A pleasant couple of hours today flying back from Valencia on Privat Air. 15 of the 20 business (not branded as Club) seats were taken but I ended up with the entire front row to myself. One other set of two seats were free but the rest of the cabin was full on a 2x2 plan. One or two of those sitting side by side were obviously couples but the others seemed to be strangers so they missed out on the Club Europe promise of an empty seat next to them. 1a ( and I assume the others in the business cabin) offered unlimited leg room and the seat is obviously significantly wider than the BA 319/320 version.

It was great to have a view out of of four windows sitting in 1a compared to the usual Club Europe view. It was a similar seat and cabin experience to the A318 from London City to JFK. However, the seat electronics weren’t activated and it was fixed in the flat-bed take off and landing position. But the substantial headrest went up and down and had sturdy wings that much better than the BA versions where they exist. The seat had a foot rest for those with short legs.

2 crew for the business cabin, one German and one Scot. Both very pleasant and efficient but missing (in my view) the spark that generally sets BA crew apart. No Gold greeting and no sign of iPad or other BA admin. I suspect they wouldn’t have a clue about the BA tiers.

A comedy moment for the meal. There was no pre-printed menu. Instead the stewardess came with an A4 sheet which seemed to list the meals for a whole week’s rotation and then read out what was on offer for this flight. I was offered chicken or beef (but read out in the usual BA restaurant style that makes the food sound more special). I chose the beef but the Stewardess said she couldn’t be confident I would get beef because what what was identified on the package was often not what was inside...sure enough, I ended up with the chicken. It was the usual BA standard and came with the typical starter/cheese/desert served on the Valencia run. The only difference about the food was that we got Club World nuts...

Drinks were also from the usual BA branded trolley with the expected choice of champagne and wines etc. Proactive tops up offered on three or four occasions. All very satisfactory.

The divider curtain between club/business and economy remained open but wasn’t an issue. The business section seemed to take up nearly half the cabin and with two toilets at the back and one at the front the ratio of toilets to passengers presumably meant that no one had to queue for long.

The welcome announcement promised complimentary drinks and ‘snacks’ throughout the aircraft but I don’t know what that translates to in Economy.

One significant downside was that we went to a remote stand at Gatwick, which I have never had in regularly getting this flight from Valencia. Whilst it didn’t take long to unload the passengers we then spent 20 minutes getting to the terminal as the stand was way down the airport towards the control tower so we had to cross busy taxiways to get to the South Terminal.

The crew said that they were contracted through to October and hoped it would go longer than that.



Chicken or beef?