This isn't a trip report as such but just some reflections and observations on my jaunt on Monday 28th's BA268 on the A380. This was operated by G-XLEC.

I do quite a bit of transatlantic J, and this has to be my most disappointing Club World experience in a very long time. Sorry for the rant, but the TL;DR to take away is that I didn't arrive very rested into LHR, given that the window of opportunity for sleep was eradicated by service, seat issues and lighting. I'm going to pop this off to BA for, I'm sure, the cursory offer of a few thousand Avios, but I wanted to see if others have had negative experiences of the 380 yet.

I was on this flight due to an IRROP the day before, so I didn't get much say in seating. I was in 57K. Yay, upper deck at least.

To start I'll list some positives:

+ It really is much quieter.
+ The cabin pressurisation is much better and leaves you less fatigued and dehydrated.
+ The upper deck forward J loos are ridiculously big. The one on the left even has a buddy seat. Those of you wanting to join the mile high club - this is the loo for you!
+ New AVOD & screen is pretty decent - good selection of films, the touchscreen is a ton more responsive and the map is great - but there's a caveat below.

Unfortunately, there were a host of issues:
- The meal service was very poorly executed. It took well over 3 hours from take off to when the tray was taken away.

- The food was some of the worst CW food I've ever had. For all the talk of the 'new ovens' and the better food, there wasn't much evidence of it on this flight. The main I chose was 'Raisin, pistachio and sausage stuffed pork with spinach, baby carrots, herb risotto and pork demi-glace'. It was dry, tasteless and insipid. I would have assumed the 'pork demi-glace' was meant to be a sauce or gravy, but the meal was served dry.

- The amount of light which gets into the middle CW cabin from the galley is crazy. It was very distracting. It seemed to be much brighter than the 777 dorms and the 747 lower deck, and obviously quite a lot brighter than UD 747.

- My seat jammed three times. It required me to get up and shove at it before it'd move on. A number of other folk reported similar problems according to the cabin crew "Oh, yours too? They've all been playing up today"

- The footstool kept flopping down into the Z position.

- It's still too warm when sleeping. I'm starting to believe this is a design fault of the curved, somewhat cocooned nature of the CW seat combined with being enclosed at the window side, as opposed to in the aisle.

- Crew switched on the lights 2.5hrs before landing. Fully on. Not half/quarter lights, or the fabled 'mood lighting', but full on. They were then turned off and on and messed around with, alternating between bright yellow and subdued tones for the rest of the bacon roll service and into the descent.

- I saw no evidence whatsoever of the apparent 'improved CW' service on the A380. We even had to ask for a washbag - which was the same old bag it's been for years.

- The upper deck cabin feels pretty cramped. The aisles are narrower, and perhaps it's just me, but it felt like the window seats were a bit narrower than the aisle ones.

- Speaking of width and elbow room - if this is an issue for you, pick the middle coffin seat, it has a good 6" extra shoulder width due to the seat design.

- On arrival at LHR they couldn't get the airbridges attached to the UD after 30 minutes of trying, so they eventually let everyone depart through the LD door 1 after most of the LD had disembarked. Cue ~300 pax ahead of the UD J folk at immigration.

- Being a bit picky - the new window bins. On the 744, there's distinct button you have to press to open them. Not on the 388 - press on any part of the bin and it pops open. Lean on it accidentally, pops open, use it to stand up, pops open. This drove me crazy.

- The AVOD. The new moving map is very cool. Except you're bombarded with advertisements whilst watching it. Yep - you read it right - you get full screen adverts for DHL when you're watching the moving map. This is utterly ridiculous - don't BA get enough money from Lycamobile and HSBC for their terrifically annoying pre-movie ads as-is? That you'd pay £3k+ for a J ticket and have to watch adverts is absolutely disgusting in my opinion.