fly747first

Just had two negative experiences with BA's Club Europe and wanted to share my thoughts.

FRA - LHR
Aircraft was parked far away from the gate and no dedicated bus for Club Europe passengers.
The A319 operating the flight had the new Club Europe seats which I found to be fine, but the cabin was very dirty (e.g., seat pockets with used napkins from the previous flight). Onboard amenities nonexistent, i.e., no pillows or blankets.

I find it ridiculous how BA has claimed that it needs to reduce the size of the Club Europe cabins due to the cost of meals as if they were actually serving quality food. On this leg, the meal consisted of a tiny tomato and mozzarella salad or a "Caesar sandwich" which tasted awful. Warm rolls were offered by the Purser as well as a piece of what appeared to be dark chocolate mousse (most passengers didn't seem to like it as I could see most of it in their trays when the Purser collected them). Meal presentation
overall was awful, as the Club Europe trays look very cheap (by comparison, OW partner Qantas uses rather elegant trays in Business even on short flights such as SYD MEL).

LHR - MAD (4-class 772 sold as 2-class)
Flight was oversold in both J and Y whilst the mixed fleet cabin crew seemed overwhelmed; to be fair, they were courteous and friendly, but they just seemed to be way over their heads. I had an aisle seat in the Club World cabin and found it to be in terrible shape with scratches all over and and the arm rests seemed very flimsy (FIRST was completely full with families and nonrevs). Meal presentation was again awful and the quality of the meal was quite poor (very fishy salmon appetizer, odd tasting cheese course, small chicken breast as entree, and a bland coffee mousse for dessert). No blankets or pillows onboard despite this being an aircraft that primarily flies international routes. Some members of the cabin crew seemed like they were going to have a heart attack due to the large number of Club Europe passengers in two cabins and very few displayed a calm, professional image. Needless to say, even something as simple as a water refill took a long time.

Compared to Austrian and Swiss' Business, I find BA's Club Europe to be a complete joke. Further, BA doesn't seem to be providing effective training to mixed fleet crews. From now on, I will avoid BA as much as possible.

lost_in_translation

This is Intra-Europe J and, frankly, if you’re expecting blankets and pillows you don’t understand the market. Unsure why you think LX is any better (horrible seats, no tray table, food no better than BA).

A QF J ticket between SYD and MEL probably costs a multiple of what you paid for your FRA ticket.

Comments on meal size and cabin cleanliness both fairly fair game, however.

FlyingScientist

Fact check: About 1.3 times if I try now (AUD 499 vs GBP 220).

LCY8737

smokie36

I'm happy to pay half the price and sit in filth?

Ugh!

Flexible preferences

One thing overlooked, is that it is nice to get a flat bed and IFE in short haul.

chris87

obduro

Same, has never been turned on when I've flown this route. You do, however, get IFE when flying Iberia's A340 and you also have an opportunity to try their brand new A350 when they use this route for crew familiarisation...

cheshirepete

I've only experiences CE LHR-MAD in recent months, and as they were Iberia Metal, I found the service better than BA metal (even though they only provide CAVA and not champagne, but it's still nice)

My main route in CE is my weekly MAN-LHR. I only really choose CE for specific reasons. When I book the price difference is not extreme between CE and Y. I'm more after banking my 80 tier point per week. I usually manage to get 1 or 2 champagnes. I like sitting up front. I don't really do it for the CE meal on this route, not the chicken salad or the cheesecake. I much prefer the Asian veg or Low calorie. Obviously its either a A319/A320 (sometimes a A321 but seems less so now a days) - I don't have a particular issue with cleanliness. Sometimes the tray table is soiled, but I wipe it down after using my hot towel (Which is also not a main reason I book CE!) Obviously being a short route it's interesting to see how different CSMs deal with the sometimes <15 minutes of useful trolley time! For instance on Sunday (with 6 rows) they only just brought the trolley back when it was 10 minutes to landing. Sometimes CSMs take your drinks order before take off (more so in Row 1 & 2). Often they don't do this. Obviously the more seasoned CSMs know the limited time they have, and make it work better than others. Ultimately, though, I just bank my 80 TPs, thank you very much!

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for giving us that report. There are a few unusual factors for those routes at the moment.

If the FRA flight was recent, there has been several weeks of poor weather and ATC issues there, which typically does lead to even greater compromises on cleaning standards at FRA, it also takes the cleaning teams longer to get to the aircraft (and apparently there are staff shortages there too). The bus issue is a factor of FRA's hemmed in design and development.

For the MAD flight, using a 777 in the CE context is a huge challenge if CE is large, which it often is. I very much doubt there were many non-revs in First, at least that would be highly unusual: if they seemed familiar to the crew it may be they were regulars on the route. Occasionally a passenger will ask me whether I work for the airline. They recently went to Long meal bands as a semi trial and I suspect it is challenging on some flights if there are a lot of CE passengers in CW seats and 100 minute operating time.

Personally I like the Long meals, the Short-Medium meal deficiencies have been well discussed elsewhere. Austria does an excellent Business class product in my view, I am less convinced by Swiss, but we are all different.

HarryHolden68

I am also a fan of CE, mainly for the TP and for being first off at the destination.

I also think that something is amiss this year. Cleanliness is well documented and I am yet to experience the merits of the deep (for deep, read normal to everyone else) cleaning standards. The 767's may just make it to retirement later this year, but are an embarrassment (or full of character as someone recently described). The food has been poor on my last 4 sectors. The hot breakfast had 1cm of watery fluid in the bottom threatening my white shirt with every mouthful. The sandwich is dry and tasteless with the amount of protein meaning that some mouthfuls were just bread and sauce. Bread rolls appeared haphazardly, or not at all.

What has surprised me is the service and the frequent deviation from SOP. Four long band sectors, and for the first three, the meal and drinks were served together with no snack. The problem with this is that people at the back of the cabin are more than halfway to destination before they get a drink. On the last flight from Stockholm back to LHR, a full forward cabin on the 767 was serviced by four crew. I had chosen row 9 to be near the door on arrival so I had a great view of the service as it unfolded. The service SOP was followed on this occasion. But the food arrived 90 minutes into the flight. They had run out of the advertised starter and did not have enough trays. I had to have a little DYKWIA moment to make sure that did not happen with the main. The four crew (well to be fair, one did more work than the other three combined), were just so slow, having lengthy conversations with anyone who would engage and not seeming in any hurry to terminate the chat and get on with service. The end result of the slow service was that many people ended up finishing their champagne in plastic glasses after the cabin had been secured for landing. This is with a ratio of 12 pax for each crew member. I have seen 1 crew serve more than that without any stress. The crew were legacy crew, and their inter-personal skills were first class, but they were incredibly slow.

All of the crew were friendly and were present throughout all of the flights. I just wonder why deviating from the standard service in the air is seen as fair game by the crew. Is it just motivation, path of least resistance or a feeling of "I know best"? As for the food, it doesn't do it for me.

gms

Over the last week I flew a return LHR-HEL.

Outbound the crew were fantastic. Regular drinks top-ups, friendly, efficient service, despite a reasonable load in CE.

Return it was more of a mixed bag. One crew member seemed to have decided that because the miniature spirits are technically doubles, she would only serve half a bottle measure and kept the remainder on the trolley! So I got half a miniature of gin, but with the bonus of a whole tonic can! It was just weird! I remember the days when BA would regularly offer two spirits miniatures at the same time, now she seems to be compensating by going the other way. So for my next drink order I waited for another crew member and she gave me the bottle and mixer as normal.

It still amazes me that delivering consistent basic service standards in premium cabins is such a challenge for BA.

Bar Operator

sts603

This is exactly the situation my wife had recently. She was on a completely sold out J0 Y0 MAD-LHR 4-class 777 ticketed in J. I told her that the F cabin had been open and while she had not been moved forward (about 6 passengers appear to have been - presumably all Golds) the remaining seats where X blocked (meaning the airport should have been able to assign them). She was in the IB lounge on a four hour layover. The IB agent tried, failed, and called BA and was told the cabin was fully booked with no open seats. About T-60, the seats went from X blocked to entirely open. I sent her back to the IB agent who gave her lots of attitude, told her it was still full, and then when my wife insisted, called BA and another discussion ensued. Finally, they gave her 1F and said "I guess someone missed their connection." Total lies. And when my wife boarded, everyone in rows 1 and 2 was a BA pilot (there were multiple) or their family members. Absolutely despicable behavior.

Oxon Flyer

Just from a interested lay-readers point of view, some colour-commentary explaining why/how the arrangements of a few plates on a tray could be deemed so awful would be appreciated. Ditto a description of what the cheese course actually was, and what it tasted of.