Since no-one has done a complete mini-review for a while.... So you get an idea of my expectations, I fly Y+ on UA quite a bit, and have flown Y on NZ in the past.
Route / Plane: LHR-HKG 747
Day/Night flight: night
Seat No. (aisle / window / middle) 23C upper deck, aisle
Check in ok? yes - there was no queue at LHR for check-in at all (even for Y, it seemed)
Seat comfort (width ok?): i had no-one sitting next to me (the flight was not full, there were 3 empty PE seats upstairs), so the width wasn't a problem. The recline is excellent. I put the seat rest up; it might not be obvious, but you can pull out the lower section (metal bar) and kick it up higher; however, I'm 5'10 and that meant my calves were resting on a 2" wide bar, which was not comfortable. I tried putting the pillow under them, but it wasn't wide enough. In the end, I slept v. well with the footrest in the highest position, with my feet flat on the bottom of the rest (legs together and bent).
Legroom: it's fine. The earlier comments regarding the window seats: you can put your feet up on the storage boxes, which seemed v. comfortable.
Ease of getting in and out: if the row in front have their seats reclined, forget it. However, the seats seem quite sturdy, and leaning on the seats doesn't seem to have much of an effect (happened to me a few times, but barely noticed it).
Food: NZ food has always been very good (in comparison with other Y offerings). Starter of salad, main options were lamb shank (which I thought was very good), wok-seared cod, or a chicken dish. Dessert was cheesecake (good) + cheese and biscuits, plus what I thought was a large glass of port! (compared to a normal port / sherry glass). Breakfast was fruit plate + cereal + croissant/toast + hot dish (I had chicken noodles which were fine) + tea/coffee.
Drink: copious amounts of tea/coffee after dinner. pre-flight drinks (included something white, sparkling and alcoholic
). The menu card mentioned the 42 below cocktails, but I didn't try one
FA attentiveness: Two french LHR-based females. The dinner service seemed a bit of a shambles -- it took a long time to sort out the main course. However, personally, I quite liked it as I don't like being rushed through meals.
AVOD: Noise-cancelling headphones. Choice of movies was okay, but some things didn't seem available even though they appeared on the menus (NZ - Eng Rugby game from 2005). It isn't responsive, but they did make an announcement to do things slowly when they switched it on. The airshow is very pretty, but not very useful - the ETA isn't updated during the flight, and they don't show altitude, so you don't know how far through the descent you are. (And you can't listen to music at the same time). They switched the main entertainment system off (leaving only the pretty, but useless airshow) and stole the headphones at the top of the descent.
Would you do it again? Yes. I wasn't paying, though. I don't know what you get in Y, but the eyeshades were better than any other Y offering (if such a thing exists), and eyeshades + earplugs + n/c headphones = 6 hours v. solid sleep. The food was fine, and I think that the service is that much better than Y (you don't have to rush through your meal, because they can -- and often do -- walk through the cabin to remove used dishes/cups etc. when you're done with them). The cabin was also very quiet -- no kids, and the toilet/pax ratio is much better than Y.
Put it this way, I would happily take PE over BP, regardless of who was paying. The only thing (significant to me) that would make BP worthwhile is lounge access (I'm not *G), but not worth the difference in fare.
At the time of booking, it was £1200 r/t LHR-HKG, which was £800 cheaper than the BA offering (which is quite a similar product). There is a lot of competition for LHR-HKG (11 flights each way / day), so Y fares are cheap as chips; so , if I were doing on my own money, probably i would take Y.
But, overall, I think it is a good product, but it is quite pricey compared with Y (which is itself v. good by comparison, and certainly much better than Y+ on UA).
Dave