Hello from London, as I’ve kicked off my review trip to Hong Kong. I just flew British Airways’ Boeing 777-200ER Club Suites business class, on the 6hr15min flight from Washington (IAD) to London (LHR).
Continue reading: British Airways 777 Club Suites Business Class: Pretty Good!
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Flew their Club Suite over the weekend on a B787-10 and B777-300, both had more modern IFE versions which was very reponsive and more user friendly. A vast improvement on their previous Club offering!
Regarding the breakfast option, a light or a continental option would be nice. Something like overnight oats, some breads, cold cuts, etc., with a side of fruit would be nice. A bacon and cheddar sandwich is just too heavy and greasy for me, especially after a long flight.
Biggest Club Suites issue is the cabin temperature. I had to leave to door open to make it bearable when trying to sleep.
After traveling various premium cabins a bit (thanks in part to you, Lucky!), I've come to appreciate a COMFORTABLE seat. Especially one which is comfy in bed mode. I've found the BA club seat to fit that bill. I think it's because they use foam padding. I think that's why I also find AA J very comfortable, especially the Zodiac Concept D that AA stopped installing. It's just so soft and comfy in bed mode...and you do not even need a mattress pad! UA J seat is great too!
I really wish airlines paid attention to the type of seat padding they choose. It really affects the comfort of the seat. Just look at AC, their air bag padding is atrocious. Similar to the padding the LH group uses on their long haul planes (not referring to the 787 since I have not tried it).
On the 4 Class 772s with Club Suites, as shown here, BA decided to retain the older (~2010) Thales IFE. All other aircraft types with Club Suites (including the 3 Class 772s) have a much newer and more responsive Panasonic system.
CS is great. As much as I dislike BA due to all the stress with plane swaps, if you do land CS you're in for a good time. And at this point pretty much all non-Gatwick 777s have CS anyway... so it's getting better with time.
Personally, I prefer the center aisle inward-facing seats on VS versus outward-facing on BA, although my partner and I typically grab window seats anyway... you're not that far away from each other and having a window can't be overstated.
That might depend heavily on the cabin crew's preferences? My last BA flight was fairly pleasant climate-wise... although in general I certainly agree that air nozzles should be standard.
"perhaps aside from the new Air France 777 or A350 business class, it’s probably the best European business class product that’s widely available."
Ben, I don't mean to nit-pick but would you really take BA CS over VS A330/A350 business class? I realize Virgin have considerably more dated 787s in their fleet than we would all like, but at least all those 787-operated routes are highly predictable. You should have a very good idea what you're getting at time of booking.
Well, I am also a BA hater (though not a fan of that term). BA is on my "never-ever-again" list as they moved my seat without any warning and was lucky to see the change 5 days prior to departure. I actually feel sorry for BA. Yes, I will get over it and have as there are so many options to cross Atlantic.
I swear a few years back I flew First in a GE powered 772 with the Panasonic IFE. I distinctly remember the Panasonic logo, how responsive it was, and that I was in First since I never flew CW in a 772. I also know for sure that it wasn’t a 77W
As a frequent Polaris flyer, I will say the meal service on BA is night and day compared to United on international. Must have been a one off. Just flew LAX - LHR. The food was exceptional.
It might have been you were on one of the few ex-Gatwick 772s now based out of Heathrow. (Or were you flying out of Gatwick?)
The Gatwick based 4 Class 772s were refurbished around 2019. This included replacing the ancient Rockwell Collins IFE with Panasonic. 3 of these aircraft (G-VIIV, G-VIIW, and G-VIIY) were moved to Heathrow after being in storage during the pandemic. Only now are these 3 aircraft finally getting Club Suites.
Yes, not all outstations cater Do & Co, and the quality is widely disparate. Flew from SFO-LHR and the food was nearly inedible. Return on AA metal to JFK was borderline tasty. How the tables have turned. But the Do & Co meals out of JFK and LHR are usually very good.
dnata are the catering company out of IAD and probably the same in other us departure airports. In regards to your breakfast they do have the fresh fruit platter as the other option to the bacon option.
Are you listening, Lufthansa?
Oh, even if you listened, the processes for considering, implementing change…and getting regulatory approval…is too long to be relevant for your potential passengers!
Review is very similar to my own experience in Club Suites. Crew generally great and seat comfortable and good for sleeping. In my experience, food is always vastly nicer heading out from UK than the return flight from the USA. My niggles are mainly in relation to the thin ‘mattress’ (as Lucky pointed out), which is so thin I’d call it more like a blanket and weirdly is also a difference shape to the seat.
For the price, BA club suites are perfectly fine and the hard product in my opinion is better than the Emirates A380 we saw reviewed recently here. Emirates too have their own consistent inconsistencies - as yes, you might be able to bag a ‘true’ window business class seat, but the rest leave you right on the aisle. BA Club suites provide a consistently better hard product for all customers.
I believe there are a few 772s that had the seats removed during covid for cargo use, and when they returned them to passenger configuration they updated the IFE
Pigs are very smart, Ben loves them and as such, he refuses to partake in atrocities the rest of us engage in 😀
I find it noteworthy that BA served Balik salmon in business class. For Swiss, it is the signature First Class appetizer.
I few the Club Suites out of LHR last summer and was very pleased; the crew and catering were great too! Unfortunately, few award seats are released to AA these days.
I flew business class SAN-LHR and found the meals to bland and boring. The service was almost non existent, not once was my drink refreshed unless performing the next service. It was like flying coach with lie flat seats.
I thoroughly enjoyed my flight a couple weeks ago LHR-BOS in Club Suites. Seats were surprisingly comfortable, especially in lie-flat position. Service was quality, food was above par. Now, if they could add this product to SIN-LHR long-haul that could be a game-changer. Currently, and shamefully, its a very old business product.
Just in regards to a couple points made about the catering:
- Catering by Do&Co.
On longhaul flights catering is not return loaded from London. Do&Co load it for the LHR-XXX sector and whatever local caterer in XXX produced and loads it for the XXX-LHR sector. Obviously, if there is a Do&Co catering facility at a certain airport BA will use them (eg JFK) but the majority of outstations do not have Do&Co
- Quality of mains. Many airlines 'plate' business class meals in the galley, others simply reheat the already assembled meal in the casserole dish it is loaded in. BA is of the latter. I guess mainly due to the enormous size of some of their business class cabins where individually plating 70/80 meals would be a nightmare.
They seen it, announced a plan to improve (for which they’ll receive a startrax 9 star rating) and it should roll out to 1 route in the year 2146.
My experience exactly ‘Quacker’, thank you for sharing that with us …. American BA haters please note …. only winding you up folks.
Absolutely Roberto, toys thrown out of the pram in a fit of peek moment perhaps?
Come on Rob, if all airline passengers became "never-ever-again" listers because of such trivia we would never fly again.
My two ‘pond hopping’ flights since Christmas have been between LHR to DEN and IAD. Both Club with the only difference being the aircraft type. In my opinion Ben’s flight experience on the 777 echoes mine, right down to the fishy bits. However, I believe it to be Ben’s loss to miss out on the ‘bacon butty’, however, everyone to their own.
Thank you for a very fair critique Ben, perhaps you might think about trying the BA A350 as a comparison sometime?
You may not eat pork products, since you find pigs intelligent, or endearing, or something, and it's fair enough. However, be aware they "like" you back too, in a way.
The phenomenon of live humans being eaten by pigs (mostly in farm-related accidents) is not unheard of...
I'd like to give BA a try again in biz. But paying a business fare and then having to pay for advance seat selection keeps me away.
I have never seen it served on BA in Club World in 20 years, so it’s clearly not a frequent occurrence.
Although I will say the starters for the last 5 years have generally been the best bit - the mains vary from a plate of slop to a rare interesting or comfort dish (usually curry).
You're always gonna have trouble lifting a body in one piece. I hear the thing to do is cut the corpse into six pieces and pile them all together. Then I hear the thing to do is feed them to pigs.
First Trump says he wants to turn Gaza into a theme park, and then Ben writes a positive British Airways review. What the hell is this timeline we're living in?
I feel like crews have been getting inconsistently more consistent on BA. I've not had a terrible crew for a couple of years now, across longhaul and shorthaul. I had one of the best ever about 18 months ago, my wife and I in PE to Singapore on Gold status. The crew were going out of their way to help everybody, including elderly passengers etc. And then did things like saying to me 'just head up to club suites and use the club kitchen for some wine if you want' - amazing. My wife called it the best flight of her life! But let's pretend she's flown as much J as me :/
The information is incorrect, Ben. None of the 12 777-200s based in LGW have the new product. These still fly with the old Club World seats (and there are plans to change that in the followings years).
i recently flew Iberia's new seat on the a350 from MAD to EZE and I think they may now be among the top European carriers? The cabin looked sterile at first but the seats were super private, the bedding was excellent (especially the mattress pad), and the food was on par with if not better than Air France among the european carriers. Worth a try!
This is the problem with BA crew, they are inconsistent - and you really are at the mercy of luck of the draw. Also Do&Co catering at BA has always been all fur coat and no knickers to use a distinctly British phrase - because BA just wanted the prestige of the name, but weren't willing to spend the money Austrian or Turkish do to deliver the expected Do&Co high standard.
whatever it is, this wave is carrying us so we might as well ride it
Their new seats look really nice. I kinda wish they'd doll up all ther -200s so I can take it for a spin from TPA to London
Just flew BWI-LHR RT on BA in J and the food BWI-LHR was seriously one of the best meals I have ever had on a plane and would happily have eaten it on the ground. Much better than the F slop I got ex-JNB 5 years ago
Right but none of those travel to the US (unless you are referring to *rare* utilization at LHR when another plane is in the shop, but honestly that doesn't happen very often).
Nope, it's just a pain to log in when I'm accessing from an "in-app browser" within an RSS reader app, which is mostly how I consume OMAAT. Simply being able to post my comment without clicking on an advertisement is an accomplishment lol.
Salmon is served on LAX departures -- it's pretty good too. One of very few areas I'll give the nod to BA over VS.
I may have missed it but didn’t see a flight number or times in this review.
Bearing in mind BA recently scaled back catering, including on the short overnight Atlantic hops, maybe you got a limited hot breakfast selection due to that?
I understand after the same (invented ?) ‘customer feedback’ that prompted the cutbacks, BA has now restored the service.
But I guess the Full English I always enjoyed on BA would also not please those who don’t eat pork.
Really??
BA fares are usually far less than the competition and usually by far more than the cost of a seat round trip…
My best analogy for your issue is : it’s like saying I’d rather have 3 bars of chocolate because adding 2 + 2 bars of chocolate is a pain for me to do.
I mean, I get it out of principal… I’m not a fan of the $120 fee either… but I find BA fares to be at least $1000 less than most others usually… especially the US carriers. Seat fee policy protesting can only go so far with those savings imo 🙂
Have flown Club Suites 7 times yyz - lhr return since their introduction on this route and the experience has always been very good - it's a great hard product. While I prefer the A350 for obvious reasons last month we had a 777 and it was better than anticipated. As for catering, like many airlines BA's apps are often the highlight of the meal and I frankly don't prioritize food on such a relatively short flight. Ironically, on our (business class) hops from London to Edinburgh we were served the best (cold) roast beef I've had in some time and a very nice champagne by a crew that were a delight.
Although he still does, by ordering the pork food just to take a photo and throw it in the bin…
Disgusting that he doesn’t see the problem with wasting food, or torturing and killing other cute animals
Agreed that the appetizers are the best part of the meal. I usually ask for two apps instead of an entree and have never had an issue until my last flight. I was told I could only pick one. Which we all know is a bunch of BS. The service is consistently….inconsistent. I have experienced some of the nicest and rudest people. Service is 100% at their whim (having to chase someone down for more water, or a drink, ringing the attendant button with no response at all. Which is not a good look. It would be lovely to have consistent friendly service.
They are not comfortable. The seat is too low - 18" off the ground, max, which drops once you try to recline. The seat has no padding for one's butt. The seat is too short - 19"
There is no seat level storage beyond a card holder
Unable to RECLINE seat back independently of moving entire chair,
UNABLE to RAISE footrest unless part of lie flat.
These are the worst business class seats I have experienced in a long time, and will be returning to American for my transatlantic.