British Airways Reveals Enhancements: Big Deal?

How about an enhanced club world dining experience? and the abysmal state of First dining? and pushing LHR to reopen its arrivals fast track for those of who can't use the e-gates? Spending 2 hours at LHR immigration twice a month is simply ridiculous

Ben, have you written a post about BA restoring god in short haul eco?

How naïve of me to even hope they were going to install proper business class seats on their A320 family

I see no mention of upping their long haul J meal service. A single tray service with measly portions is simply unacceptable for a day time long haul J flight, especially when the second meal service consists of either a piece of toast with cheese on it or 2 tea “sandwiches” the size of my index finger. Fact is BA has probably the worst long haul J catering amongtst their JV partners, which is saying something since that means AA and IB are doing laps around BA in regards to long haul J catering. On the other hand, I’ve had pretty great and friendly crew on all my BA post-COVID flights in J, while AA crew members have been…well…AA crew members, lol. Point is, this is a good start, but you can’t be a premium airline when you’re unable to provide the premium soft product to your premium customers!

@Ray all EU carriers offer the same 2 abreast or middle seat blocked matching Y seat ( bar sometimes some nicer trim).

It's how SH J works and always have. It's not BA alone that throw everybody on a, sometimes, cosmetically 'enhanced' seat and either give them a shared table ( BA apart from the 21neos most the time) or 2x2

Again not BA's fault. That's down to the predominantly work shy Border Farce, at a stretch the LHR itself. Also take the 2hours. Yes it sucks and isn't acceptable but I've waited 4,5,6 more times than I care to remember.

For the sake of clarity: I'm not fanboying the airline here. I have many issues with them at times but it's also unfair to go blaming them for things totally outside their control.

I concur with Rob. It’s high time BA realises its cuts to the long haul Club World catering have crippled the experience in the name of COVID safety theatre.

They must restore pre pandemic catering straight away. There is no compromising on this point.

You have come to their defense twice so far in this thread. You are most certainly a fan boy. BA is $hit.

The cuts are mainly to do with the fact there is very little revenue. Asia is more or less closed for business. It’s a difficult situation for the industry.
If you consider retail, there’s a designer outlet in Italy where around 50% of customers were from China. Those customers had to fly. Many in premium cabins. Now there are almost no flights to/from China. A huge knock on affect

AA has done laps around BA in J for many years now since they rolled out industry standard J class seats that are 1-2-1. Coupled with actually decent food and serviceable wine / alcohol, the AA J product has actually been pretty good across the Atlantic for a long time.

BA pre pandemic was doing the right things - Do&Co, club suites. For their sake hope they don’t leverage covid to undo some of the good changes they were making.

Why an Indian passport holder cannot board BA flight from New Delhi to New York

I mostly travel to Greece and I always use Aegean. I only use BA if there is no alternative. Cabin Attendants on Aegean don't look like Barbie Dolls and don't sneer at you if you are not wearing a suit. In business class the food and drink are superb. In Aegean I feel welcome, relaxed and safe. But BA makes me feel on edge. BA business class LCY - TXL on a very hot day. We are delayed for nearly and hour. The attendant hides away and doesn't even think of offering us water when the pilot has told us we won't take off for 30 minutes.

I'm kind of surprised that BA is just introducing plant-based options in its lounges, as the UK has fairly high percentages of vegetarians and vegans.

I feel like Virgin Atlantic realized the importance of this market segment years ago.

I like how your picture that mentions a vegan burger has cheese on it. Perhaps it's vegan cheese.

Because there is no flight from New Delhi to New York!

Clayton is right though. Only knock any company for what is under their control. Poor catering, customer service, measly portions and sub standard lounges are all fair criticism. Border force and HAL are a law unto themselves and seem hell bent on making passengers miserable but that is the same no matter who you choose at LHR. If I have a lousy experience at passport control in Dubai it's not the responsibility of Emirates for my dissatisfaction.

BA lounges have offered an impossible burger since the Galleries / First / Concorde lounges re-opened.

Also, I do not agree that BA have a reputation for below average service. We fly BA long haul frequently, and always have a great experience.

This website seems to thrive on hyperbola.

I don't get why you are always mentioning the bad service culture at ba.
At every single flight in c, no matter long or short haul, we had a great service experience.

The differences between flights have been much bigger at qatar.

British Airway needs to improve on their service between Heathrow and Lagos. The reputation on how the service on this route is being delivered according to passengers needs improvement.

I find it absurd that BA charges for Business Class seat reservations. We are already paying a large premium for an upgrade from Economy. Simply a money grubbing low class policy .

The solution to limited revenue is rarely to force even the remaining customers to choose another airline.

My response is a quite thorough 'meh'. Entirely agreed BA's most urgent need is upgrading its antiquated Club World cabins with the 2-3-2 arrangement. I do still love The Concorde Room, but since I fly business more often than first, would much prefer a focus on cabin upgrades.

Agreed, and that's on top of the already outrageous landing fees required at LHR.

Flew BA Club Suites on A350 LHR / DXB last month. Food onboard was good as was the service. I’m not a fan of plant based foods, just my opinion. Can’t help but think it might be a cost savings and marketing benefit.

BA needs to actually ask their customers what they would like to see changed, then they would get a better idea of what to do. I’ve recently written to Sean Doyle CEO but customer relations would not forward the letter of complaint to him stating they were authorized to deal with it on his behalf. I told them he should read it and see exactly what his seat paying customers were dealing with.

BA will never have the service culture of the Asian airlines for 2 reasons:

1. Service in Asia involves a degree of subservience which the British, Europeans and Americans don't share.
2. BA staff thrive on 'being themselves' which 70% of the time means they're interesting and engaging with customers and 30% of the time rude, moody and don't want to be there.

The above will never change and BA know this. So do most other western carriers.

That's not completely true. Turkish offer a regional J that's more akin to N.American "First," and they're a European carrier (take that up with ICAO, not me, if you pointlessly disagree).

As did BA itself, for a long while, considering the seats on BMed.

Ain't nothing "premium" about charging paid-J longhaul customers HUNDREDS of USD/GBP just to pick seats.

I mean it's something from an airline who's literally a bus in the sky, and fares are rediculous when you add in all the taxes. Trying to get a mile redemption or upgrade is almost the price of a ticket on other airlines when you factor the taxes as well. So yeah, I guess it's progress...

None of these upgrades will convince me to fly BA.

Meh

Introducing a veggie burger at a time when customer service is hemoraging is like giving a man with a severed leg a lolly pop to suck on while he dies. Focus, keep the main thing the main thing.

Flew Club World LHR-LAX last week and it does not match up to Virgin. As for vegan options, the Brits are like drunks on vegan food right now, to the point that it's become annoying. WTF is "plant-based tuna"‽