Review: New York JFK to London City on British Airways Club World London City

Welcome back and thanks for the trip report. I was checking your site every half hour at work today to see whether you had posted it yet. 🙂 As always the report is great but I do have a couple of questions.

1. Was the male purser's name really "Olivia"? It kept throwing me off as I've only heard of it for females.
2. I was just wondering why you chose the last row, as it is right in front of the galley. I imagine it must have been quite noisy. Are the lavatories aft?

Thanks again. Your reports are always super.

Thanks Despina! As far as the purser's name goes, it threw me off as well. When he introduced himself and said "Olivia," I asked "Olivio?" He said "No, Olivia." So I'm pretty sure that was his name. Maybe I misunderstood him.

As far as why I chose the last row goes, I was hoping for an empty seat next to me and I assumed I'd have the best shot at that in the last row. I also wanted to select the least desirable seat (theoretically) so that I could observe whether there's any service difference. After all, I was the last to be served, yet everything was super-fast. There's one aft lavatory and two forward lavatories, but thanks to the small plane and most people sleeping, that really wasn't an issue. While there's a galley there, the curtains are thick and the flight attendants were extremely professional, so they weren't talking loudly disturbing passengers.

Could it have been "Oliver" pronounced "Olivia"? Would be especially possible if he was French as opposed to a Brit residing in France.

I am eagerly awaiting to read you impressions of London.

Thanks for posting.

You're right, Despina, I think I'm an idiot. After doing some research I think I'll go with "Olivier" (not to be confused with blog reader Oliver). That's my final answer. 😀

Thx for the trip report, did you rewrite the entire report after your computer crashed? 🙂

Will you upload the pics on flickr? I try to look for the larger version of the pics on your flickr account but it seems you didnt upload any of them.

cool report, has BA released any award inventory for the flights or is it paid only?

How would you compare this with the LH all-biz product to Düsseldorf?

@ caelus -- Yep, rewrote that part all after my computer crashed. Might take me an extra couple of days to get the rest of the report up, between writing it, uploading the pictures, resizing them, and placing them into the post. Bleh!

Haven't had a chance to upload the pictures to my Flickr account yet, but it's coming eventually.

@ sam-- I don't believe they allow awards on this flight yet, but I might be mistaken.

@ Joe -- Based on my experience EWR-DUS, this product is far superior for one reason alone -- flat beds! While I liked PrivatAir (it's awesome to fly such a small plane), they had some of the most uncomfortable business class seats. Nowadays a flat bed should be a basic minimum requirement for a business class product, in my opinion. The service, food, and entertainment were similar on both.

Great review.

I'll be the second and say I am not a fan of of bacon or the BA bacon sandwiches.

I broke the heart of one BA FA on one flight when I wouldn't have the bacon sandwich. She was was like who says no to a BA bacon sandwich.

LOL about the PrivatAir comment. I was on it a couple of years ago and the flight was half full. It'll never hold a candle to your experience, but it's nice to have a small plane that's half full.

I remember looking forward to my first flat business seat on PrivatAir. I didn't realize it was going to be at an angle. I just remember waking up and having had the strangest dreams. I dreamt that I was wearing underwear that was too small. Later I realized that since the seat was at an angle, as I slid down the 'bed', my underwear did seem to get tighter.

Liked the video but I am wondering how you were able to use the video camera during the final phase of flight and landing? The flight attendants (at least in the USA) are usually diligent about patrolling the aisle to ensure everybody turns off their computer, ipods, etc. prior to landing. Maybe BA does not enforce the rule??

I'm not sure if the landing was hard or simply firm? The clattering from the galley made it seem worse than it is. It didn't look too bad for LCY.

Re: speed brake usage on approach, this is a unique function of the steep-approach enabled A318. Pressing the steep approach 'button' (I'm sure there's more to it than that) deploys the speed brakes until the flare to keep the aircraft speed down. It's the Airbus equivalent of the airframe-mounted air brake on the BAe 146 / Avro RJ....

@ Kevin -- Happy to hear I'm not the only one!

@ Blandon -- ROFL! 😀

@ ordfreqflyer -- I'm not sure which US airlines you're flying, but it's rare for me to be on a US airline where flight attendants actually require passengers to take off their Bose headsets. When I took the video the flight attendants were already strapped into their seats for landing.

@ Andrew -- Don't get me wrong, the landing wasn't that bad, but it was the roughest I've had this year (out of over 200 segments, but they have been exceptionally uneventful). Very interesting info about the speed brakes, thanks.

LCY is one of the most challenging airfields in the world, so it's not suprising. Did you see the video of the Swiss Avro? Now THAT is a landing there...

'Breakfast to go' before landing is such a great idea! Thanks for such a detailed review. 🙂

Post the rest of the trip!

Post the rest of the trip!

And do tell, BA comped the tickets, but did they let you earn miles???

@ Gary -- I promise it's coming! Have been *very* busy this past week and just finished uploading all the pictures to the blog, so now all I have to do is write the rest of the report (although I have already written a decent amount of the text). Hopefully it'll continue with an installment a day starting tomorrow.

As far as the miles go, I did add my Executive Club number to the reservation and while the flights posted in my summary, I wasn't awarded any miles. I think I'll find a way to deal with it. 😀

Just a question up front, I heard some rumours about the stopover, could you confirm for me that Immigration is done in Shannon?

@ Simon -- That's correct. You essentially arrive in the US as a domestic passenger.

Thanks for the trip report.... a few observations about the trip... Mentioning that it was the best service, and polished had me relieved. A ticket that has a cost of $2-$4k, and only 17 passengers for an entire flight crew, with limited meal services, I am glad to see that the service was top notch. If I had heard any otherwise I would be disheartened by this class of service, reduced work load, high cost, if it equated to mediocre. Glad to see they also put positive people on the flight, versus the normal ones that the majority of the pax interact with. Thanks again for the trip report.

@Sam: there IS some limited award space available on BA001-BA004.

Breakfast to go is such a convenient feature. A few years ago, when I used to do more short, overnight flights, like East bound transcon or trans-Atlantic than I do these days, I was sometimes given coffee in a foam cup and a muffin in a napkin to consume during landing which allowed me a few minutes more sleep. Other times, I have been given breakfast breads and Coke to take with me.

This is such a wonderful trip report. Thank you so much for it! It kept me looking forward to the trip on BA004 last week and everything turned out the same way as it did for you. Excellent service, great seats, I was even able to sleep for almost five hours - all in all just my eastbound ride of a lifetime across the pond! Will be back on BA001-004 in May!

2009 I fly from NYC JFK to London, in British Airways, I was a transit passanger it was so great. I so sorry for my English it is not that good but, I'm happy, I'm citizen of Uzbekistan and I porude of my country!

I liked your cabin-view photos, and was interested in you comment that while the cabin was small, it felt spacious.
Did you think that the narrow aisle was a problem?

Perhaps the name was the French one: Olivier (pronounced: 0-liv-i-ay)?

Great review Lucky.

It is also worth mentioning that this service is even better when operating the other way round (LCY-JFK).

As you are American, you won't have experienced the two hour immigration queues all non Americans have to undergo upon entering the USA. The only way to dodge this is by going through a preclearance facility in Ireland or Canada. This flight when flying LCY-JFK stops for half an hour in Shannon, during which you get off the plane, it refuels, you go through US immigration and then get back on the plane!