In the previous post I wrote about our frustrating misconnect at London Heathrow, due to a broken jet bridge. In this post I wanted to cover our connecting experience, including the British Airways Club Lounge at the airport, as well as our Club Europe experience from London to Athens, which was better than I was…
Continue reading: A Lovely British Airways Business Class Experience
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Nice review. Seems like there is some kind of bug with the new website, the letter i looks like it is capitalized even when it's not. Weird font maybe?
Great review. Can't wait to be in the air again in a few months.
How was the legroom? Looks quite cramped (what wouldn't be too surprising, given that it's probably an Economy seat on most flights)
The font is to blame. It’s a very low-contrast font that’s a pain to read on anything except a Retina or AMOLED display or the like. Maybe that’s why the capital letter I has serifs (lines) on the top and bottom to help you distinguish. But otherwise the font is nice, modern and attractive since I’m lucky enough to have a hi-res display.
Yeah I only noticed now reading it on my second screen at the office. I don't have the issue on my phone. Hopefully Lucky will take care of these kind of bugs in the upcoming weeks and months.
4 crew for Club Europe?!? That's insane. There's usually only 1 or 2. They were probably in such a great mood because they were so well staffed.
When holding Emerald status, Can you guest someone in the First lounge and then guest 2 other different people in the Business lounge?
@ Julia -- Nope, you can only get lounge access for one guest. However, since we were all in business class, we all had access to the Galleries Club Lounge.
@ John T -- There were probably technically only two or three, but given the limited service in economy, most of the crew was up in Club Europe within 45 minutes of takeoff. I've never seen an intra-Europe cabin so well staffed.
Thanks for the review Ben, I miss the table that used to clip onto the middle seat, I hope they will reintroduce them at some point.
A great service from the team goes a long way!
I just flew LHR to SFO on Club World. My lounge experience was quite different as there were no seats available for the first 15mins of my visit and was jam packed the whole stay. Did appreciate the QR code food system.
The best improvement on BA from my point of view is the DO&Co. Had great meals on board and a lovely flight attendant. No excuses for the old club world seat they’re still flying with though!!
@Creditcrunch, it's my understanding that most European carriers removed the middle-seat tray/drinks holder several years ago in order to reduce weight and fuel burn, not because of COVID. For this reason I doubt we'll see them make a come-back. Like you, I miss them, especially the ones KLM used to have with deep indentations (not quite cup holders) for beverages.
I wonder if that 787 flight originally scheduled went out with an empty first class.
I was so excited to fly BA's new Club Suite CPT-LHR in 2 weeks but they cancelled the flight! Huge bummer, so I pivoted and will be flying Qatar Qsuites now
For future reference: when flying into ATH if you are sitting port side you can see the old airport runway smack center of the evry densely populated southern suburbs. Probably won't last long since they are redeveloping that area.
The seating in Club Europe and economy looks like AA Oasis seating. At least it was 2-2. Having said that every club Europe flight I've had with BA, seating was 3-3 with the middle seat blocked. Such a shame you misconnected with the 787-9
You can't be sure that you'll be on a 787 on a trans Europe flight, especially when narrowbodies will also be on the route.
Proper glassware, when would our carriers learn. Germs spread whether on glass or plastic.
Ben, +1 for the reference to Pam Ann (she does spell it that way). Have you ever seen her live. A total hoot
Ben - did you also receive ec 261 compensation assuming you arrived 3 hours later than planned?
The Galleries lounge is usually a mess (no pun) and the offering eminently subpar. Nice to see what could be done.
When I flew LHR to Athens in 2016, there was not even an inch of extra legroom. LH also had recently downgrade. Whereas Agean had more space.
Anyone with an economics degree, if all the major US carriers offer more legroom, even in coach, why is it so hard for BA and LH to do same?
For getting hold of champagne in the lounge that's better than pre-Covid (when one had to flag down a member of staff in person)!
That main course looks absolutely atrocious. Though probably pretty par for the course on BA.
Hey. HaHa. And there you are, thinking no-one listens to you, but YOU did, Ben - I'm the crew member who talked about picking up trash and it being glamourous. I remember the flight well. Thanks.
I would love to comment on BA but... They have consistently cancelled my 7 reservations since the beginning of the year without offering any alternative on other airlines 🙂
The absurd amount of waste created by the Covid "super safe wrap everything and then wrap it again" response has to be causing some serious cognitive dissonance on the left. Case in point. A single disinfecting wipe wrapped in a wrapper, then wrapped in a plastic bag many times its size. "TrUsT tHe ScIeNcE!!!" but also "DoN't yOu CArE aBoUt GaIa???"
No way BA were ever going to operate a four class plane for Athens to London. Classic BA bait and switch.
Due to cargo loads, BA routinely (e.g., 1x day, or several times weekly) run widebodies on certain short haul routes from LHR.
@adam it's also the best / cheapest way to keep both pilots and crews up to date on landing and flight hour requirements. They simply bung the thing on the busiest route. MAD has regularly seen a daily wide body during the summer over the years and then they just move them around based on load factor. Before MAD it was ( suddenly can't remember) and going back decades somewhere else.
Totally agree @Ben that BAs crews are what keep me flying with them. I've been pretty lucky on good/ bad crew ratios and had some hilarious SH and LH flights even making actual friends ( as in see/ communicate with them outside of their job/ me flying) with several crew to this day. BA F is probably the most hit n miss. BA expect them to be a bit more stand off ish in F but if you can break those barriers down it's all the better.
Would agree with that talking to CC who 'made the cut' it has generally given them a new / reinvigorated passion for the job. Well at least from my admittedly small sample size.
Lastly on the whole QR/ Wait service thing. While I generally prefer to makey own drink to my own spec the general consensus amongst BA FF is that they think again of they think they're getting rid of it. Service has never been so good. I have to concede that BA will want to stop it but we'll at least raise bloody hell when they do even of it falls on deaf ears.
Never fly BA again. Got me to miami 8 hrs late. Refused to take responsibility. Mess at heathrow unfathomable and endemic. Totally unapologetic. Took cover behind obscure legalities.
Each to their own but the 321 NEO at the pointy end is as you say just seats with middle blocked. It's tight seating...and nothing compared to Aegian who served the route...that is proper Business class in a single aisle aircraft.
I'm glad BA is upping their game with service on intra-Europe routes instead of being "unrepentantly mediocre" like someone had mentioned about Lufthansa's general experience. For the most part, it seems like BA cares about improving things like short-haul catering and WiFi, and is actively doing something about their previous shortcomings, while LH, ruled by a bureaucratic cohort of bean counters, does not care. LH is the worst of both worlds on short-haul flights because their narrowbody planes (especially the A320neo family) are basically Ryanair but with full-service prices. BA was like that a couple of years ago but I can see they are genuinely making an effort to improve the experience for the passenger, especially in areas other than the intra-Europe style seats. I am glad UA is finally showing genuine intentions to head in BA's direction. Meanwhile, LH is a lot like AA.
EDIT - For the last two sentences, I meant to say this [with edited material in brackets]: I am glad UA is finally showing genuine intentions to head in BA's direction [in terms of their short-haul flights]. Meanwhile LH [feels] a lot like AA [, at least with short-haul right now, in terms of wanting to be that ULCC with full-service prices, pretending that their ULCC product is still "premium", generally not caring about doing anything to improve the passenger experience and make them feel like it was worth paying for more than what Spirit/Frontier/Ryanair/Easyjet cost (at least for people solely flying short-haul), and having all of this be highly apparent on their newest short-haul planes].
When flying on third world airlines to distant parts of the world I don’t expect much and then rarely disappointed, but I was shocked to see how British Air has descended to third world status. They lost my luggage twice during my trip from Philadelphia to Nice, France including our baby stroller and car seat. Then once aboard their so called COVID rules descended in a free for all whereby passengers walked freely about the First and Business class cabins without masks complete unchallenged by the stewardesses. After all their promotions about safety British Air’s actions were not following their promises. We will redirect all further travel to United, Swiss Air, Emirates and Cathay Pacific.
When will you realise the difference between First class and Business class. Just because USA has no idea what real first class is, doesnt mean you can call business class first class.
interestingly we had a similar experience LHR-LIS-LHR this month in club europe. great service and v good food and drinks. compared to transatlantic (MIA-LHR-MIA) BA & AA business, where although the seat was far superior on both (new BA 777 config) the service on both AA/BA was nearly non-existent and the food was not edible. Seems they both have decided to cut premium meals on long haul.
This definitely must be a paid review.
My mum traveled on 13th December 2021 and she had a horrible experience.
She is a senior citizen and traveled business class and was made to wait for about 4 hours all by herself at the airport with no help whatsoever. She tried asking the BA officials and nobody helped her out with luggage or anything.
It was only later some kind man with his son helped out.
Frankly. Indian railways can provide you with a much better experience that this piece cap airlines
Just to add we had booked Service 3.
Apparently that's just a hoax...there is no special assistance service.