Originally Posted by
lighting
Earlier in the year i took my first and to date only Virgin Atlantic flight from Manchester to Atlanta for the Super Bowl, i was in PE. It wasn't a brand spanking new cabin, looked quite old, but it was light years ahead of the experience i had on BA. Good seat, tray table worked, good IFE screen, good movie choice, USB port, decent food, attentive service from dedicated PR crew. I was also flown out to Dubai in Business Class on Emirates by a customer to Dubai and i thought that was better than my club world experiences.
BA know that when i booked my seat, i would be getting an out dated and old cabin, they knew that, the cabin crew knew that people would be angry about it and complain, yet they still charge full wack for it regardless. How long have they had to refurbish these cabin? They have chosen not to and they have chosen to provide a product that they know their customers will deem sub standard. Is this what the BA brand now represents? Knowingly accepting, not even second best and simply not caring?
All airlines that I can think of have products that differ by aircraft in at least some of their cabins. You mention that you enjoyed your EK J experience, but that is exactly a case in point, EK operates a variety of J cabins across their fleet that vary very, very significantly in comfort and layout, and they don't give people the "warnings" that you are asking for either.
I don't think that you are right that BA "know their customers will deem [their PE cabin] sub standard". Now don't take me wrong - personally, I really dislike WT+ and would never pay for it (I'd rather just stick to Y and save the money or go CW), but it is clearly very popular with customers, and personally, having been with both the old and new WT+ I don't even think it makes a huge difference in my experience and I really don't sleep on either.
I'll be blunt here, but given BA customer service usual performance, I actually don't think that 8000 avios is such a bad outcome. I get that you are very disappointed by what you got, but apart from the apparent catering issue, I don't think there was much abnormality in what you describe and if that is indeed the worst flight you have had, I would say that you have had a reasonably lucky flying career to date.