1) Overview
This an introduction to travelling Club World on BA's new twice weekly, year round service from London Heathrow Terminal 5 to the beautiful Indian Ocean islands of Seychelles. I was on the inaugural service on 24 March 2018, and the second service from SEZ back to London on 29 March.
For background and announcements relating to the service's restoration see here:
New old route being announced [LHR-SEZ confirmed twice weekly from 24 March 2018]
2) Route history
This is by no means a completely new service for BA, which has in the past served Seychelles in a variety of arrangements, even hub and spoke set-ups, with both LGW and more recently LHR T4 being used. However the service was one of the casualties of the downsizing of BA after the events of 9/11 and the difficult economic climate:
With grateful thanks, I am indebted to
DrBernardo for the following background the route.
Proper services to the Seychelles began in 1971 with the construction of the airport on Mahe Island, as part of the transition of the islands to independence from Britain. BOAC operated services from the opening of the airport in July 1971, from Gatwick via Entebbe and Nairobi, and BCal began operations in July 1972 (on the same route). However, BOAC first served the Seychelles in 1944 with a fortnightly flying-boat service en-route from Durban to Colombo which operated until 1946!
BCal’s operations had ceased by 1977, though they did make a pseudo-return when Air Seychelles was formed in 1979, and leased a BCal DC10 for its international services – a weekly route to Rome, London, Frankfurt and Amsterdam. By 1977 BA’s service had moved to twice a week from London, one via Bahrain en-route to Mauritius, and one via Zurich and Bahrain which terminated in SEZ! By 1980, this had increased to three a week, including a terminating service via Khartoum, Addis, and Nairobi. Due to a degree of political instability and the odd dodgy decision by tourism authorities in the Seychelles, BA withdrew in 1981.
At the same time, British Airways was operating a route between Johannesburg and Hong Kong/Tokyo which began calling in the Seychelles (at various times it included Joburg, Nairobi, Seychelles, Colombo, Brunei, Hong Kong, Taipei and Tokyo Haneda), which was especially handy since South African Airways had been banned in 1980 by the Seychelles (and South Africa accounted for some 25% of their tourism). This route was part of a triangular roster that would see a crew and aircraft operate out to the Far East, then down to Africa, and then back to the UK, or vice versa. Presumably because it was ruinously expensive as well as barking mad, this route was cancelled in 1986...
BA resumed services from London, behind Bahrain, in 1986 – possibly at the same time as cancelling the JNB-SEZ-CMB-HKG-HND route. This increased to twice a week via Bahrain en-route to Mauritius by 1990. By the mid 1990’s these had been delinked from Bahrain with a twice weekly LGW-SEZ-MRU service. From October 1997 service moved to a twice weekly LGW-NBO-SEZ schedule.
From 1999 onwards, BA - in common with many, if not all foreign companies operating in the Seychelles - experienced problems remitting their earnings from the Seychelles. The Seychelles rupee was – at the time – not a freely exchangeable currency, and sales in the Seychelles were in rupee whereas fuel and landing changes were in USD!. This situation continued to worsen over the next few years until, in combination with the negative impact operating the onward sectors caused to the Nairobi route, BA chose to (once again) suspend the Seychelles route.
In 2008 the IMF supported the Seychelles in instituting a number of financial and economic reforms, including exchange liberalisation!
3) Redeeming Avios to Seychelles
Finding redemption space is a bit tricker than normal since some of the support tools don't work for SEZ. However a straightforward query of Avios availability via My Executive Club should show up the relevant information. As of March 2018, these were the rates:
Mixed here means one way peak, the other way off peak. There is very little First availability showing at the moment, and I suspect this will eventually prove to be one of the toughest routes to get CW or First redemptions, except perhaps off peak (e.g early December) and may be where GGL jokers become useful. UuA Avios would be the difference between the paid for and upgraded cabins (so 50k for WTP to CW at peak, and potentially £50 in extra charges).
4) Flight details
The service has now been announced as a year round service due to the high level of forward bookings, news that was very well received in Seychelles itself. There are some direct Europe flights to SEZ (Condor from Frankfurt, Edelweiss from Zurich, Joon from Paris) but this is the first household name airline to go year round that avoids connections in the Middle East or IST. Emirates, Qatar, Etihad and Turkish being the main alternatives. Air Seychelles no longer flies to Europe.
The service is twice a week on 787-9 aircraft, so with First, Club World, World Traveller Plus and World Traveller cabins. From London the flights depart from T5 on Wednesday and Saturday evenings, returning on Thursday and Sunday mornings from SEZ to LHR. The aircraft has just under 2 hours turnaround at SEZ. It's a 10 hour flight, give or take, 5074 miles on paper, 5300 miles approximately in reality.
This was the route taken on the inaugural service, down the east side of Africa:
And this was the moving map at departure
5) Launch events
There wasn't very much ceremony on the launch, nothing at all at the gate departing T5, the captain and CSD mentioned it was an inaugural service on departure. There was a small press gathering in CCR (though the relevant journalists appeared to be more interested in going shopping in T5!). That said, having a longhaul departure from gate 18 - right downstairs from CCR - is fantastic! I doubt we can count on that going forward, however. The flight was pretty much full in all cabins on departure, though I guess there were about a dozen non revenue passengers on board assuming the press were on freebies. Two captains and one Senior First Officer, as far as I could tell, the CSD was assisted by her line manager (an IBM to use the jargon) to ensure a smooth first flight.
At arrival in SEZ, on the other hand, there was a party thrown for the arriving passengers. including a Créole band and dancers. Passengers were also presented with hats made of coconut leaves. The band and dancers also entertained people during the immigration queue, see below, which took off some of the tedium. The other oddity was that it took about 20 minutes before we could disembark after the doors were opened. The WHO insect spray was only done on arrival under the supervision of airport staff, whereas usually it is OK to just hand over the used spray cannisters to the airport staff on arrival to prove it has been done. On the other hand I wonder if this was complicated by the arrival party and the fact the aircraft was about 15 minutes early to arrive.
6) New Club World service details and timescales
This new route went straight into the new Club World service for both catering and bedding, plus the new amenity kit. Not the full Do&Co treatment as shown on the New York service, which you can tell by the unfortunate lack of the 3in1 bread roll, but with the soup, dessert and cheese improvements.
The bedding is supplied in a bag, with the pillow on top. Inside the bag are 3 film wrapped bedding items - the fairly thick duvet, the blanket and the seat topper.
I was in 7A, so I found a handy place for this before and after deployment, which made for a very comfortable extra arm rest.
That seat, 7A, is probably the best seat on a 787, 7K would be too however that will usually be a crew rest seat unless other circumstances forces it to be used. 7K is actually the better seat since it's further away from the WC, but the 787 WCs are very quiet in operation and the curtain cuts off any line of sight to its use. Both of these window seats allow clear access to the aisle without crossing over another seat. That will also be the case for seats 13A and 13F, though their view is mainly of the huge wing, and middle seats 7E and 13E - these may be good options during night flights to SEZ, there isn't so much to see en route. There is a 787 seating guide in the BA Forum Dashboard.
And this is the new long folder menu which replaces the white A5 stapled menu pamphlet.
Times GMT though the clocks went to BST during the flight.
● Pre depart water, hot towel, menu x2.
● Push back 1621
● Take off 1640 from runway 09R
● Landing cards for Seychelles distributed 1700
● Drink and main course orders taken 1714
● Drink and nibbles arrive 1723
● Drinks round 2 at 1746
● Trays hand run 1808: Single bread roll, drink round 3
● IFE quick reboot 1826 (a block of seats in WT seems to have been affected) - this didn't see to work for those affected.
● IFE full reboot 1837
● Trolley comes through 1838 with starter and salad
● IFE back 1850
● Drinks / wine top up 1900
● Starter plates removed 1906
● Main dish served by hand 1907 drinks top up
● Main dish removed 1922
● Desserts trolley 1930
● Cheese 1946
● Tea 1950
● Meal tray removed 2000
● Club Kitchen made up 2000
● Lights out 2010
● Breakfast 0040
● Arrive 0214hi / 07:14 local 16 minutes early
So the drinks came through reasonably promptly to begin with, and my glass was very regularly refilled. I had at least 9 top ups over 3 hours. The food? That's more mixed I would say. Two hours from take off to starter was rather long to my mind, the timings from that point was fine, there were no gaps between courses and the meal was cleared away swiftly at the end. Had the starters arrived 90 minutes after take off that would have been better perhaps, complicated by the fact it would still only have been just after 18:00 hrs London time, so not particularly late in that respect.
7) Meals
First off, here is the breakfast card that you submit before retiring.
7.a) Menus
7.b) Main meal photos
This was a very good goat cheese salad and the new excellent salad - no issue in having both.
Then the chicken tajine, which was served quite rightly with the skin for flavour. It could have done with a bit more of a kick though.
This is the warm chocolate and walnut brownie, somewhat underwhelming in terms of size and enjoyment. I'll probably choose something else next time.
And finally the cheese (but I suspect that I was upgraded to First for this part of the service!).
7.c) Breakfast
So here is the first tray, with the fruit salad, smoothie, lovely granola and breads, followed by the full English. I wouldn't normally want a full English so soon after a big meal, but it was actually very enjoyable on this occasion. I know there are 3 wake-up options on the card, but probably the one that would have worked best for me was just the first cold tray, so no hot plate, served 1 hour before arrival. I probably could have negotiated that.
8) Arrival into SEZ
As noted below, at least on the inaugural the WHO insect spray was done on arrival, which if confirmed by future travellers will hold up the disembarkation process. Door 2L was used for getting off the aircraft, then it's a very short walk to the immigration hall. No bus transfer.
I very much enjoyed the flight, with its excellent cabin crew, and arrived into SEZ able to make the most of the arrival day. I am a fan of 787s (well, not in WT) and I got a good quality rest. The 787 is also a good fit for the route in terms of the underlying economics. The convenience of a direct link to London will make a big difference to the islands' economies and bring the beauty of Seychelles to future travellers. And I guess it will also be a favourite with both flight and cabin crew.