hartwith

We are booked on BA116 in CW (booking class I) from JFK in December and was notified by email this morning that the flight had changed from a 744 to 777. Having booked my favourite 62A/B seats for the flights, I was understandably pretty miffed about this. When I called the BA Gold number to change to the later BA172 or BA114 which were showing as a 744, I was told that the change fee would be over £1k p/p, which I obviously declined. My understanding from previous posts on this, was that the flight change should be free because it was an operational issue? Any help from this forum greatly appreciated!

rossmacd

I got the exact same change as you this morning - notifying a seat change which under investigation showed a 777 now operating my JFK-LHR flight instead of a 747 (I too booked in J on a 747 in my favourite seat 64K, since F is a waste of money/Avios on this sector).

Being a GGL/CCR and this being an Avios reservation (therefore free change), I emailed the GGL team this morning to ask them to switch me to a 747 service and had ticket issued less than 40 minutes later. I thought this was very fast service indeed ^

For cash tickets, you basically have no allowance to make changes. I would always advise booking North America routes with AA where at all possible, since their T&Cs allow for re-routing/refund if the aircraft type has changed from the one originally booked.

KARFA

Sorry to hear of the change hartwith, I would similarly much prefer the 747 over the 777.

As noted by rossmacd BA do not offer free changes purely for an aircraft type change. If it is a reward booking and if there is J reward availability on another flight you can do a change (subject to a £35 per person change fee) but if it is a revenue booking then it is the full change charges just as if you were doing any other change to your booking.

hartwith

Thanks for the input both. I guess the dorm it is then

mikeyfly

Has there been a time change to the December flight since you've booked? If not, there may be one when the winter schedule is finalised and this may get you some wriggle room

hartwith

Negative, just an aircraft change. It appears that 744s are being pulled from the JFK winter schedule across the board and replaced with the 777. On some days, there are no 744s rostered at all.

rossmacd

Yes, it is a shame when this happens particularly so as the BA 777 is a very poor J product.

hartwith

I gather that a couple of the 772s will be refurbed in Q4 to the new Club Suite. I live in hope this is one of them.

mikeyfly

Too much hope here !

UKtravelbear

I don't see BA rostering any flights with the new CW suite onto the JFK route until it can switch all flights to the new seat.


As to the OPs original question whilst some airlines will allow a flight change purely if the plane type changes many others (including BA) don't because the seat and service is (generally) the same. I recall BA has allowed it if a BA flight has switched to an e.g. Air Belgium plane because the seat and service are clearly different especially in the premium cabins.

Markie

31 Dec - all flights from JFK, apart from the daytime are 777's now.
Damn

Gig103

I haven't been on a BA 777 yet. What makes it worse than the 747 main deck (not everyone can get UD!), which I have flown?

hartwith

These 744s have not been sent to Victorville yet, so why are they being taken off the JFK route and where are they instead being rostered to?

Markie

They are generally very hot, and there are few decent seats on the plane.

ENTP

The good seats difference really is quite stark too. Take the prized direct aisle access window seats. A 773 has two (16AK) whereas a Super-Hi-J 747 has ten (!) - 14AK, 20AK, 22AK, 62AK and 64AK. Even the 787 has more than the Triple by the virtue of both variants having CW across two smaller cabins.