Last night we flew home from our holiday in Club Europe on a BAH booking. The whole journey really highlighted the inconsistent service BA delivers. No single aspect was terrible, it was just a thoroughly underwhelming experience. A few specific points:
Rhodes airport is chaos. No lounge, so don’t arrive early. Go through security and then through passport control into the non Schengen area. It seemed calmer that side of passport control.
The airport has done its best to pack in as many shops as possible, therefore seating is limited.
An oddity at security is that if you have an electronic boarding pass it indicates fast track security is available, however if you have a printed boarding pass, it is not shown, and staff will not let you use fast track. A mild irritation for my OH who cannot get a mobile boarding pass from the BA app (we can save that issue for another thread!).
On board, a shiny new A320 Neo G-TTNY, with the new seating and interior.
Of note:
Bathroom mirror was smashed and taped together.
No curtain divider between CE and economy, and no attempt by crew to stop passengers coming forward to the toilet. Cabin was chaotic throughout.
The crew were not on their A game. On a 4 hour flight, they seemed in a real rush to deliver service, which meant they just fumbled every interaction with passengers. Drinks carts were not well organised, so every drink required crew member to go back to the galley to get a glass, or ice, or a can of coke etc. The amount of items being dropped, or wrong things being provided all seemed to be caused by their need to rush through service (it was a 6 row CE cabin). Had they taken a couple more minutes to get themselves set up and organised, the whole experience would have been better for crew and passengers alike.
Service by 2 crew in cabin (and 1 in galley) resulted in them starting service with rows 1+3 together. I was sat in row 2 with first meal choice no longer available once they came to me. Down to one choice only by row 4. This was even with 2 children in row 1 with pre booked meals. While BA continue to closely match meals loaded with passengers booked, disappointment is always on the agenda!
A celebrity (and family) in row 1 meant service was almost totally biased to this group. The rest of the cabin were definitely worse off because of this group.
As mentioned elsewhere, the new 320NEOs are being delivered without wifi. A missed opportunity by BA.
The new cabins are nice, but a couple of minor observations on design:
The positioning of the front curtain separating galley and passenger cabin means you cannot see the toilet occupied indicator light.
This causes more people standing at front of cabin, leading to passengers knocking into Row 1.
The tray tables for Row 1 are contained in the arm rest nearest the aisle. This means if passenger has table out, then it is continually getting knocked by passing passengers and crew, resulting in drinks / electronics on the floor. Had they positioned the tables to come out from the arm rest away from the aisle, much of this would not have happened.
And finally, after a late arrival into Heathrow, we had the usual 10 minute wait for the stand guidance to be turned on, and then a long wait for luggage.
All in all, the flight was ok, but it could have been great. No single issue made this a poor experience, but there are so many ways BA could have made this a great experience for passengers, but in every area it all just felt a bit sloppy.