JIMCHI

I was holding a first class reservation PHX-LHR for December 7th. I just received an e-mail saying there has been an equipment change on this route and it is now a 777 with no F cabin. I have been downgraded to business class. When I look at the seat map for BA288 on Dec 7th on Expert Flyer it's showing a 777 with 65 business class seats but I can find no BA aircraft with that configuration. SeatGuru shows the flight having a F cabin. When doing a mock business class booking on this flight on BA.com the seat map shows a first class cabin with all seats taken and a business class cabin with 7 rows of 2-4-2 seating with both forward and rear facing seats. So, I don't understand exactly what aircraft they are using on this route and where I can find an accurate seat map. BA 218 DEN-LHR shows the same type of mysterious aircraft.

Airprox

That is a B777-300ER in the current 14F setup just without First class being sold.

golfmad

I'm guessing that ExpertFlyer isn't right on this one. EF is actually showing a seat map from 1-10 in Club World with 37 seats!

A dummy booking on BA.com looks like the configuration is a 777-300ER config 77G as below.





The plan above is from the WiKi in this thread:

Seating guide: Boeing 777

My guess is that BA.com is right and that EF will sort itself out at some point. Forget anything on Seatguru.

JIMCHI

Why are they doing this? Why not leave me in F and also sell F if that's what the aircraft has.

jerry a. laska

See this thread (among others) where the subject is discussed:
Involuntary Downgrade from First to Club due to change of aircraft.

As you aren't scheduled to fly until December, it's possible that another aircraft without an F cabin may eventually be assigned to the flight and the current aircraft is merely a placeholder.


Also, FYI, the general advice here is to not look to seatguru, which is rarely correct with regard to BA aircraft and seating.

warakorn

December is a very long time away.
And a 75% refund of the F fare for downgrade sounds pretty good too.

dylanks

In many cases after you subtract out the surcharges it’s significantly less than the fare difference at the time of purchase. (And usually less than the cost of an AUP).

Mostly though the reduction of F cabins makes it more difficult to retain status, and more difficult to use the benefits of GGL/CCR. For me these changes mostly mean the difference between reaching 5000 TP vs not, further keeping the CCR out of reach.

Beyond that, it’s frustrating that BA is generally refusing to allow rebooking via another US gateway with first class. And until you accept the changes, the remainder of MMB is blocked for the booking, which is now the case for most of my BA bookings.

Im a new user

Isn't the rule that you pay mandatory taxes in full but are refunded 75% of the base fare and any non-mandatory taxes, the fuel surcharge being a non-mandatory tax?

KARFA

There is quite a nice guide on the downgrade reimbursement and a link to a worked example in post 5 of the EC261 guide linked to in the dashboard.

https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...61-2004-a.html

Pilot37

OAG tentative schedules for S22 show that BA are aiming to serve PHX with the A350 so the downgrade for W21/22 is just following through on F being completely pulled from this route going forward (even if the route will see a 4-class B777 continue to serve it).
Heathrow - Orlando is also scheduled to be served by an A350 for S22 according to tentative schedules.

Pilot37

JIMCHI

Our flight is on December 7th. Does OAG still show PHX-LHR operating with the 777with no F class on that date? Will the A350 be operating by then? Thanks.

Airprox

It hasn’t changed since we looked for you 2 days ago, still a 4 class 777-300ER being sold as 3 class. What aircraft will be operating what flights in December is still a total guess at this point, what airlines put in the schedules this far out particularly in Covid times are basically just placeholders. You might get a B789, you might get an A350, you might get any of the 9 different variants of 777 that BA operate, or PHX might not have even re-started at all by then. Who can tell you what you will get? No-one on here knows because not even anyone at BA knows right now.

GWH

Also travelling from PHX in September and have been downgraded, outward was via Houston, still in F ( avios booking ). After reading the post, did a few dummy cash bookings and F is available.

Contacted You First. Plane is now a 777 with F. Seats are being restored to F and the avios refund for business to be taken back. A very happy outcome, assuming travel to America is allowed.

JIMCHI

Unfortunately for me, the return of F on the PHX-LHR route seems to end in October.

JIMCHI

Does anyone have any idea when the BA schedules for this route in December will be updated? As of today they are still showing a 777 with a first class cabin but F class not being sold.