malioil

I was dreading yesterday's flight in Y, my first for a long while. Overall, however, I wound up having a very positive experience.

- Crew were attentive, regularly did drink runs, helped when needed a pen. They were visible throughout the flight.
-Purser (or equivalent) came to do the gold greeting. When she came for a drinks run, she addressed me by name and continued to do so thought the flight.
- I can't believe I'm saying this- the food was excellent. Comfortably beat the food on my last CW flight two weeks prior. The new addition of cheese made a viable difference to the quality of the WT meal.
- Lounge staff at GF also proactively found and 'booked' me a shower at B gates when they had none available.

Overall Y is still Y, and I'm not in a rush to repeat the experience, but BA were totally on the ball with this flight and as a result I had a positive experience.

headingwest

Great to hear.

I'm still a big fan of economy class and I've had some good meals in Y this year. You can't beat an 'el cheapo' economy ticket for fantastic value.

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, we don't get that many stories from WT, let alone positive ones, so thank you for posting.

Flip42

Regarding long haul Y, I can only speak of TATL travel but in my experience BA has one of the better Y products I flew so far.

Where did you fly to, malioil?

CKBA

BA Y is one of the better economy 'products'. Having flown AA long haul many times (TPAC - awful), TAM - okay, and many 'legacy' airlines TATL (Continental, NorthWest, PanAm...), BA is always good. Some of this may be due to it being the 'home' airline - and know how to make a decent cup of tea (!), but food and service is always good to very good.

malioil

PHL, so a TATL.

snuffi

I so much prefer to read posts like this from sensible people, rather than the sadly far more frequent complete overreactions to absurdly minor first-world problems from prima donnas. Great to hear!

PAL62V

I guess it wasn't in a 787 then. My one and only experience of this plane was in Y on BA and the legroom was criminal. To the point where it became dangerous in my opinion. I am about 5'10". And I fly a lot of Y TATL on BA so I am not complaining about the Y product generally at all.

Stez

BA Y isn't going to kill anyone. It is just about passable, and probably one of the better Y products out there but by no means the best.

One of the better features of the Y product is the regular drinks run and the secret stash of snacks at the back of the plane on the longer long-haul routes - but you do need to time it well - usually a few hours after first meal service.

I just wish they do a little more to support the long suffering Y-goldies by blocking some of the desireable seats (not all, I believe in sharing ). QF does this well when you're an OWE or on a full fare Y ticket.

Caveat: I haven't tried the 787 yet, but reading FT, I hope to avoid it as much as possible.

headingwest

Just out of interest, who do you think are the best? I'm guessing that Cathay Pacific would be high up there, but which other airline stands out in economy? (That's a question open to everybody)

Virazuno

I have found the Asian airlines to be generally quite good. A recent experience on TG was outstanding.

corporate-wage-slave

Goodness, am I going to beat you to it then? (February 2016).

Jon Baker

IMO CX is decidedly average in their Economy product - I'd rate BA's as easily superior.

Personally, I find that BA has nigh on the best Y products - though I actually think Qantas probably beat them. The Qantas Y pillows are about 50x better than the BA pillows (even the BA WT+ pillow) and QF have also been doing enhanced pre-ordered meal choice to your seat for free where BA are charging a somewhat exorbitant fee (though my guess is that QF will probably follow suit sometime soon).

P.s. I received my first ever op-Up from BA yesterday from WT -> WT+ so based which based on MyFlightPath dashboard represents a 3% upgrade on total BA miles flow (though since this excludes codeshare flights which a significant of my previous travel has been, as BA booked travel goes this is significant factors lower)....still no one can be unhappy with any op-Up, so I'm a very happy bunny....

StuckinITH

In Y???

corporate-wage-slave

Yes, first time ever in longhaul economy, let alone WT.