Charmonafarm

Hi all this is my first time on the forum. I have been reading people’s replies and messages for years and thought it would be good to join and show some support.

My my family and I (my wife and 2 year old) are pretty frequent flyers with a number of airlines, more specifically British airways. We flew LGW to MCO last year in Club World, the plane was very old and had a problem with the air conditioning. This year we have chosen the earlier flight hoping that it’s a newer plane.

Is there anyways that we can search and find out the age and fit out of the plane we will be travelling on? I’m a big British airways fan and choose them as often as we can. We are gold status flyers.

Any my help or advice would be super. Thanks all and happy new year.

darthlemsip

Unfortunately it's luck of the draw with Gatwick - some of the planes there are in a sad and sorry state. Flew out to MRU on one last year that was in great condition, flight back was on on that could not have been more opposite if it tried

corporate-wage-slave

Quite right too, without posts like this there would be nothing here at all. Welcome to Flyertalk and welcome to the BA forum in particular Charmonafarm, it's good to see you here and I hope you will become a regular participant too.

Now the LGW 777 fleet isn't state of the art, and at this stage you can't really work out which aircraft you are going to get, so playing around with the schedule isn't going to do any good. However my experience of the LGW fleet is that generally they are clean, tidy and work well, including the A/C, which you certainly need when leaving MCO. Overall they are well maintained and as a CW passenger I would not hesitate to use LGW's longhaul services. Plus the LGW South arrangements are pretty good actually, compared to LGW North. Having said that, because they are elderly and are flying almost constantly, they are more prone to things like the A/C not working and other minor-but-irritating faults (e.g. side lights not working) once in a while having faults, and there isn't much scope in terms of fleet, or downtime, to rectify this. It's luck of the draw, I can't point to anything like that on my last half a dozen flights from LGW, but that run of success isn't guaranteed.

You could look to use MIA instead, which is served from Heathrow, since they do have more up to date aircraft. Now that is no guarantee either, the brand new 787s had reading light problems in First which have only recently been solved, for example. Moreover some A/C issues relate to the airport procedures and Auxillary Power Units rather than the aircraft (so this is when the A/C seems to take 2 hours in to the flight to get comfortable).

If you want a really good CW experience, right now I would suggest looking at going via JFK on a Super J 747 in Upper Deck. This is subjective, but in my view it's a top class product on a top class aircraft. You then have to go from JFK to MCO, which is easy enough, but given you have a young family it may be best done by having New York as a few days add-on to the main holiday.

firstlight

Using Expertflyer can help sometimes to find out the registration if the flight is soon but sometimes the planes get swapped around. You can then look up the service history. I believe LGW 777s are getting upgraded this year to mainly put in 10 across in economy but I suspect they will update the J cabins and the IFE as well at the same time.

Charmonafarm

Fantastic replies. Thank you very much indeed.

I have thought about about doing a stop over but like my wife said it’s hardly slumming it in club world. It’s a fab product and we prefer it compared to the virgin set up and others.

I thi k the air on problems was just one of those things like you said. It was just a shame as it felt like you couldn’t breathe.

I find the the two seats together in the middle fantastic. One other question I had was that I needed to book a seat for my daughter. She will be 2 1/2 years old when we fly in September. So I’ll be sitting her next to mummy while I have the outside seat. My question is do you have to book a seat if travelling in club world for a little one? As there’s no way she will sit in her own seat unless she’s going to sleep.

corporate-wage-slave

The middle seats are not actually popular with single travellers. And the old joke was they are great for lovers, dreadful for married couples. So normally getting them isn't too tricky. Furthermore if you have a child on the booking then somewhere between 7 and 3 days to departure BA will need to allocate at least one adult seat next to the child, and there's a fair chance that it will work out to end up as a middle plus aisle, that is clearly the easiest for all concerned. However if it is a busy service (school holidays) then there is an argument for paying, particularly along the bulkhead, since you would get something for the money, judging from the rest of your comments.

firstlight

I think the OP said he had gold status in which case he should be able to book seats once tickets are paid. On the 3 class 777 the 3e/3f seat combination is best for middle seat pax as you can get out without disturbing anyone. And BTW Mrs firstlight and I have been married for 30 years and always choose the middle seats in CW :-)

Brighterside

When you mention booking a seat for a child if travelling in Club World do you mean a particular set of seat numbers or are you referring to actually having to buy a ticket for a child age 2 1/2 on date of travel? If it is the latter the answer is yes - all children over the age of two are required to have a seat regardless of travel class.

jmd

As your daughter is over 2, you will need to buy her a seat, regardless of whether she is going to spend much time sitting in it or not. And unfortunately the fare for her is the same as the fare for you and your wife... it’s a brave new world once your little one is over 2...

1Aturnleft

A child fare on a long haul (non club europe) route for a child aged 2-11 should be about 67% of the adult return fare. In addition they don't pay all the additional taxes and levies applied to an adult ticket. Club Europe routes apply the same fare whether adult or child (only the taxes vary)

jmd

UKtravelbear

Whilst they don't pay the full adult base fare (on the dummy booking I did it was actually 75%) they do pay the full rate of APD (the exemption is only for economy) and all the airport and other government fees and charges..

eddy67

Is there any additional info avail regarding the refurb of the LGW B777 fleet, are they getting new seats in all classes with new IFE ?