NTA

BA are rapidly rolling-out a new shorthaul product, with slimline seats, mood lighting and – most controversially – reductions in legroom. BA are normally the our airline of choice due to their 34” seat pitch, but with this being removed & inconvenient flight times we took the opportunity to try a low-cost rival to see how the ‘new BA’ would compare from the perspective of passengers interested in comfort & service.



BA have increased service to Ibiza significantly in recent years – and whilst I won’t bore you by telling you about the days when we had to fly to Majorca to complete immigration before flying on Ibiza – the difference in frequency to just 2010 is a big improvement. There’s service to all 3 major London airports at a variety of flight times, including one in the early hours to cater for the party animals!

We were taking a much more sedate service from the island, leaving at 3pm to fly direct to London Heathrow. There was a good-sized queue to check-in even 60 minutes before departure, but we were able to use the premium desk which took just a few minutes.

Despite all these flights, BA doesn’t provide any lounge access at the airport so we had to reach in to our pocket to get some drinks and a sit down at the ‘lounge club’, located very close to the BA gate.

Onboard, things looked good – the refurbished cabin and new seats were impressive. There were some downsides though – BA have taken out air vents above some of the rows, so we were uncomfortably hot until we took off. Leg room was very poor for anyone used to the 34” BA used to provide at the front of these plans – the seats are now 30” apart, regardless of if you’re in business or economy.

Once we took off, there was an announcement that the bars were nearly empty as “most of the drinks were consumed on the outbound service to Ibiza”. Despite being in the first row and having shiny cards we couldn’t get the drinks of our choice and made do with some wine. The friendly server asked us to complain to BA, and the Purser later also made a cabin-wide announcement asking people to write in to the airline as “BA doesn’t listen to us crew”. Very professional! The crew said BA have squeezed more passengers on to the refurbished planes but haven’t loaded any more drinks – which seems crackers to me.

The flight took off at 3:30pm and landed at 5pm – I would have expected some biscuits or crisps to be served, but everyone was given a chicken flatbread. Frankly, we didn’t want to eat this much between meals and felt that BA’s generosity (as this is no doubt much more expensive than a sweet snack) was misplaced – far better to spend a bit more money on the flights that are in a meal window, and save it on those when people don’t want to eat.

The new cabin was in great condition as you’d expect, but our seat pockets were filled with trash from the previous occupants. Either BA isn’t cleaning / checking its planes down route, or they’re not doing a good job. Not the biggest deal in the world, but something that stuck in my mind as I compared them with Norwegian.

The legroom seemed awful in business, and the fact that your seat is now no wider than economy makes it a tough sell. The middle seat converts in to a table, but I think most people would be much better off buying economy seats and sitting in the exit row (which has the most legroom out of any seats on the plane).

NTA

For the return trip back to the island, we flew with Norwegian from Gatwick as there were no BA flights at a suitable time. Here’s a quick review from the perspective of a regular BA customer:



Like our first flight, there’s no lounge access provided by the airline so we paid to access the No 1 Traveller lounge. Unlike Ibiza’s lounge, there was no DJ area – but there was hot food, and complimentary alcohol. Overall, it was a noticeable step up from BA’s business lounge at Gatwick but not revolutionary.

We boarded on time on to a spotless new plane, that was equipped both with drop-down TVs for entertainment and also with complimentary wi-fi. You could use this to access the internet as normal, or there was a choice of video on demand that you could stream straight to your tablet at no charge.

Being a low cost carrier, there’s no food or drink included in your fare – but there was a wide menu, and everything was in stock. We were able to get some hot food and a drink for under £10 each, which starts to put some value on the worth of the complimentary offer BA provides. It’s certainly a pain to mess around with cash, but the range of food was much larger than you would get even in Club Europe.

Norwegian let themselves down badly by how they treated a woman in the next row; due to a technical problem, Norwegian were only accepting Sterling rather than their normal service which takes Euros and credit cards. The lady asked for a cup of water, but was refused service as she only had a bank card and Euro notes (not unreasonably, being Spanish and flying to Ibiza). She pointed out that she was pregnant, diabetic and Norwegian advertise that they take credit cards on every flight – but the server was unmoved. Even when BA had a buy on board service I can’t imagine any crew member was ever that heartless to a passenger.

The other big difference between flights was the passengers – Norwegian’s passengers were younger, poorer, more excited and much more boisterous than BA’s – this was not a service to take if you wanted to sleep.

NTA

How do the services compare?

Firstly, it’s worth pondering what actually is a low cost carrier in 2014; BA is a ‘full service airline’, but stillBut we did get complimentary food and drinks ^ – unfortunately, many of the drinks had run out and the food wasn’t what we were after. It would have been great to be able to get G&T and some nuts or crisps included in our air fare, but these weren’t able to be provided by BA on our trip.

We did follow the crew nagging & write a letter of complaint, and got a prompt response apologising for the lack of drinks, but no promise of future changes nor compensation.

Comparing air fares is always tough, but this is a reasonable comparison as we booked both flights about a month before the departure date, and travel was within a few days of each other.

Our BA fare was £254 per person, which included a checked bag (and we got free seat reservations due to our shiny cards). Our Norwegian fare was £90 per person, including a checked bag and a seat reservation. We could have paid another £90 and had a spare middle seat (a la Club Europe) but chose not to for this short flight. The fare difference is even more notable as the Norwegian flight included the high UK departure tax, which obviously didn’t need to be paid on our BA flight.


So… for the average punter who doesn’t get free seat reservations, Norwegian should walk this comparison. Unfortunately, due to the poor crew & boisterous passengers onboard we can’t recommend them right now and even though BA dropped the ball with their lack of drinks, they still come out ahead overall.

However – as and when the BA customer demographic realise that they can fly in the same sort of seat in a newer plane with wifi at a lower cost (even when purchasing a smorgasbord of food onboard) then I think it will be a different story – the planes will be quieter & less boisterous, and the crew will be pushed to step up their game. It’ll be interesting to compare in 18 months what the gap is like.

It’s not too late for BA by any means – they just need to up their game slightly and they would be so far ahead of the competition any comparison would be laughable rather than 500 words long. We, and many other customers, have plenty of cash and are happy to spend more – as long as we get good service. Being told that we can’t have a choice of drink, being lectured about the state of industrial relations at BA, being told there’s no snacks on the plane, being told this is ‘business as usual’ so there’s no compensation, and being told that an upgrade to business class might mean a reduction in leg room are all crazy issues to have – and most can be sorted at minimal cost to BA. I hope they up their game soon.

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for the review, I've made a number of trips to IBZ in the last few years for clubbing/music so it was good to see the video momento. It is an airport where a proper BA lounge would really make an improvement to the service for all sorts of reasons.

I think I will challenge the fares paragraph above. The cheapest CE return I can see is £247.34. This is 2 bags, 3 bags with status. The cheapest HBO is £96.34 (zero bags obviously) and the cheapest ET, with 1 or 2 bags is £130.34. Actually you can get it cheaper if you buy singles, IBZ is a good example of where it is worth checking. It's not too tricky to get these fares, there are plenty of dates. I did a POUG there to get CE for £163.20 return.

The Norwegian HBO return is £75.40, with £121.40 for 1 checked bag. Given that Norwegian flies only once or twice a week from LGW to IBZ, therefore sharply reducing the availability of cheap fares, I think BA competes quite well in the circumstances.

gustavmahler

???

CWS, if true, you're a dark horse!

Skipcool3

Poor choice of drinks an no choice of catering on the full service airline....

Tho' how the pregnant lady was treated is shocking......

layz

It should be the law that still water should be freely available on any airline. If you don't realise it's not and don't have the means to pay you're stuck without water for the duration of the flight.

I hadn't realised the air vents were enhanced on some rows. Can anyone else confirm this?

Also were you flying CE or ET? The flatbread suggests ET but you mention certain aspects of CE like the table. [EDIT: finally watched the video, you're very clear you were in ET]

Roger

Very interesting videos and comments, thanks. Also thanks for using 'antimacassar' (a word I've not seen since school French lessons ).

The comparison was much closer than some here would have expected.

I've still to experience DY and am pretty sure I'll be using them s/h before long, so I know what to expect, though l/h DY will continue to evade me, I think.

NTA

Which bit are you challenging? I can assure you the numbers are correct, and have the credit card bill to prove it!

I am sure that BA has some cheap fares if you book 12 months in advance, or are prepared to go on the BA flight that leaves at 2am and arrives at 4am - no thanks! Likewise, I'm sure I could have gotten a cheaper deal on Norwegian if I'd booked the day the tickets went on sale. We had to book travel a day earlier than we wanted with BA, as the 2 LCY flights and 1 LHR flight all had 0 or 1 seats available. As I say, it's hard to compare fares generally but booking (as we did) a month in advance is a fair a comparison as you're going to get. I don't think anyone really believes Norwegian is typically more expensive though.

The fare situation you'd see today for travelling in a month's time (i.e. off season) will be hugely different to one I saw in late August for travel in late September.

The daytime Norwegian flight was far, far, cheaper than the daytime BA flight, and a bit cheaper than the overnight BA flight. The fares booked were both one way flights, with baggage included. We paid to reserve seats on Norwegian, but got this free on BA. There's a credit card fee included on both fares quoted, but again this was cheaper on Norwegian than on BA.

The lower fares certainly attracted a younger, less affluent crowd on Norwegian, which meant the flight was nowhere near as peaceful as on BA.

NTA

You want confirmation that the air vents really are missing? If I was going to post some lies on the internet, the first thing I'd be doing is reducing my age by 20 years, then adjusting my golf handicap

Do check out the video review for the evidence you seek - I promise you there is no CGI involved In the meantime, avoid row 6 on the A320s.

layz

I wasn't accusing you of making it up and haven't got round to watching the video yet (your write up was quite detailed anyway), just as no one has mentioned it before it seemed odd so I was wondering if it was just an oddity with a particular aircraft or a fleetwide enhancement.

e.g. at LGW there's a single A320 (G-MEDK) that has the window covered over in the first row as the aircraft used to have a wardrobe there and they never reinstated the window when they removed the wardrobe.

NTA

Please don't worry, I was taking the opportunity to be a bit tonge-in-cheek

My understanding is that it is fleet-wide, but I haven't yet flown enough to work out which rows are affected. Hopefully we can share notes here so we know which rows to avoid (the vast majority of seats still have them, fortunately).

It would be good to know if the crew's claim that BA have increased passenger numbers but not changed bar loadings is true or not. Shame they don't take on more stock downroute, especially when selling out flights at full fare prices.

corporate-wage-slave

I'm sorry, no I wasn't accusing you of making up the numbers, I'm just suggesting that BA's fares on this route are fairly competitive with Easyjet and Norwegian, in the round. All my trips to IBZ were far cheaper than your fare, but equally I could have paid more than you. If I see Easyjet's fares move in either direction, BA tends to be doing the same thing.

BerksFlyer

I have taken half a dozen or so flights with Norwegian and rated them quite highly. Last month I flew OSL to.AES and the WiFi was a welcome distraction as I had forgotten my book.

Being over 6ft seat pitch is everything to me and having done LGW to OSL once with Norwegian I will be considering them every time now that BA is enhancing away the only thing that stopped my knees rubbing against the seat in front. Quite simply, if there are no exit seats available there's no need for me to book with BA without considering Norwegian when flying to OSL.

As for price, I have definitely snaffled a £39 Norwegian fare at some point. I remember being delighted! The cheapest BA ET return I have seen (and paid) is £99 return. Both were booked months in advance.

I look forward to seeing the videos when I am on a suitable device.

edi-traveller

Nice video.

Love the bit about the crew encouraging you to complain about drinks running out "Because BA don't listen to us!"

Problem is they don't listen to those who complain either......