wilsnunn

This is not a full and detailed report, but is merely some musings from my first experience of BA's Club World product this weekend.

My current travel sees me taking between 20 and 25 flights per year, nearly all of which are personal travel and most of my l/h travel is in economy or occasionally premium economy, 60% of my s/h is in economy and the remainder in business (for the TPs more than anything). In my life I have flown l/h business 4 times: once on Aer Lingus (BOS-DUB), twice on Lufthansa (FRA-JED & JED-FRA) and as of last weekend, once on BA (JED-LHR), here are a few of my details and various musings from the trip:

• The flight was on G-ZZZA, which I am aware is considered to be some of the worst CW seating in the fleet (happy to be corrected here)
• Had originally booked to sit in 13A and 13B (myself and Mrs Wilsnunn) but moved to 13J and 13K at OLCI (as that side of the plane seemed much quieter), when on the plane Mrs Wilsnunn decided that she was actually happy to sit backwards and we moved ourselves to 13E and 13F to give ourselves our own little area together
• The moment that I sat down in my original seat (13K) I was very happy with the comfort of the seat and was excited for a very comfortable journey compared to my usual WT or WT+ journeys (indeed the outbound journey was in 26H on G-VIIN, so leg room was not an issue there), the journey was indeed very comfortable
• I was rather confused by the amount of "stuff" on the seat when I arrived, having the large White Company pillow (which was very comfortable) and the White Company bedding kit on the seat when you board seems like a waste as it is in the way during takeoff
• After take off we moved to the empty middle seats and our breakfast order was taken, the starter of hot smoked salmon was fantastic however the omelette with chicken sausage was not great and tasted exactly like an economy meal with a little bit better presentation, Mrs Wilsnunn's continental platter was much better tasting
• Being 6'1" with broad shoulders, I found the seat/bed comfortable but slightly cramped, I was not able to lie fully flat and when in the "lounge" position as opposed to the bed position, my shoulders were slightly squeezed
• The afternoon tea served before landing was an Arabic mezze which was very nice and a nice way to end the flight although Mrs Wilsnunn was still rather hungry after despite raiding the club kitchen during the flight
• The crew were very nice always helped when asked, in fact when Mrs Wilsnunn asked for some chocolate, they brought her a whole unopened box of Cadbury chocolates

Comparing to my previous experiences of long haul business class:

• Much better than my trip with Aer Lingus which was not fully flat beds and the food was very basic (this was in 2014)
• I cannot fully recall, however I remember the seats on Lufthansa being more spacious however the food and service being worse than what I experienced on CW this weekend

This trip was UuA and it is unlikely that we will be doing any more trips together in CW for over a year or so (I need to finish my PhD first!) however we very much enjoyed our flight and Mrs Wilsnunn who has always said "I am not sure that Business class is worth it" has now agreed that she did enjoy it and if the price differential is not bad then she would be happy to pay for it in the future.

I will be travelling exEU to Singapore on QR (with two legs in Q Suites) this summer so I am looking forward to comparing to that.

Note on UuA: The difference in taxes was €34 each and the Avios cost was 11,250 each. I calculated that given the price differences at time of booking, we got a value of about 8p per Avios.

Thanks to everybody here who has helped either directly or indirectly, given that I am a PhD student and Mrs Wilsnunn is a junior doctor, everybody is astounded that we were able fo fly in business!

corporate-wage-slave

Thanks for the balanced review.

For your shoulder issue, I'm the same height and a loosehead prop. What you may want to do is to wriggle yourself slightly up the seat a bit in lounge position, and slightly down the seat in the bed position. There is a bit of a knack to it, so I suggest you follow Flyertalk avidly, find the bargains and thus get the requisite experience.

TheOldMan

Chicken sausage.....YUK !

thebigben

This is in line with my experience. I got used to the seat and managed to get it fully flat on the return flight, there's a bit of a trick to it as c-w-s mentions, and it seems like since then the only time my shoulders are a bit squeezed is in the landing position.

johnbonham

I think the new bedding makes a difference, for me anyway. Usually I'd struggle to sleep but on my last flight (MIA to LHR on 747 lower deck) I found the mattress cover to be very comfortable and got a solid 4 1/2 hours in. The staff were also very good on that flight. Flying on a 777-200 on Friday overnight to LHR so interested to see how that compares.

Also, I really like the card they give you now with wake up options.

wilsnunn

corporate-wage-slave

Some of us have mastered the art of sliding the footstall down with our toes after take off and can thus get to sleep directly a few minutes after take-off, valuable from PHL/NYC/YYZ/BOS and YUL. I think my quickest YUL is something like 5 hours 20 minutes so there isn't much time to snooze as it is. There are other places to store the sleeping kit.... And you were on JED-LHR, which is a day time flight (and also why the chicken sausage), so the wake up card is for overnight services.

golfmad

But be careful. I managed to cause myself considerable pain on one occasion.

corporate-wage-slave

Perhaps we will need a workshop at a future FT Do on "Toe working of the Club World Seat", with a HSSE break-out session.

subject2load

HIDDY

Yes they do take some getting used to. I first experienced one in economy on a Air China flight to BJS and vowed never to eat them again....only to find the Beijing Hotel I was staying at served them for breakfast!!

Thanks for your thoughts OP. ^ Must admit I much prefer the IB J seat to the CW one however I don't get all 'worked up' about it....it's only an aircraft seat after all and certainly beats economy.

TheOldMan

I wonder if chicken sausages are made by the same company who make turkey mince ?

bigwalrus

Good post, thanks for sharing.

I agree with the point about the bedding kits. I look around and see few people using them at take off, which makes me wonder why they're not handed out once airborne. The crew often come by and place them up in the overhead storage, suggesting that they're doubling their workload.

My last two CW flights have been with a couple of kids in tow (both UuA). The experience is more about avoiding economy rather than enjoying CW. I still struggle to justify the price difference on a normal fare. WT+ is probably my sweet spot for the time being.