We recently flew from London Heathrow to Aberdeen in (I'll get it right this time!) the Grampians, in Scotland, with British Airways. I normally fly by the cheapest route and that usually means using a "budget" airline. This time, by using www.priceline.co.uk to book our tickets, BA turned out to be the cheapest route. Cheaper, even, by going by train - but then what's new?

I used Priceline, where you make a bid for your tickets and, if successful, they instantly book your tickets for you and charge your credit card. You need to be fairly flexible, and we were. In so doing, we got our tickets for £149 instead of BA's advertised price of £335. A hefty, and most welcome, discount. The booking immediately appeared on my BA Executive Card account, viewable online at www.ba.com.

My major moan about budget airlines is their general insistence on not allocating seats at check-in. The resulting stampede for the best seats once you board the aircraft is a nightmare and if like me, you're an aviation enthusiast who loves to get a window seat (or even if you aren't, come to think of it), this can raise anxiety levels to a peak!

We arrived at Heathrow and proceeded to Terminal 1, which BA use for domestic flights (and one or two others). We located a self-service check-in machine and inserted my card. A few simple questions answered via a touch-screen and then my (as opposed to "our") boarding pass was printed and delivered. Amanda and Josh still had to check-in in the traditional style, but there was no queue whatsoever and this was a quick process. A "Fast Baggage Drop" desk ensured that the whole process was smooth, slick and fast.

Was almost two hours late. Normally, I wouldn't have minded too much, but LHR Terminal 1 is not the best I've ever had to use and - much more importantly - Aberdeen airport shuts down at 11:30pm and it was looking increasingly likely that we'd be flown to Glasgow and put on a coach to Aberdeen. That's 167 miles on a coach at midnight with a 14-month old baby. Fortunately, this didn't happen - but only by the skin of our teeth!

Our 'plane going up was a Boeing 737-400, and we returned on an Airbus A320. Both aircraft seemed well-maintained, clean and had bright, airy cabins. All BA flights are non-smoking. The cabin was fitted out with comfortable blue leather seats and I thought that the legroom was adequate.

The cabin crew were friendly and professional on both flights and made a big fuss of Josh, which was nice. On the journey up, we had the choice of Mozzarella salad or Prawn Salad (not very filling), and on the way back, we had a rather nice ham and goat's cheese sandwich. Thanks to everybody's best mate, Osama Bin Laden, the cutlery is plastic nowadays, but that is completely understandable! There was a complimentary bar and I managed to knock back a malt whisky on each flight.

One last thing. Normally, I get a bit irritated when reviewers base comments on punctuality on the basis of just one flight. As our taxi driver drove us to our hotel, however, he asked "So - what was their excuse today?" It transpired that this, the last flight of the day into Aberdeen, had been delayed by a similar length of time on virtually every day in the last two or three weeks. Hmmmmmmmm!