dartford Tunnel was very busy. Indoors by about 2pm.