meester69

You should have asked if you wanted 'extras'.

LHR/MEL/Europe FF

'Hotness' no, sex not usually - but age can well influence a person's ability to do a job. Age generally brings experience, and experience usually means you are better prepared and equipped to deal with things.

Back to the OP... I do understand being welomed as a 'first timer' could be a bit off-putting. a) it fails to recognise that you might not be a first timer (and devalues your previous patronage) but b) I was on the receiving end of this so called 'first time' treatment on another airline (Qantas) and combined with a particularly bad crew member, it ended up being completely patronising. So I can understand some people may not appreciate it.

rathin100

Priority boarding should mean a separate queue for CW and First at the gate irrespective of when they board. I have never used LGW but it's standard practice LHR though the ground staff would occasionally screw up at the old T4

But Ground services on BA have much better in all respects post T5 and this is pretty standard IME now

BAHumbug

Wrong airline dahling - you're thinking of QF ?

Clicky here...

BAH

tezzer

On the boarding front, it was difficult for the ground staff for sure, with all of the Wt passengers boarding, and maybe 5 or 6 wheelchairs coming through (both ways) but one passenger was escorted past the line, never swa where he went, but he wasn't in CW for sure, nor was he UM status, must just have been important !

sunrisegirl

As I said a little up thread, this is not possible at LGW once people are going down the jetty.

We always priority board at LGW but we have to board the rest of the aircraft besides CW and F, so once those passengers have been invited to board the rest of the passengers are boarded. The width of the jetty does not allow a separate line for CW/F passengers, nor I believe does it on one jetty gates at LHR. But I believe LHR has some jetties with two parts so they can allow CW/F pax to be separate.

I also mentioned that some gates at LGW are about to close for a period of some months (18-24 IIRC) to allow work on gates we currently use for long haul services. They are being upgraded

FlyerTalker6245

On an aside, since the fare was comparable to Virgin's Premium Economy, in hindsight do you wish you flew out with Virgin in Premium Economy, rather than BA in Club World?

LTN Phobia

I'm curious how the OP asked for the pen. If it was a simple question "Do you have a pen?", it might have been a simple, honest answer to that question to say "No", although it's not ideal to answer that way, of course, and a better service could have been expected.

But as I mentioned elsewhere before, CW is not a class of travel I expect personalised service and I consider it the 'bed class'. I expect to have to ask for things. This is particularly in the rear-facing window seat for a simple reason that crew can't easily see an empty glass, and I in fact like it that way. If I want personal, attentive service, I'd fly F, not CW or in fact any other business class for that matter. I am not sure if the OP classifies having to ask as having to "beg". But I have never felt like I had to actually beg for anything ever on a BA flight, although I have had to on just two flights in the last 6-7 years, probably out of 800-900 sectors - neither was on BA.

At least I have not had a major service failure on BA such as taking 3-4 hours for dinner service on a night-flight to be completed, with 45 minutes between each course etc (it happened 3 times in a row on a certain carrier and I was not impressed). I do not think my expectations are excessively low. I think they are more 'realistic', and if something is not quite to my liking, so what.

As for the offence caused by wishing you a pleasant flight on your first CW, I think the intentions are right, although I can see that some people who are a bit self-conscious about their "business class flying calibre" could feel like they have had their sore point poked. But really, for all they know you might have been flying F with other airlines and just the first CW. So what if they wished you a good first CW? Can't we make some joke and not be offended? I know this will probably happen to me when I switch over to BAEC from QF. They won't know that I have flown CW, F, CE etc... but I'll take it as intended and smile. It's hardly worth getting offended over, especially when there is clearly no malicious intention.

PETER01

Spill the beans..........

Emirates?

LTN Phobia

It wasn't EK! Actually, it was on two airlines, thinking about it now, though. 3 on one (QF), 2 on another (TK). I am not sure if all of them were night flights but I recall falling asleep between courses due to extremely long gap between them. Huge waiting between courses, particularly on a night flight, is my pet hate (in fact anything that adversely affects my sleep is ) and that will really get me ranting on this forum if BA did that to me.

rathin100

The jetty queue is not an issue it's undesirable and can often be minimized through pax flow management but it cannot be eliminated especially in ancient unrefurbished airports like LGW. I thought the CW pax had to queue with others flying Y/Y+ to cross the BP point. It is there that he should expect priority.

For the record J and Y pax have to queue together on jetty to enter the aircraft at DXB and most outstations on EK as well.

sunrisegirl

We have a separate lane for CW and F (and Gold & Silver) pax to board into the gate area.
It's only when boarding the aircraft via the jetty we can't separate once regular boarding has started. It was this the OP appeared to be unhappy about.

We also board by seat row number for WT pax and start from the back, but KIN and MBJ can take a long time due to the amount of hand baggage on board - the words kitchen sink come to mind!! But we're working to eliminate some of that too.

HilFly

Seems like it's even more important that passengers in the lounge are notified of boarding with sufficient time allowed for them to reach the gate before the hordes are let loose.

Jimmie76

I agree, give me experienced and professional over other attributes anytime! But you seem to do young, female and extremely hot as well as being outstanding at your job Is there a secret people should know about?

evacboy

Apologists unite!