aristoph

Now I think about it, you're right of course - but it's hardly a fair comparison between the escalator up one floor at T3 (so normal I had forgotten about it) and the 2 monsters up and down from the T5 transit, as well as the deliberate zigzagging escalator from security to the shopping mall at T5A. I know it's re-hashing an old gripe but T5 is truly horrible for flow through.

amt

Please wait... security checks, we either just changed your flight from boarding to final call in 3mins or your flight is 45mins late and we weren’t planning on telling you until 10mins after it was supposed to leave

You must now wait while the slowest moving, most disenfranchised employee on the planet shuffles along the length of the platform doing the job a camera/piece of technology that’s existed for 20 years could in 8 seconds...

FlyerTalker70

Unsure if this has been discussed on the thread but one big leg up BA has over US legacies is how they treat their customers. By law they must provide a duty of care during IRROPs including hotels, food, etc. even for events outside their control. That's in addition to the 600 EUR compensation on both directions of travel. I can't speak for AA or DL but for UA duty of care is only added if you are travelling in J or are *A Gold (unless it's something like mechanical). I've never dealt with AA or DL during IRROPs but in my (fortunately) limited experience with UA that have been somewhat helpful.

Safe Travels,

James

Artpen100

Agree that Polaris clubs and the new UA seats are superior, but the former are not everywhere (still due sometime next year for IAD), and the latter have only recently become common. And one area BA excels is the new Do &Co catering. UA on board dining in Polaris is appalling. Also, I recently find the TATL price differential stunning. I am currently on a TATL trip that I bought in CW for 2300 USD when UA was asking over 6K. I am not insensitive to budgets.

NotDuncan

I just did DFW-LHR-MAD in BA J, and return MAD-DFW nonstop in AA J, and have to say, the AA hard product was hands down superior. I'm a regular AA flyer and it's been five or six years since I was on a BA plane, but I was amazed at how antiquated the BA J seat was, narrow seat and footwell, that ridiculous little fold down bench that becomes the extension of the lie flat seat, very little personal storage space, etc. Both LH planes were 777, the AA plane just seemed much more modern and comfortable. I won't even beat the dead horse that is CE, that was awful compared to domestic AA F.

I found the food and service comparable on all segments, to my pleasant surprise. I expected it to be better on BA, but we had good crews all the way around, the food was actually quite decent, and the crew on all the segments went through the cabin regularly for service. I will readily admit AA crews can be more hit or miss than BA, in terms of service and friendliness, but in this trip I would have preferred AA the entire way, we ended up on the BA codeshare outbound strictly due to lower fare.

seanp7

^ This. The Polaris Lounge + updated Polaris J is pretty much enough for me on the short US East Coast to EU flights. Eat first, sleep on the plane. Avoid the inflight service. Their desserts are worth mentioning, though.

Where UA falls down:
- service / pride (older crews who can't memorize a wine list, knock drinks over and blame the passengers, have no idea where the mattress pads are, etc [these are all first hand examples]);
- food (quantity - great, quality - not so great. The salad is a few spinach leaves with a high sugar dressing; the mains should be avoided unless asian or pasta (and even then it's a gamble);
- wine (lottery each flight, red or white?)

I know we all joke about BA cabin crews retiring to the galley and reading OK! magazine, but UA takes the cake in that regard. No pride in appearance or going 'over and above'.

Choose carefully.

WingsAroundtheWorld

I think that is a little harsh - I went in with that pre-conception and actually found the UA crews to be friendly and fun, with a nice American service attitude. I do the miss the BA professionalism and charm of old, but that is quite rare nowadays anyway.

The UA planes are also cleaner. The scrambled eggs and breakfast spread in the lounges is better than GF.

In fact, the only area where I think BA has the advantage over Polaris is on the catering and wine list? Although the champagne in Polaris Club was nicer than GF...(let alone Galleries Club). The Exec Club support hotline is also very good at BA - but I presume UA has this too for its top tier members.

It does show that BA needs to keep First if it wants to have any kind of product leadership offer.

simoflyer

I guess this type of incident doesn't help.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...t-stained.html

binman

But its quite normal. I faced this on a B787 in club departing LHR. No one could care less! So lets not beat about the bush BA is a filthy airline and issues like this have been around for more than decade with no attempt to change it.


Red wine stain on table storage

Red wine stains on walls and carpet

The floor was stained and lots of trapped dirt

IFE screen had red wine stains. Cleaning is still a weakness for BA

WingsAroundtheWorld

Crikey! BA is filthy and disgusting!
Time to get the cabin crew scrubbing it clean during turnarounds I think...!

corporate-wage-slave

I think that is the third or fourth excursion for the photos above. It's not the norm, it's one person's bad experience. Indeed from my personal experience BA has generally sharply improved cabin cleaning in the last year, particularly with the intermediate deep clean introduced a few months back at LHR and (I believe) LGW. The Daily Mail photos were more worrying actually, since that was taken from a LHR departure, and there is no way that could have been cleaned at all in LHR according to the usual protocols. And they would never put an entire aircraft out without any cleaning so it was (a) a missed seat and (b) missed the supervisor's check as well. The bit we are missing is what the crew did when they were shown it - since they have the ability to get the cleaners back on if necessary.

Prospero

Don't worry, the photos while depicting a scene from the Somme are not representative examples of what we typically find on board. binman had a bad trip 18 or so months ago and every so often since likes to remind us of it. Its like switching on E4 to discover the same episode of Big Bang Theory is playing.

seanp7

I have had friendly UA crews about 20% of the time. It's that bad. One FA knocked over a water onto a passenger, didn't apologize and started blaming the new Polaris configuration being so tight (he was a large man himself). On the same flight, a different FA argued with a passenger about a pre-departure beverage. Both horrible starts to a transatlantic flight in Polaris.

And clean planes? You haven't flown a 767 recently. Many of them do not even have the 'clean' Polaris seating that you are referencing, so until the refurbishment is complete, it can be a gamble what 'business' seat you get on certain flights (LHR is guaranteed). The 787-10 and 777-300 are new and nice, agreed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm 1K on United and I use them. But I also think they have a long way to go on their soft product.

subject2load

Back to the Mail report and accompanying photos .... sure, this is the exception rather than the norm.

But what I found most worrying (ie more so than the wholly unpleasant state of the seat itself) was the tedious official response from BA.

Is there nobody in their Press Office with sufficient maturity and common business sense to offer a more constructive, tailored, professional, statement than this ; perhaps one that actually addresses the specific issue, and any related concerns that readers of the report might have ?


No hint of remorse or shame here .......

“ A British Airways spokesman said:

We pride ourselves on the quality of the service and experience offered across all cabins on our aircraft. We know that our customers value a comfortable cabin, so our aircraft are cleaned after every flight.’ “

I really, really, would like to think that the statement has been abridged by the Mail - although we don’t actually know either way - and that it contained something more useful than those two bland sentences : a set of words that presumably come from the Press Office Crib Sheet (stock template response no 17, the one we use for any complaints about unacceptably poor cleaning standards).

A P Yu

Its at least two years until anyone could consider BAs Club Suites seriously as their Club Product as until then it will be on so few aircraft it cant seriously considered to be their Primary Business Class product.