Me in CW, friend in WT
 

Evening all

Long time lurker, first time poster. I am taking a trip to NY with a friend. My friend travels via the cheapest method possible. Unfortunately, I am too long in the tooth to be crammed down the back, sat cheek to jowl with my fellow passengers for eight plus hours, so we are on the same flights but separate cabins.

As this is not something I am used to doing, I have a few questions that I would appreciate some guidance on please.

Bag drop - Could my friend accompany me to the club desks and use the bag drop there? Or would this be a strict no?
Boarding - Would she be allowed to board with me during Club/Silver boarding? I assume not but would rather check here as appose to wasting the time of the ground staff whilst boarding.
Disembarking - Would it be frowned upon to ask that my friend be brought up to the front either shortly before landing or after so that we could disembark, go through immigration and baggage reclaim together? I have seen this happen before and know crew have done this in the past but not sure if it’s still a done thing or not.

Ultimately she is aware the likelihood is that I will be on and off the aircraft before her, so it’s not an issue if the answer is a resounding no to all the above. Just curious as to whether anyone has been in this position before and what their experiences were.

thanks

See below.

I would say all yes, If there is space in CW please ask if your friend can come and sit there for landing.

I was with a colleague who was a GCH. Both of us in Y and I boarded with him in what would now be Group 1 I guess.

i think check-in wouldn' cause too many problems either.

Welcome to de-lurking FlyingPixie. I'm sure one of our friendly ambassadors will be along shortly to give you the proper welcome.

Bag drop - formally, I suspect the answer is no. However I have done this on one occasion without difficulty when travelling with someone in the economy cabin, who had no status of their own at that point - LHR was quiet at the time (no queue at the Club desks) which admittedly influenced my thinking. I just asked politely at the desk if it was possible to check us both in here. The agent was happy to do so.

Boarding - yes, you may board together, even if travelling in different cabins. BA have indicated this - technically they say they will endeavour to board your party together - but in practice I've not had a problem. I recommend politely asking the gate agent as a simple courtesy, but BA's own guidelines say yes.

Disembarking - sorry, I can offer no experience here.

Hope that helps.

All covered.

For the sake of completeness, I should note that for boarding "travelling together" is effectively self defined at the moment - which is why I recommend the courtesy question to the gate agent.

In due course the intent is that it will be automatically reflected for everyone on the same booking, but in practice I have never had an issue even with friends on separate bookings.

Welcome to Flyertalk FlyingPixie, welcome to the BA forum, and I hope you are enjoying the lovely evening that we seem to have in the North East tonight (at least at the northern end of it!).

I think you have had some good answers here and basically if you should be OK on the questions posed. If the check in is at Newcastle then there are only a few desks - and rarely much of a queue - so I don't see you have much of an issue there anyway.

It seems like you have already got your tickets booked, but one option would be World Traveller Plus on that sector, since the two of you could have a pair of seats to yourselves, a reasonable amount of leg room and improved catering. On a day flight to New York, if you chose your aircraft carefully, then as a pair of travellers this could work out quite well - if there is something good to watch on the IFE the flight will be over quite quickly. I don't think you would feel to crammed in. Then there are some day flights from New York to London back too - accepting that the overnight flights are a different proposition in some ways. Worth thinking about anyway, and if you want an excuse then think about booking Boston, Toronto or Montréal since these flights are even shorter.

If you want to go through immigration etc with your friend then just meet them at the top of the jet way.

When crew have moved people up it's because the people involved are on tight connections and are trying to shave a few minutes of time for them.

If you aren't sitting anywhere close to each other, is there any real point to boarding together? When flying economy I want to spend as little time as possible on the plane. Perhaps overhead locker space but I don't think it's a big problem on long haul?

In my case I am the more experienced traveler and other family members have no clue what to do if something goes wrong. If I were to board first and a family member boarding after me got rejected for some reason (ticket problem, oversold, whatever) they would be hosed. That is why I like to board together even if sitting separately, so I can help inexperienced members of my traveling party in case something goes wrong.

definitely yes bag drop and boarding, the third is discretionary. As others have suggested, you can always wait for the rest of your party to join you at the end of the jetway.

All good apart from disembarking, that has never come up with me so it's maybe worth an ask.

I've done T5 Club World bag drop, lounge access with a +1, fast track and priority boarding with various significant others and work colleagues where I was the only one with BAEC metal and quickly realised no one really cares.

As others have said, bag drop and boarding no issue. But I must say I would draw the line at bringing someone into CW so they can disembark together. I can understand the crew sometimes moves people up to the front of the aircraft in case of tight connections. But if you want to go through the arrival airport together, just wait at the top of the jetty. In other words you cede your place in the queue to be with your friend, rather than have her jump the queue. I think that is the correct approach.

Slightly OT but on Saturday a passenger with a short connection (in Y although he dropped his full size wheeled luggage above my CW seat) was making a bit of a fuss during the breakfast service asking to be seated further forward for landing. The CC politely explained several times that a) W, J and F were completely full and b) we were landing 30 minutes ahead of schedule so his connection wasn't that short.

To the OP, if there is a spare seat in CW then I'm sure the crew will consider a polite request to move your friend there and they will balance that with any other request for short connections. As you are Silver your friend can use business check-in, fast track and the lounge(s) as your guest. The new group system means that boarding together is a bit of a grey area and will be at the gate agents discretion. There is often someone checking for group numbers in the boarding area so you can just ask them which will not waste anyone's time.