Oh no ! Thanks for the warning :D

I don't see how you can get a cradle seat on CX. They have only one type of longhaul seat and that is the flat Cirrus seat and they had it for many years. Before that they had the flat herringbone seats.

That is unless you flew well over ten years ago.

Or IRROPS resulting in an equipment change to a regional J product.

I agree - CW is a good product and I prefer it to QR. I particularly like the window seats due to privacy.

+1. A puzzling reference. At that rate, there have been (extremely unusual) mentions of a European 321 being used by BA instead of the midhaul one normally used for worldwide flights when an aircraft has gone tech, the occurrence of CX using a regional 777/330 on longhaul must be even less.

In this day and age, I just can't consider any J product good that has a bank of 4 seats and that has backward-facing seats. There might be a couple of good seats out of the large quantity of CW seats, but that alone isn't cutting it.

BA's product is competitive because of LHR. If LHR doesn't factor into the equation, well god knows why you'd fly with them.

What's the problem with backward facing seats? It's a much more comfortable ride than forward facing, at least in my opinion, and certainly a good USP for me as far as CW is concerned.

Backward facing seats are also safer...

It's a personal preference but I find them awkward and I imagine that's probably the majority view (given backward facing seats are overall the exception not the rule).

I suppose if you really like them, then it's a plus for you.

I always prefer a rear facing seat. That when when reclined to make a bed my head is higher than my feet due to the nose up pitch of the plane. I'd much rather have my head higher then my feet, then the reverse.

I never understand those references by so many posters about QR crew being robotic/unable to think outside the box/less engaging etc. I'm sure people have felt that way since this keeps being repeated, but quite simply, it is entirely at odds with my own experience on QR.

I actually find that crew tend to show an excellent sense of initiative. Sure, there are service standards which are strictly adhered to (not least both 'in charge of the seat' crew and purser welcome and pre-landing goodbye, the regular offers of hot/cold towel at the start, then hot towel again at multiple points in the flight etc, which can give a sense of predictability, but there is plenty of initiative too. Since the start of 2017 alone, I have had QR crew who have offered to (and delivered) a shorter steak cooking time when I said I was tempted to take it but do like my steak rare, fixing ad hoc drinks, pro-actively offering to bring a extra blanket when they saw I was not quite covered by mine, and plenty more. I have had many an interesting discussion with crew members, including some fairly personal ones about their backgrounds, life in Doha, their future plans, etc, and find that the diversity in nationality comes with a great and inspiring diversity in styles and personalities.

In short, while I like BA crew a lot (be they WW, MF, EF, or LGW), I also like QR crew a lot, AF crew a lot, etc. Different company cultures and mixes of backgrounds, but the notion that QR staff are 'less free to express their personality' or 'less capable of thinking outside the box' is entirely at odds with my own experience over dozens and dozens of flights.

And yes, CW window seats are very private, but the rest is not at all, to the point that nowadays, imitating the LTNPhobia strategy, my partner and I have regretfully moved to taking two window seats rather than sitting together - especially on night flights - after a few bad aisle seat experiences.

I take it you disapprove of the new Q Suite? I must say that backward facing has never been an issue to me. I think I found it vaguely odd the first time I tried it and have never thought of it thereafter. Incidentally, backward facing 1F seat on most old ATR were my favourite seats in the whole plane!

Just done a return to DXB, well what can I say, a very new 789 and it was looking a bit battered inside already??? Trim hanging off, ingrained urine in the toilets, scrapped CW seats. The eturn on a 777 G-VIIA, a refurbed bird. Well frankly it needs doing again. Dirty seat material, food stains on seat plastics, high level dirt, seat belt signs not working, grubby toilets, dirt on the ceilings.....

Second meal now gone in WT+ and was given a box of micro size popcorn, maltezers and crisps, really what's the point, would rather have nothing ..... Rubbish on a 7 + hour flight

Well, I haven't tried the Q suite but I would avoid the rear-facing seats. It's for now an academic point for me as my travels take me westbound and not eastbound, so I'm not comparing CW with the ME3 or the Asian carriers but simply the European and North American competition.

And while there are some worse products than CW out there there's also a lot of better products out there. For CW to be an option for me, BA needs to be a good bit cheaper than a lot of the competition and that just isn't very common (at least in my scenarios)

Was around five years ago.