Fifth Second
In the spirit of the various ‘First First’ threads that appear around here I thought I’d post a few notes on my fifth BA sector in Club World.
I very rarely travel long haul business with any airline, and my experiences with other airlines long haul in business were many years ago. My last Club World was a couple of years ago. So my views are definitely not those of a seasoned long haul business traveller who has an extensive set of recent comparisons to make.
The flight was BA95 (LHR YUL) which was on a 787-800 Dreamliner. It was a family treat (would have taken First had it been available). I’ve not flown a Dreamliner before and was slightly excited about this.
The service throughout was attentive and pleasant. The food between me and partner was a bit of a mixed bag - satisfactory but not great. Drinks were good quality, and the glass ware for my GnT was nice. The amenity kits and bedding provided looked new - I guess part of the White Company upgrades I’ve read about here on FT. No surprise that most people have ‘stepover’ seating when the seats are in bed mode. I snagged a no-step window seat like all good FTers should. :-) Shortly before landing the crew dished out some ice creams which apparently aren’t part of the Club service but were very welcome. Not much evidence of a club kitchen during the flight though, some chocolate or snacks would have been nice. Managed to get my son into the cockpit for a quick look around after arrival -- he was extremely happy with that.
Overall nothing much to complain about. I’m of the view that Club Europe is a terrible product, well, the seating is terrible anyway. It's very hard to justify the cost increment over ET. This Club, however, is great. I know the world is full of better long haul business classes but IMHO there’s actually very little to complain about on BA J on the basis of my last flight. And clearly the little incremental improvements are coming. Probably not fast enough for the ‘regulars’ here but noticeable and welcome to me. I’ve flown indirectly in the past to get better fares (eg LHR via CDG to SIN) but there’s no way I’d fly indirect just for a better quality J. It’s good enough for my purposes and direct is always a winner when travelling either for leisure or business. In terms of the quality of J I think really big ‘miss’ isn’t the stepover seat, it’s the lack of WiFi. I can see how a couple of well-timed flights with WiFi might just tempt me away from a direct routing with BA, just as much as a saving of cash might.
Unless work takes me to the States I’ll not be doing long-haul J again for a few years with any airline. If it’s with BA, hopefully we’ll have a new seat and fleet-wide WiFi by then. :-)