bradders239

haha last year's flights on ba. HKG LHR 9 out 11 seats around me in biz class broken on 380. LHR ICN DREAMLINER 3 seats broken in business class. Crew told me on both flights lack of maintenance & when reported can take weeks to fix. Don't kid yourself about BA being the be all and end all of airlines. My wife's uncle is due to retire from BA engineering. I trust what he tells me & cut backs mean they often have to wait before fixing something in the cabin.

lhrsfo

This is what I did last year and I was very impressed with EVA. Fantastic hard and soft product (no idea if the latter is relevant now, but the hard product was way ahead of BA).

13901

Let's be very clear though: there is a fundamental difference between ensuring that an aircraft is safe to operate and being in top condition. An aircraft could have every single seat broken, every IFE turned off but be safe to go. To imply that BA, or any other reputable airline, flies with a non-dispatcheable item malfunctioning is wrong. If the plane is unsafe to fly, the plane is fixed and until such time the thing doesn't fly. Is BA far from the likes of JAL, where every failing component, no matter how minor, has a maximum of one flight before it's swapped out? Absolutely. Sometimes I wonder what would happen if BA tied the bonus for Engineers to the number of ADDs on its fleets...

Having said that, China Airlines' maintenance records - much in the same way as Korean Air's - have considerably improved since the 1980s and 1990s.

FlyerTalker39574

To avoid B777 noise and headaches, the B787 definitely is worth going out of your way for.

stewaran

That seems very unlucky given my experiences

Swanhunter

strange whining noises, useless dimmed windows, over wing vibration, still overloud AC? It’s certainly not worth an extra 2 hours in economy.

corporate-wage-slave

Agreed, but not in World Traveller obviously!

IAMORGAN

Other thing here is COVID-19. I would personally look to minimise number of connections, particularly if on separate tickets, because of the risk of schedule changes / new lockdowns / regulations / other faff factors potentially making the risk of cancellation higher.

just because we appear to be easing things here right now, I don’t think it follows that we can ‘plan’ for this being a one way street. I expect a number of diversions leading to nowhere, pit stops, u-turns and other similar analogies until we emerge the other side. I get the sense the ‘make it up as we go along’ / ‘as much of an art as it is a science’ approach is being adopted on a global basis right now whilst each country, like Goldilocks, decides how much COVID-19 is the ‘right’ amount to ‘manage through’ the pandemic.

gliderpilot

The A380 is economical, you just have to fill it. That is the real challenge given the state of passenger travel at the moment. A better word might be 'inflexible'.

TWCLAM

I had a change last week from a 772 to a Super Hi-J 744 JFK-LHR for 14th Sept so I imagine they are planning on putting them back into service, at least for a short while if nothing else, otherwise notifying of an aircraft change this far out seems strange & pointless.

golfmad

How about just agreeing that it's not economical at the current load levels?

Digicola

Shame, I've flown them a few times from Europe and always had a great experience, never felt unsafe. Hard product is excellent, so is soft product. I'd definitely recommend it especially as they fly direct without stopping in BKK.
Shame they don't fly to CDG though.

FlyerTalker39574

The A380 has been economical enough to fly overnight to JNB, have a full daytime nap and then leave in the evening and be back at LHR in the early morning.

gliderpilot

Fine by me .

Will100

Captain Dave I hope.