MrArkadin

Checking-in on A3601 a few of days ago, I was very surprised to find that even 48h before the flight, there was no availability for rows up to 15.

When I boarded the plane I realised that the problem wasn't with people checking-in faster than you can type aegeanair.com but that business class extented as far as row 12!

Is this common? What was the longest business you ever flew with A3?

DELLAS

Most likely full of BA refugees.

NWIFlyer

There might well be a degree of truth behind the smiley, although Y is where A3 could really hurt BA with the disparity between the food offerings.

BA has closed its lounge, downgraded its service across the cabins, and to most observers looks wholly unattractive against A3.

Now, corporate contracts and the FFP will hold people for a while, but BA regularly sees Club Europe extend back beyond the emergency exit row on many routes, and ATH is certainly a very popular one.

Knobbgb

The largest C class I've seen on A3 is 7 rows - on my recent flight ATH-LHR in January. I'm surprised it ever goes as far as 12 rows. How many of those seats were actually occupied?

Funnily enough on my flight I was looking at the rows towards the back of C class (6 and 7) before most people had boarded. I was checking out the legroom as there have been discussions on here about just how far back the extra pitch rows go. The FA asked me if everything was OK - I think she wondered what I was up to. We had a brief discussion and she explained that 7 rows is the maximum for business class (she was obviously mistaken). I can confirm that row 7 on the A321 (at least the one that I was on) has the extra legroom but row 8 (the last one before the emergency exit has noticeably less, but still more than the rows behind the exit. Also Row 8 does not have the centre seat tables that fold down when used as C and, I assume, no recline due to the exits directly behind.

Interestingly, on my flight, out of a total of 28 seats, only 16 were occupied and row 7 was totally empty. I noticed that economy wasn't totally full (maybe 85% at a guess) so I assume they just extended C speculatively.

I'd be pretty annoyed if I was in business class and sat back in a regular economy seat with tight legroom and no side-table. Was your flight An A321 or A320?

Arrivals

I've had this a few times on the morning flight ATH-FRA (A321). Sometimes it gets crowded... I think it was also up to row 12.

DELLAS

Interesting review :


"learn from other airlines"

M Daoudi (United Kingdom) 7th February 2017

✅ Verified Review |

My mother who is 79 years old who is not too well and myself, booked business class tickets on BA676 to Istanbul on 7th Jan 2017 and requested disabled person assistance for my Mother. The flight got cancelled due to bad weather at IST, this is understood, but when we tried to reschedule the flight, we faced a mess and nightmare with the staff who did not know how or what they should do as Istanbul airport was shut due to snow. We nearly got rebooked on a flight to Munich which we refused as BA ticketing agent did not know that the Turkish incoming flight to Munich was cancelled - I had to show her where to look on the web before making us travel to Munich where we would have got stranded. In total we were stranded at Heathrow for 15 hours and managed after that to fly to Istanbul via Athens on Aegean Airlines at 22:30 and the next day from Athens being delayed by nearly 21 hours. When finally we got the option to travel Via Athens, We had to go and collect our luggage, When we asked for the Pre-Arranged assistance for my Mother, we were told No assistance was available due to the facts that there were many people needed help. We had to walk the very long distance back through immigration from BA’s lounge at T5. We went to what was marked as Luggage Desk (Club Word), were told to go alone to collect our luggage out of nearly 2000 pieces of luggage because other flights were cancelled. When asked for transport to T2, a train was offered which links the terminals - had to take a taxi at a cost of £20.00 to get to T2. I asked for a refund of part of the ticket, I received a general reply without any joy! British Airways need to look around you and learn from other airlines, I was surprised with the standards of Aegean Airlines, so pleasant staff, clean aircraft, the comfort of the seat and quality of the food. All which are missing with BA.

http://www.airlinequality.com/airlin...itish-airways/

Carpacchio

I have also realized that A3 seems to have changed policy: until some weeks ago, business class on GVA - ATH was never more than 4 rows ( most of the time 2-3). However, during recent flights, there were up to 7 rows.
This reminds me LH or LX some time ago which made sure to squeeze economy class into a minimum number of rows, even if business class seats were only 30% filled. I hope A3 doesn't go this way...
Funnily enough, I wasn't even able to use an upgrade coupon on a recent flight with 5 rows of business class, although half of the business seats were empty (" no availability ")

Xandrios

That is not the case everywhere though; I'm about to board a flight to ATH and business is only 3 rows, while economy is not full - they even offered to block the middle seat for some extra comfort.

:D!

I initially thought the title of the thread referred to the longest J route by distance... thanks NWIFlyer (I presume) for editing.

What about the shortest J cabin? Are there routes where J is sold but very rarely bought (or upgraded to)? On CPH-ATH where my wife and I were the only J pax, there were still 2 rows of J.

MrArkadin

A321.

It was the first time I encountered such a long business, usually it's 3-4 rows as Xandrios mentioned. I guess time will tell if this was due to change of policy or just a rare occurrence.

KLouis

I've flown often (well, 2-3 times) ATH-HER (or vive versa) with the curtain between rows 1 and 2 and only one passenger in the front. More often, though, the front was empty, the curtain was between rows 2 and 3 and the cattle pen looked to be be full. Of course, I may not have noticed a few empty seats in the very back.

frenchft

On A3 5 or 6... but the longer one ever that i have seen is the saturday early morning flight with LX Geneva - Zurich... 18 rows of business class, more FA for business than Y.

:D!

What is the service like on that flight?

More or less everyone in J on that flight is connecting, right? So there really isn't any need for more than a nice bar...

I can't remember if they give you a sandwich in Y or just the chocolate

frenchft

It was morning flight, so it was breakfast. I guess everyone is connecting after one week of work in geneva, as i understood a lot of people working in international organizations / contractors.

Service was great, efficient and was the "classic" LX C intra european flight breakfast.

nikolask

Flying A3603 LHR-ATH today - online check-in shows 9 rows of business class