Hopefully BA are watching this thread, and will feel compelled to actually do something about some of these issues.

Totally agree with what some have said about if the 380 was a car manufactured with these issues the manufacturer would be in real difficulties, especially after only 3 years of putting out a product. However, I also feel it a bit unfair to totally blame all these problems on Airbus, as they only design build the plane, dodgy interiors etc. and questionable staff (more on that later…) are ultimately a function of British Airways and not the manufacturer. I wonder – would Emirates have the same issues?

I summed up some things about all the cabins I’ve been in thus far that I think others haven’t yet pointed out:

• World Traveller – biggest issue on the A380 is that most (all?) views outside the aircraft on the lower deck are obscured by the up-bending of the massive wing, so window seats are almost completely pointless (at least when on the ground) unless you want to sit at the very back of the plane with little to no recline. Also, the WT flight attendants seem quite resentful of having to get passengers any drinks outside of the standard meal times in both upper and main deck WT. I suppose this is a resource/staffing problem within BA i.e. there simply isn’t adequate amounts of staff to cope with the sheer volume of economy passengers and they end up being overwhelmed, and in some cases can seem like they are ignoring you. Try getting the attention of a FA whilst sitting in a window seat in a 3-4-3 layout after the main services have finished; even better try to go and get a beer for yourself from the galley - forget about it! For these reasons I will probably never fly WT again for as long as my wallet permits!
• World Traveller Plus – A significant step up from ‘cattle class’, only negative I can think of is usually being sat within view of the Club World cabin is like dangling the carrot in front of the donkey! This is what ultimately made me book CW, and gave me the ammo for below.
• Club World – the ‘bed’ (the part I was looking forward to most) was disappointingly more like a coffin but I suppose I’m just not used to it yet (only flown once in CW). The one very big negative of any business or first cabin is every other cabin after that is just plain disappointing in comparison!

Sorry to go on a bit, hope I summed up the A380 experience for those about to go on one. To be honest I don’t have much to compare it to, but I am traveling CW to Singapore on the 747-400, and back again on the 777 (also CW) in November, so that will provide a good comparison to the older BA business products.



Thanks,

R.