Moomba

Apart from a domestic flight to EDI and back it has been quite a quiet spell for me on the flying front. I was eagerly looking forward to once again taking to the skies for a trip to China with a friend.

The flights were booked into F on BA using a 2-4-1 and my BA miles into PEK (Beijing) and out of HKG (Hong Kong). This was done without any pain by calling BAEC as you cannot book open jaw redemptions on ba.com. We purchased a couple of CZ (China Southern) flights to get us between PEK and KWL (Guilin) and from there on to HKG. We used an online agency called Travelzen who turned out to be very efficient.

On the BAEC board there had been lots of talk about improvements to the food and wines on BA so I was eagerly looking forward to this flight. Those of you how have read my previous reports will have noticed that I am not particularly impressed with BA in J or F. In the past I have found the food to be barely edible and very poor indeed compared to similar calibre carriers.

I had decided to stay the night at a LHR hotel simply because I didn’t want to be carting my luggage around sticky humid London transport system before arriving at the airport. Of course it also helped me on my way to retaining status with SPG.

My friend and I took a mini cab service from the hotel to T5 quite early and we found ourselves approaching the F desk in Zone J at around midday.
We were asked where we were travelling to and if we were in F. We confirmed F and Beijing and were then directed to a free agent.
She checked us in for the flight, tagged our bags with priority labels and gave us our BPs. Off to Fast Track security where the queue to get past the conformance agent was longer for FT than it was for slow track. Once through the conformance check there were two FT lines available with about 4 people in each. After a short wait we proceeded through mostly unscathed.

After getting dressed again we headed for the hallowed white door off to the right of the security area. The agent outside checked our BPs and then opened the door and ushered us inside to the Concorde Room.


Concorde Room

The agent inside scanned our BPs and welcomed us into the lounge. We headed out on to the terrace where it was a little less crowded. I had to go and pick up some money from Travelex so I ducked out to do this with instructions for my friend to ask for a glass of bubbly for me when the waiter appeared.
There was a bit of a problem with lack of correct currency at Travelex so it took around 15 minutes before I again appeared in the lounge. Oh look no glasses and my friend confirmed no wait staff had appeared on the terrace.

Well there is one part of the famed BA service that hasn’t changed much since I last flew with them.
I went to the bar to grab two glasses of the lovely Gosset Pink bubbly. On the way back I almost bumped into Sarah Jessica Parker who was saying to her colleague ‘No sit down they will come to you’. I thought yes they might to you but not us poor mortals. Sure enough by the time I returned to my seat on the terrace there were staff all over SJP and her entourage.


The famous horse

After sipping bubbles and taking a few snaps we decided to grab a bite for lunch. As we went inside we met a couple of other FTers in the lounge who were part of a larger group of frequent flyers all heading off for a jolly in Vegas. At one point in the CCR there were no less than 9 FTers.

We had to wait a few minutes to be seated. We perused the menu and made our selections.


Concorde Room - Menu

Now all we had to do was wait to see if a staff member would appear to actually take the order. Eventually someone dropped in and took our food and drink orders. We asked for more Gosset which when it eventually turned up was the other pink which was Bruno Paillard. The food took a while to show up but when it did it was quite nice.


Starter Wild Asparagus Salad


Main Chicken with Barley Risotto


Dessert - Hmm chocolate

The chicken I had was not too dry and the barley risotto was an interesting accompaniment. The dessert was wicked. It seems to be the only consistent course on the ground or in the air with BA.
There was no offer of bread with the meal but we had some fun with the champagne waiter who managed to do a perfect pour with the foam just reaching the rim. My friend commented how good it was. He then went to fill the glass and champagne was spilt all over the table. It was quite funny at the time.

As we were sitting in the booth closest to the entrance to the restaurant area I was able to witness the goings on outside in the lounge. For those wondering what attire should be worn when travelling in F on BA; well it seems anything goes. One guy had shorts and a sleeveless vest whilst another was wandering around in bare feet.

After the meal we joined the FT gathering in the lounge and chatted away the afternoon. Someone who appeared to be the CCR boss was taking good care of us making sure we had full glasses and food when required. It is a pity she couldn’t instil some of the same service standards on her staff that seemed to do their best to ignore us unless she directed them to do something.

At around 45 minutes prior to our flight we headed over to the B gates where our plane was due to leave from.
Earlier in the lounge I asked the agent if we had new F on our flight and he said yes. So it was with some considerable disappointment that I notice that there were no blanked out windows in the first section of our aircraft. This mean old F.


Our BA 747-400

We joined the short FT queue and proceeded down the one ramp to door 2L. Of course we had to wait behind the rest of the people on the ramp anyway.

Flight BA0039 LHR-PEK Seat 2A
Aircraft: 747-400
Departure time: 16:45

At the door the second of the agents had just left to escort someone forward and I thought we would be on our own. However the other agent managed to nab a passing crewmember and he escorted us to our seats. My jacket was taken and I was offered a drink. Of course bubbly was the order of the day when sitting in F on the ground.


Pre-takeoff Bubbly

When I last checked the cabin there were 5 seats occupied for our flight but by the end of boarding it was a full house. The folks on the BA board deride AA for spoiling F for filling it up with free upgraders but I fail to see how this is any different from BA overselling to the point that they upgraded up to 9 people to F.

The F purser seemed to be quite efficient and friendly although the other crew were not so on the ball. When boarding had completed and everyone was settled in their seats I had to ask to be given an amenity kit and sleeper suit as it appears at 6’ 2” I had become quite invisible. More on my invisibility act later.

We pushed back at 16:47 and started to hurtle down the runway at 17:02 and into the sunny skies over London. Of course it had been quite horrible weather for the week leading up to this trip and the weather only turned on its charm the day we left. As we took off the usual BA slip slide show was presented with people’s blanky and such falling off the footstools.

The menus were handed out after the belt sign was switched off and drinks orders were taken. I ordered a scotch and dry to go with my warm nuts. It has only been a recent addition on BA that they serve the nuts warm. It is nice to see the partnership with AA paying dividends.

The Menu

Dinner

Starters
Chicken, pork and cannellini bean terrine with white gazpacho dressing

Wild mushroom risotto cakes with rocket salad and sorrel dressing

Roast yellow pepper soup

Fresh summer salad with your choice of French dressing with golden rapeseed oil, creamy garlic dressing or olive oil

Main
Kung pao chilli prawns with steamed rice and sesame-coated sugar snap peas

Roast corn-fed chicken with summer vegetable broth, tarragon and Twineham Grange cheese polenta

Seared rib-eye of Hereford beef with Choron sauce, pont-neuf potatoes and a salad of sunblushed tomato and French beans

Warm Boillie Goat’s cheese with almonds, quince and saffron potato salad

Bistro Selection
Cappelletti pasta with sun-dried tomato pesto cream sauce, wilted spinach, sautéed broccoli, red onion and Parmesan

Roast Mediterranean vegetables on Manoucher bread with Feta and coriander pesto

A selection of biscuits

A selection of cheese and fruit

Dessert
Peach jelly with almonds and raspberry mousse

Dark chocolate fondant with almond brittle and white chocolate ice cream

Cheese Plate

Cropwell Bishop Stilton

Camembert

Gevrik

Gubbeen

A basket of fresh fruit

Chocolates

Wine List

Aperitif
Kir Royale

Champagne
Laurent-Perrier Brut Millesime 2000, Champagne, France

Balfour Brut Rose, Hush Heath Estate, Kent, England

White
Meursault Le Limozin 2007, Vincent Girardini, Burgundy, France

Grand Vin Sec Du Chateau Doisy-Daene 2008, Bordeaux, France

Petaluma Hanlin Hill Riesling 2008, Clare Valley, Australia

Red
Chateau Lynch-Bages 1998, Seme Grand Cru Classe Pauillac, Bordeaux, France

Newton Johnson Pinot Noir 2009, Walker Bay, South Africa

The Laughing Magpie 2007, d’Arenberg, McLaren Vale, South Australia

Dessert
The Noble Mudpie 2010, d’Arenberg, McLaren Vale, South Australia

Warre’s 1992 Colheita Tawny Port

Sprits, Digestifs and Liqueurs
Gonzalez Byass Sherries
Smirnoff Black Label Vodka
Tanqueray No. 10 Gin
Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch Whisky
The Glenlivet 18-year-old Single Malt Whisky
Woodford Reserve Kentucky Whiskey
Otard XO Cognac

I got up and changed into my PJs and on exiting the loo with my clothes walked past two crewmembers on the way back to my seat. How different it is flying BA compared to CX or QF where doing the same would have meant on exiting the loo a crewmember would have taken my clothes to hang. I really do not understand why people rave about BA. Do they fly with different crew to me? Do they never fly with airlines that know how to provide an F service?

The CSD dropped by and handed out immigration forms for China and that was the first and last time we saw her throughout the flight.

The crew asked when we would like to eat and we said at about 19:00. We sat and chatted and supped until then. I was sitting in the buddy seat that was a bit of a squeeze for my large frame.

After my scotch was done I switched over to the laughing magpie for the rest of the meal service. Lovely.

At 19:00 the crew came to set the table for us and begin the meal service.


Amuse Bouche


Starter


Soup


Salad


Steak - Horrible


Dessert


The starter and soup were quite OK but the steak was vile and I only ate one bite. Of course the crew didn’t comment when they took the plate away. The dessert was lovely and the sticky wine was excellent.
After dinner I was ready to crash for the remainder of the flight that was only to be a short 9.5 hours. I went to the loo and asked a crewmember to make up my bed.

I slept for a while until woken by the crew making no effort to do a breakfast service quietly like other carriers do. A crewmember asked if I would like a juice or smoothie and some breakfast. I said I would start with a smoothie.

Breakfast
Starters
Chilled fruit juice

An energising smoothie

A selection of yoghurts

A selection of cereals

Fresh seasonal fruit plate

A wide selection of breakfast pastries and rolls

Main
Traditional English breakfast of scrambled free-range eggs, grilled bacon, Irish pork and herb sausage, baked Portobello mushroom, hash-brown potatoes, black pudding and baked beans

Chorizo and potato frittata with basil aioli

Blueberry French toast crumble with blueberry syrup

Beverages
Teas – Traditional English Breakfast, Darjeeling, Early Grey, Pure Green, Pure Camomile, Pure Peppermint, Lemon and Ginger or Blackcurrant, Ginseng and Vanilla

Coffee – Freshly roasted and ground, decaffeinated, espresso or cappuccino

I got up and went to the loo and change back to my civvies. On return the smoothie was at my seat. The service continued and I was never asked what I would want for breakfast. I wasn’t that hungry and didn’t want much but it would have been nice to have been asked. It seems my invisibility cloak was working again.

The crew made ready for landing and jackets were handed out. We landed in PEK and had to taxi for a good 15 minutes. The Captain, who was clearly not impressed, came on the horn to tell us that ATC did not give us the desired runway and as a result we would be taxiing for a while and crossing two active runways.
We eventually made it to the gate and two bridges were attached to the plane. I think this was the first ever time I didn’t tank a crew on exiting a plane. Well done BA.

We were met at the top of the airbridge by our hotel representative who escorted us to immigrations.
As the people poured into the immigration area they opened more counters and we were processed quite quickly. We then caught the train to the main terminal building and waited for our bags. Finally bags from our flight started to appear. The usual efficient BA priority bag tags worked as per normal. That is our bags came out about 5 minutes after the first bags arrived.

After collecting the bags we headed up through customs and up a special private elevator that our escort called which took us to a CIP car parking area. Our Audi A4 and driver were waiting to whisk us into Beijing.
Around 50 minutes later we arrived at the St Regis. We were quickly checked in to a Statesman Suite on the 18th floor.


Statesman Suite St Regis - Beijing

That is it for the first leg of this trip. Some of you may have noticed a slight improvement in picture quality. This is due to a new toy I purchased a few weeks ago. There are more photos on my flickr pages if you wish to see more of the suite and other photos on board or in the CR. Throughout this trip I was constantly playing with the camera and trying out different settings. Not all of these will make it to flickr but a lot will that may seem to be the same shot. I thought some might be interested in seeing my experiments as well.

More Photos Here

srt8-blue

Ni hao thanks!

BA5E

Thanks for the first posting of the trip, such a shame though that the waiting staff were not around to welcome you quickly with the well earned glass of bubbles, they say first impressions always count, and it seems that on this occasion it was not good, have found the bar is the best place to be, then you are sure of a drink relatively quickly as 99% of the time the staff are behind the bar. Will read the next episode soon, thanks again

BA5E

Loved the photos, and what a bathroom, almost to die for^

gluedtothewindow

Love that shot with the dinner table reflected in the cabin window. Will keep reading.

Jenbel

Fascinating trip report!

Moomba

Sort of defeats the purpose of waiter service if you have to sit at the bar to get any though.

The hotel was very nice although not that cheap by Beijing standards.

My friend took that one.

Glad you are enjoying it.

Moomba

Arrival Day

I didn’t really take notes about my travels during my stay in China but I did take lots of photos. I will post some, OK a lot, of them to my flickr account and probably drop a few into this thread.

On the day we arrived my friend took me down to the silk market that was a couple of blocks walk from our hotel. What a crazy, bizarre place this was. It is a building with four floors of people trying to sell you ‘genuine’ name brand goods that were clearly fakes. There was a lot of grabbing and pulling going on as the staff attempted to get you to part with your money.
It was a bit of fun to start the holiday although I do wonder what sort of people buy the junk they are selling.

After this we walked up to a local park to of all places a German bar and restaurant to meet up with a fellow FTer. We spent the afternoon drinking and chatting and had some sausage for dinner. We were starting to crash by around 9 and headed back to the hotel to chill and get some sleep. Arriving at 9ish in the morning is a tough slog after a relatively short flight where sleep time is limited.

Day 1

My friend had been to Beijing before but was willing to appease me in my desire to see some of the main sites. The Forbidden City was at the top of my must see list as I have always been fascinated with Chinese history. The cinematography in the movie The Last Emperor makes the place look stunning.
We walked a block up from the hotel to the subway where we had our bags sent through a scanner before going down to the trains. We grabbed two tickets from the machines that do have instructions in English. The trains were packed to the gills and lots of pushing and shoving involved getting on and off, but it was a fun experience none the less.

Popping up to the surface we were at one corner of the two streets that run down the sides of the Forbidden City. I looked across the street to see Tiananmen Square that was a large expanse of nothing. That is about as much as I wanted to see of that site.

We made our way into the Forbidden City, doing our best to avoid tat sellers and proceeded to wander around for a good four hours. The place is enormous.



I will let the photos do the talking for the remainder of this part of the trip. Inside the city you can pay extra to go to some other exhibition halls and we did, on recommendation of our guidebook, go to the clock exhibition. Many, many intricate and ornate clocks were on show and a short video showing the action of some of the more interesting ones.


























After we exited the other end of the city we made our way over to Beihai Park to wander around for a while. The gardens and lake are quite nice and there is a large Stupa atop an island in the middle of the park. The views from up there could have been good if it wasn’t for the smog and haze.

A little about our weather misfortune is in order I think. As a contractor I tend to organise trips for end of contract times and it so happens that the end of August was going to be a good time for me. However this is not a good time to visit China. The heat was OK for me but the humidity was shocking.
Walking out of the hotel produced instant beads of perspiration. The whole of Beijing and surrounding area was a complete haze for the whole four days we were there and visibility was very limited.







After our walk around the park and the four hours or so in the Forbidden City we were a little exhausted and sticky and wet. We attempted to grab a cab back to the St Regis but the guy wanted 100 Yuan for it so we walked away. The trip should have only been around 20 Yuan. We decided to walk the length of the Forbidden City on the outside to get us back to Tiananmen Square where we caught the subway back to the stop near the St Regis which cost us 2 Yuan each.

After a much needed shower and relax and a couple of glasses of wine at the St Regis daily wine ritual we grabbed a cab out to Houhai lake to find a restaurant for dinner. Houhai is just north of Beihai lake and is surrounded by many restaurants and nightclubs. We circumnavigated the park and settled on a restaurant for dinner.
I opted not to take my camera for the evening, which in hindsight was probably not a good idea. Oh well.

I hope you enjoy my picture of the Forbidden City. Next up day 2 and the Summer Palace.

More Photos

hilltopper

Great report. Service in the CCR is such a letdown, I agree! I had a similar experience http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...new-first.html, now what is the whole point of having a bread plate on the tables in the Dining room and a butter patch if no bread is offered?
Pity your crew was not up to standard either. On that side of things I have been very lucky, but BA crews do tend to be a hit-or-miss this days, and it should not be so! They did a fairly good job with my steak

Henryyilupe

Haha that's Beijing all the time. You'd be hard put to find 4 days in an entire year that are clear

Moomba

Day 2
On day two, after our superb St Regis breakfast buffet we took a day tour that would have us go to the Lama Temple, Beijing Zoo and Summer Palace.

First up was the Lama temple that is hope to around 170 Buddhist monks. The temple is a working temple and as such many people had some to pray and burn incense.













Next up was a stop at the Beijing Zoo and specifically the Panda pavilions. There were several areas where the Panda were kept. There were some cubs munching on bamboo in one and a sleepy adult in another and a couple more sleepy bears in the outdoor pavilion.





Next up, as seems to be the norm on tours these days, was a stop at a freshwater pearl centre where we had the opportunity to purchase pearls.

Lunch was at a nearby restaurant that was quite nice. Following lunch we boarded our mini bus again and headed out to the Summer Palace.
This palace was in a huge manmade lake complex and was full of Chinese tourists.

I will let the pictures do the talking again on this one.











After our stop at the Summer Palace it was time to head back to our hotel. Dinner this evening was at one of the hotel restaurants where we ordered far too much food. It was good though.

Next up The Wall.

More Photos

Moomba

Thanks hilltopper

I did see people get bread in the CR, perhaps like most of the rest of the operation you have to ask rather than being offered.

My steak was really gross and tasted like it was stewed rather than grilled.

Well my friend claims to have seen the sun when she was last in Beijing.

exc3ll

Great pictures! that pic of the lotus is so pretty!

matthandy

A great report so far Moomba. That new camera of yours has definitely improved your photography.

It's such a shame that the service in the CCR and onboard wasn't up to standard. I must admit, when I was there, the lady serving us in the dining area was great, but the other staff weren't exactly attentive. I don't understand why. Seriously, how difficult is it to meet expectations? Plenty of other airlines do it well, the QF F lounge for example.

I do hope that now the industrial action is over, BA will be able weed out their 'weak' crew members and start working on improving standards.

Was the steak really that bad? It looks ok to me .

I loved the photos of the Forbidden City. It looks like this is going to turn out to be a fantastic trip!

BA304

Thanks for the TR, Moomba.

Pity the service wasn't up to scratch.

This is very poor.

What happened to BA's drive to improve service in the CCR?