I recently flew on British Midland flight BD701 from Manchester to Washington Dulles, but have only just gotten around to writing up the trip report for this flight. My overall impression of the flight was excellent. I travel regularly from London to Washington on United, and was very excited to try this new Star Alliance service.

My initial impressions were good. British Midland have their own dedicated check-in desk and entrance at Manchester airport. The check-in agents were very friendly, and due to cover booking in coach class, I received an operational upgrade into the "new economy" cabin. This came as a welcome surprise, because I was particularly anxious to try some of the BD premium cabins, given the high-quality British Midland service I have come to expect from my experiences with them on domestic and short-haul flights within Europe.

Manchester airport itself is a reasonably modern airport with good tax paid, and moderate duty-free, shopping facilities. Its major downfall, much like Miami, is that it caters primarily to a leisure travellers, and serves a large number of charter airlines. The unfortunate byproducts of this are lots of children heading to Disney world, long queues at security while "Tracey-the-Tourist" goes through security ten times before realising that metal actually triggers the alarm, and masses of people standing looking vacantly at the departure boards.

British Midland shares its gate space with Iberia (read: hundreds of tourists on discount packages to Spain) and Monarch (a UK charter operation). When I arrived at the gate, there were literally hundreds of people waiting to board, further confused by the fact that Monarch was running two flights to Orlando about fifteen minutes apart and was directing confused passengers from one plane to another as they boarded the wrong one.

Boarding was by row, but there was no preboarding for the first-class cabin or for *A Gold members, who were simply invited to board "at their convenience." Fine, but my convenience would have been before the 200 other passengers all tried to clambour aboard.

Like the rest of the ground staff, the gate agents were great. When I went to speak to one of them, just to find what feedback she had been receiving on the new MAN-IAD service, she asked me where I was sitting, then recommended I move to one of the bulkhead seats in Row 10, which she told me had loads of legroom.

When I boarded the A330, I'm afraid I couldn't quite understand what she was talking about. I don't normally like the bulkhead seat, and this was no exception. The leg room in the seat was no better than in any of the other seats, there was no foot rest, no place to store my magazines, and most importantly, the bulkhead seats feature a television in the arm rest. I was particularly interested to try the "eye in the sky" view of take-off, which obviously wasn't available in this seat, as the monitor had to be stowed for take-off.

Despite a full load in Y class, the new economy was only about 60 percent full (28/48 seats full), and business class was only about 30 percent full (6/20 seats full). I mentioned to the flight attendant that I would like to watch the take-off, and I was quickly moved to another seat in row 14.

Unfortunately, this was only the third flight to Washington, and there were still some technical gremlins to work out. No matter how hard he tried, the flight attendant couldn't get the camera working in time for take-off.

The cabin overall is quite comfortable, with good seats, foot rests in all classes of service, excellent recline with a cradle motion, and a reasonable colour scheme. Service seemed excellent -- very attentive -- until I realised (technical gremlins again) that my call button was going off repeatedly!

Before we'd even left the gate, I could tell us this was going to be an excellent flight, and a big change from the United service I've become accustomed to. The flight attendants came down the aisle (in both economy and new economy) and distributed a half litre bottle of Evian on for each passenger, glasses of orange juice, and hot towels. There were more hot towels after lunch, and the meal service in all three classes was on china. Amenity kits were also handed out in all three classes, which in economy and new economy consisted of eyeshades, earplugs, pen and paper, toothbrush and Colgate toothpaste, and a plastic case (a la sunglasses case) to hold it all. This is standard economy class treatment on British Midland, and miles away from anything I've seen on UA for years.

Shortly after take-off, I got talking to Leigh, the in-flight service manager (equivalent to a purser). He said the customer feedback on the service had been excellent so far. British Midland have obviously put a lot of work into getting everything exactly right for their flagship service. They built a £2 million training simulator for the cabin crew and had been practising for several months before launching the service. Most of the flight attendants on our particular flight were on their maiden voyage, or had only flown one other flight. Most had never worked long haul, but they did an exceptional job on this flight.

About an hour into the flight, Leigh came back to get me from my seat to point out the US Airways Airbus flying off to our right. According to the pilot, it was one mile away and 500 ft above us. It really was a spectacular view. Leigh "told" me that the view with much better from business class, and invited me up to watch for a while. When I got up to go back to my seat, he said that since the flight was so empty, I might as well spend rest of it up in business class. The flight just kept getting better and better!

The seats up in business were great, 60" pitch. If you're seated up here during take-off and landing, they'll move you back to new economy if there's space available if you wish to watch the events on TV.

Menus for the flight today were (capitalisation as per BD -- apparently, the budget didn't stretch to capital letters!)

All food in "the business" cabin was cooked to order on board by a uniformed chef. He seemed board with only six passengers up front, and spent most of the flight chatting with pax and flight crew.

economy

lunch
mixed seasonal salad, balsamic olive oil dressing
traditional Cumberland pie, braised vegetables
Asian chicken curry, basmati rice
penne pasta, tomato and cheese bake

bakery selection
English cheese with biscuits
organic ice cream
chocolate

refreshment
rich chocolate cake
warm ciabatta filled with mature chedder and pickle
or
warm ciabatta filled with ham and mature chedder

wine list

sparking
Casteggio Pinot Nero, Pavese, Italy

white wine
Wairau River - 2000 Sauvignon Blanc, Marlborough, New Zealand
Orvietto D'Oc - 1999, Monte Vibiano, Italy

red wine
Banrock Station - 1998 Shiraz, South East Australia
Pierre Vincent - 1999 Cabernet Sauvignon, Pay D'Oc Languedoc, France


the business

lunch
curried spring vegetable soup, sour cream, root vegetable crisp
oak smoked Scottish salmon, horseradish cream
rosemary chargrilled vegetables, goats cheese, virgin olive oil
pancetta and Stilton brulee, red onion marmalade on endive

braised lamb shank, garlic mash, seasonal vegetables
pan-fried chicken breast, stuffed with feta and wild mushrooms, French beans in a bacon wrap
grilled cod fillet, chunky chips, pea mint mash, sunblushed tomato ketchup
leek, potato and sharp chedder tart, spinach chard and spicy mustard dressing

dessert
zesty lime tart
strawberry and pink champagne trifle
warm sticky toffee pudding with Devonshire cream or organic ice cream
individual chedder and ale truckle, Shropshire blue wedge, raisin bread, fresh fig, roast fruit kebab

freshly ground coffee
Twinings tea selection

any time
warm bacon butty
artichoke and tomato pizza
mixed seasonal salad
cappuccino
espresso
Irish coffee
hot chocolate
Horlicks

the mad-hatter tea service
warm leek and onion tartlet
watercress with cream cheese on white
smoked salmon and lemon pepper butter on brown
raspberry cream slice
chocolate eclair
mini sultana and plain scones
strawberry preserve
clotted cream
fresh seasonal berries

from the sideboard
home style lemon drizzle cake
Dundee cake

freshly ground coffee
Twinings tea selection

Sorry, didn't pick up a business class wine list

I managed to sleep for a few hours, and Leigh woke me up about twenty minutes before landing. They apparently had the nose camera working, and Leigh wondered if I wanted to watch touchdown. I moved back to my original seat in New Economy and watched the landing -- quite different to see it from that angle!

All in all, a great flight experience. Leigh seemed to be a role-model for an inflight service manager, all of the FAs were enthusiastic about this new route, and the service was exceptional bar none.

Apparently, BD are introducing a LHR-IAD service (hurray!) and will later add a HKG service using A340s. I can't wait!

[This message has been edited by MatthewClement (edited 07-01-2001).]

[This message has been edited by MatthewClement (edited 07-01-2001).]