copenhagenBA

I had my first J trip to GIG in the last few days with BA which was my first since December. Ive flown J with QR 4 times, CX once, Finnair once, AA once and MH once all long haul... By far BA is by far the most underwhelming and im BA gold.. it is really sad. My observations were the following on this trip 777-200er.

1. No CSD personal welcome during the whole flight.. standard affair on QR i feel even though im BA gold.
2. Although better days ahead' the Club World seat is literally half the seat of all the others.. its cram them in 8 abreast.
3. Because of the 8 abreast, having to climb over peoples seat is pretty ludicrous to exit.
4. Those middle seats sure are cozy if you are with a stranger!
5. The wine...dear oh dear.. Cline Zinfandel is Gbp 8.99 a bottle. Really worthy of a J class offering on a ticket for 1000+ gbp.
6. Food served off a plastic tray table... again. I know better days ahead. But....
7. No hot towels or cold towels
8. The champagne / wine glass is the smallest glass offering size wise ive ever seen anywhere!
9. TV screen is like a ipad mini in size these days compared to competition.
10. Wife had glass of wine dropped on her. Not the end of the world, but when she asked if there was anywhere it could be made upto her, she asked for a glass of champagne from 1st class .. never came.
11. I asked for our child if he could have a banana since he was hungry. They said no, didnt have any, but could have some bread as an alternative.. at least they both begin with the letter B. 30 minutes later i went to the club pantry which was actually a positive and well stocked, and there in the basket low and behold were two bananas.
12. Had ordered a child meal for my son which was pre-booked. This went fine for the first meal but when the second light meal came two hours prior to landing, there was no kids meal offering. It was adult meal or tough.
13. Amenity kit- one bag works for all.. not a massive point, but again, its below competition standards.

On a good point at least the IFE goes straight to the movie, on QR its Barcelona advert after advert. I also thought the food while nowhere near QR standards wasnt so bad.

fruitcage

Just on the 'one size for all' amenity kit, I had understood that BA was trying to avoid making sexist assumptions about what people might want based on outdated gender stereotypes - or somesuch. I am sure it makes inventory management and hence costs better too of course.

Dan72

The aircraft used to GIG are certainly some of the poorest in the BA fleet. But I don't see how BA CW could be described as awful. It's not the best, but still decent and better overall than most of its European competitors.

Note that all the carriers you mention have aircraft that still require stepping over other passengers and few airlines offer flat beds as comprehensively as BA. Both QR and CX use cradle seats on quite lengthy regional routes that would get a flat bed with BA's model.

I don't get the Gold greeting point. Perhaps it's just me, but I find it really uncomfortable. It's one of the things I dislike most about CX.

dujardin

Are you serious?
I can assure you that the seats of the other airlines are no more spacious than BA's... '4 abreast' and '8 abreast' are not accurate descriptors...

paul4040

Do you think the Qatar/Finnair/AA etc J seats are no more spacious than BA's? They have side tables and shoulder room, and better storage options. Maybe not twice as spacious, but they are certainly bigger units with better amenities.

dujardin

That is exactly what I'm saying... More places to put spectacles and such, but not more space to lie down. I actively dislike those 'foot cubbies'...

T8191

I only have 'other airline' experience with AA, but agree entirely.

The foot hole doesn't bother me in the slightest. I sleep well on AA.

dujardin

Well, I've flown multiple segments in J on QR, Finnair, SN, LH, AA, SAA, IB and several others, and I don't think I've ever slept well in any of those seats. In a CW window seat (ideally 62K), almost every time. But that's just me.
Come to think of it, I do like the old seats on QR 777's, but miss privacy.

Beltway2A

Are you joking? Club World seat width is a joke, an absolute pittance. The Zodiac Cirrus seats aren't much better in terms of the actual seat (though they have good storage).

Compared to the B/E Apex Suite or Singapore's J seat, the CW seat seems more like PE. Unless, you think that SQ's 30-inch width is "no more spacious" than CW's 20-inches.

Andriyko

Who needs all that width if your legs go under the seat in front? That's the worst. CW feels more spacious (and so do Zodiac Cirrus seats).

P.S. There are no flat beds in economy.

LostAntipod

Comedy gold.

Leaving aside personal experience, I just had a quick look at the lengthy table on seatguru that shows J class seat width and length. Assuming their research is correct, and yes there are variations according to aircraft type and age, BA mostly runs a 20" long haul seat width. Qatar - 20" on its old a330's otherwise 21 and 22 ; CX 20 and 21; AY 21; MH 20 and 22. And many of these up to 6" longer than the 72" BA seat. And arguably more personal storage space. See adjacent Flyertalk thread, not even a place in the BA seat to put spectacles while you sleep. Enough said.

(Wish MH had put a better seat in their a380s, from memory it slopes down a bit , but at the time it was a small sacrifice when I was saving over £1000 vs BA. And get satay )

LostAntipod

Air New Zealand may beg to differ - Economy Skycouch

UKTraveller4Fun

Your expectations are far to high, BA Gold and flew First recently and no contact from CSD at any point during the flight!

Even when I asked to speak to CSD to complain about lights in the cabin lights being turned on fully 110 minutes before landing on a night flight I got the First lead crew member saying they were the highest crew member on the flight and as the CSD hadn't introduced herself I assumed he was the CSD!

Only found out as departing the plane that actually he wasn't! Issue is the crew know BA dont care about complaints and thus can get away with a hell of a lot these days!

Jimmie76

Seat pitch isn't amazing on SQ though at only 55 inches on some planes. http://www.smarttravelasia.com/businessclass.htm Actually the Apex isn't that bad the only issue I have is that the position of the IFE screen. There's a nasty overhang and if they eliminated that they'd have a sure fire winner for me.

Purim

I am with the OP. When things go wrong in CW it can be lousy and disappointing, and the catalogue of errors the OP reports compounds this. If the OP has paid for CW and CW service, then pointing out that there are no flat beds in Y is not helpful.

I can understand the expectation argument in Y and WTP, but I think its ok to have expectations in CW or F - even if the experience noted on this forum is to temper expectations even in these cabins.