BA Business Class Review

[davidge]

^^^^^^

I meant Frequent Flyers. Highest tier members can choose early for free.

[Shaksey]

15 hours ago, dontpanic said:

Not business class but  I went premium economy with them in June and it was no way worth the 1100 euro. Flight over was fine as the pe cabin was half full so plenty of room. The ife was ancient, far better screen quality on your average phone, the plane seemed old too.

Flight back was delayed a couple of hours, had no problem checking in though, only one spare seat going back so it felt quite confined. Service was poor enough, taking a long time to clear away food trays.

Overall it felt very basic and cheap, light years away from the BA of old. I will be expecting a far better of Cathay Pacific PE in September.

Yeah the PE on the old planes they use for LHR-BKK is the old first gen cabin and seats. I think the 6  planes used on the route are the only ones in the BA LH fleet now that don't have the new PE which is lightyears better. 

[Shaksey]

5 hours ago, davidge said:

^^^^^^

I meant Frequent Flyers. Highest tier members can choose early for free.

Yeah BA Silver and Gold can choose at time of booking, Bronze can choose a week before flight.

[davidge]

15 hours ago, dontpanic said:

The ife was ancient, far better screen quality on your average phone, the plane seemed old too.

 

Checking the plane reg, they seem to have 777-200’s on the LHR-BKK route that are about 10 years old. I agree, though, that it felt older and outdated. Given how the company is run, they probably went for cheap options when buying then haven’t really maintained them properly.

They have placed orders for new planes, and are changing the Biz seating to a more up-to-date layout for the new planes - and retrofitting some older ones. It will be a few years before they have many in service though, by which time other airlines will probably have moved on again.

[Shaksey]

New BA Business Class Club Suites are going to be fitted to the 777-200 fleet according to the BA Exec Club monthly magazine thingy.

Which is nice. I am dubious though that they will put it on the specific old aircraft used on the BKK route as they must be near end of life now.

https://onemileatatime.com/british-airways-club-suite

 

[Shaksey]

15 minutes ago, davidge said:

Checking the plane reg, they seem to have 777-200’s on the LHR-BKK route that are about 10 years old. I agree, though, that it felt older and outdated. Given how the company is run, they probably went for cheap options when buying then haven’t really maintained them properly.

They have placed orders for new planes, and are changing the Biz seating to a more up-to-date layout for the new planes - and retrofitting some older ones. It will be a few years before they have many in service though, by which time other airlines will probably have moved on again.

They're nearly 20 years old now, still with original cabins and IFE! 

[Somchai1]

16 minutes ago, davidge said:

Checking the plane reg, they seem to have 777-200’s on the LHR-BKK route that are about 10 years old. I agree, though, that it felt older and outdated. Given how the company is run, they probably went for cheap options when buying then haven’t really maintained them properly.

They have placed orders for new planes, and are changing the Biz seating to a more up-to-date layout for the new planes - and retrofitting some older ones. It will be a few years before they have many in service though, by which time other airlines will probably have moved on again.

Can I be vulgar and ask how much the BA horror show cost you ?

[davidge]

52 minutes ago, Somchai1 said:

Can I be vulgar and ask how much the BA horror show cost you ?

They had a sale for a few days so I paid £1500. Only reason I booked them. I MUCH prefer direct and Eva at the time were £2200 and Thai even higher - though Thai tend to offer fares later than others so I could ‘probably’ have got them for around £1950 if I’d waited.

Edit: I did send BA a copy of my review and they want to speak to me. I’ve told them to call me after I get home. Don’t expect anything to come of it though.

[davidge]

1 hour ago, Shaksey said:

They're nearly 20 years old now, still with original cabins and IFE! 

They do use different planes each day on this route (or at least rotate a few). The one I was on was 10 years old (as is the BA10 currently airborne). The one listed for BA9 today is nearly 20 years old.

[Somchai1]

12 hours ago, davidge said:

They had a sale for a few days so I paid £1500. Only reason I booked them. I MUCH prefer direct and Eva at the time were £2200 and Thai even higher - though Thai tend to offer fares later than others so I could ‘probably’ have got them for around £1950 if I’d waited.

Edit: I did send BA a copy of my review and they want to speak to me. I’ve told them to call me after I get home. Don’t expect anything to come of it though.

Thx.......I flew to BKK with Etihad on business in late April for £1500 , must have been a special deal  both legs between London and Abu Dhabi was on the new A380 which was great, I was impressed with the service throughout, food was very good. I have had issues before with BA and if your a frequent flyer they tend to give Avios as a compensation, your story with them was particularly bad. I think seat choice and free WiFi should be standard

[neilri2001]

I'm fairly certain that BA have been using the older three class 777 - 200's on the BKK route for a number of years now. I will fly Business class with them but only if using Avios / upgrade voucher or if they have a decent sale on. I have a silver membership so can choose seats at the time of booking but i certainly wouldn't pay extra for this. With regard to the lounges at Heathrow if your flight departs from terminal three rather than five ( not much help for BKK i know ) use the Cathay or Quantas lounges as they are both significantly better than the BA one.

Thanks for the review by the way. I almost always appreciate Flight and hotel reviews

[dontpanic]

I really didn't like the backward facing businesd class seats, just seemed weird and less privacy.

[thinkingallowed]

British Airways have announced their new business class seats which will be known as Club Suites. Basically they are very similar to Qatar's herringbone set out super diamond seats with the upgrade that they will have doors on to give privacy.

One of the reasons for the choice of seats is that they will fit the whole of BA's long haul fleet giving uniformity. I'm a big fan of Qatar but not impressed by having four different seat types on my last trip in April.  Actually before getting to finish and post this I've just done a trip to Bangkok with Qatar again. Stockholm to Doha not bad but Doha to Bangkok was supposed to be Qsuites on an A350 but changed at the last minute to an A340 with these seats...

...and I was most unimpressed. I fly business class for privacy and that isn't it. Trying to sleep next to another man and climbing over him from my window seat was not my idea of fun.

I was asked if I'd enjoyed my journey by the CSM on board and I said that the staff and service was fine but I didn't think I'd be booking Qatar again because of the seats on this aircraft and didn't want to risk them again.

Video of BA Club Suites 

https://youtu.be/vQ9XUNnvkvg

 

[Luv2Phuket]

Gonna be a HUGE improvement over the crappy head-to-toe layout they currently have.  I took an absurdly long layover (instead of just a long layover) so that I could fly AA metal back to LAX from London last year.

[neilri2001]

This morning BA announced which 777 routes are going to have the refurbished club world suites and surprise surprise Bangkok is not on the list ( African and middle eastern routes seem to be well represented ). It's not all god news though especially if you choose not to fly up front as the refurbished planes will be 3 -4 - 3 across in economy

[Shaksey]

13 hours ago, neilri2001 said:

This morning BA announced which 777 routes are going to have the refurbished club world suites and surprise surprise Bangkok is not on the list ( African and middle eastern routes seem to be well represented ). It's not all god news though especially if you choose not to fly up front as the refurbished planes will be 3 -4 - 3 across in economy

That's only the first couple of aircraft. They've got about 60 777's.

[thinkingallowed]

13 hours ago, neilri2001 said:

This morning BA announced which 777 routes are going to have the refurbished club world suites and surprise surprise Bangkok is not on the list ( African and middle eastern routes seem to be well represented ). It's not all god news though especially if you choose not to fly up front as the refurbished planes will be 3 -4 - 3 across in economy

They announced which will be first. 

The plan is that the whole long haul fleet will be done. 

[thinkingallowed]

On 20/07/2019 at 00:40, davidge said:

With BA you have to pay to choose a seat in Business before check-in regardless of fare type or who you book with - I booked direct with BA. Only the top tier of FF get to choose after booking and the next tier down a week before the flight.

Silver BAEC gets you free seat selection at time of booking and bronze seven days before and these levels are not hard to get. 

 

[davidge]

Return Leg:

At online check-in I’d been allocated the same seat for the return journey as I chose for the outward one. There were no other seats showing as available so I couldn’t change it anyway. No option to print Boarding Pass just collect at airport.

BA check-in is at the G desks which are close to Door 4. It was friendly, quick and easy. Good staff. A short stroll to Fasttrack which was quite busy but I was through in under 15 minutes.

It’s then a fair walk to the Cathay Pacific Lounge which is at the beginning of the G gates. BA flight was from an E gate which is maybe a 10 minute walk from the Lounge.

The Lounge was calm and comfortable. The washrooms were showing their age and I didn’t see any shower facilities. Very limited food options initially. There was some cold meat, cheese and salad, some fruit, yoghurt and cold croissants & pastries. This then changed to a couple of different salads and mushroom sandwich (a first for me). The Noodle Bar also opened with a selection of freshly cooked dishes. Usual selection of hot & cold drinks. Good WiFi and friendly staff.

Boarding was on time and easy. We pushed back more or less on time and ended up landing a little early.

Cabin crew weren’t as good as the outward flight but were pretty good. They were clearly fairly rushed - really didn’t seem to be enough staff for the Biz cabin.

Food was actually good on this flight. Choice of 4 starters, 3 mains and 4 desserts for main meal and then a light meal before landing with just 2 options for starter and main and fruit for dessert. They left the second meal service a little late and were rushing to clear away before landing. I wasn’t offered tea or coffee after either meal.

Obviously, the same lousy seating arrangement and uncomfortable seat as on the flight out. The IFE was working this time although several screens, including mine, had to be reset during the flight. There was a pretty limited choice of movies and the screen is too small and low quality to watch properly anyway.

We parked at a C gate at Terminal 5. There was a long walk from the gate until i reached escalators/lifts to go down 2 floors to get the train to Arrivals. Waited about 10 minutes for the train - an empty one left just as I got there. Then it’s back up 2 escalators to Immigration. Mainly electronic gates for passport control. No real queues and through in 5 minutes. Then another fair walk and a floor down to baggage reclaim. Took about 20 minutes for bags to arrive. 

Got pulled at Customs. Asked about cigarettes, alcohol and other ‘shopping’ then let me go without opening suitcases.

I’ll stick to my conclusion and rankings after the first leg. Unlikely to use BA again unless they are ridiculously cheap - or they offer me a freebie after Customer Service phones me tomorrow to discuss the lousy review I put on Trip Advisor after my outward flight.