BA or JL First Class?
 

Returning from FCO in January on an AA award, I have the choice between BA and JL from LHR (BA business class FCO-LHR). Both are available in First on the day we want to travel.

Which would you take? We are on BA006 heading over to VIE from Christmas, so I am tempted to take JL just to try something different....

My limited opinion is that it depends upon whether you are flying alone or with someone. You said "I" have the choice, but then the choice is for the day "we" want to travel.

If you're on your own, I thought JL was better. I liked the seat more (huge!) and the flight attendants were very good. I thought the food was better, but some have said they didn't like the JL choices.

If you're with someone, they don't call the JL seats the "solo" seats for nothing. They are fairly isolated and certainly not conducive to carrying on conversations. BA would be a better choice in that case, imo. Some people have said that BA is faltering a bit, and I admit I haven't flown with them for about three years, but I have always had good experiences overall.

Sorry about the confusion with my use of pronouns! My wife and I are flying, but she has left it to me to choose the itinerary, thus the 'I' in chossing the flights to take!

I have heard good things of both airlines in first, we were really please with the service and the food we got with BA in business on our DONE4 last year, in both 'old' and 'new club' so we were thinking it would only be better with the in first.

The BA flight would be on a 747, whereas the JL flight is a 777, so I think that they are all single seats. Both flights transfer through LHR, so we can't avoid it!

Our only experience in first is with CX and SQ.

If you look at the seat layout, they are very different.

The JAL 777 has nine seats in first, three each row. But due to how the seats are designed, combined with how they were installed, the seats are very isolated from one another. The design is such that the seats have a very wide area to the side of the seat that really prevents you from effectively communicating with the people next to you. The installation is such that they are staggered a bit, adding to the privacy. It's not like they are in the EK or SQ suite style, but it is much more difficult.

The BA 747 has five rows. Rows 1, 2 and 3 are 1-1 because they get into the pointy end. Rows 3 and 4 are 1-2-1. The two in the middle are next to each other and, to a certain degree, point towards each other. It is much more conducive to interacting with the person next to you.

Look at seatguru for the BA configuration and you will see what I mean. The JAL configuration can be found at http://hiro2s.com/JAL-W71.htm

My vote goes for JL.
Yes, privacy is better, but the middle seats still alow you to talk.
Otherwise JL is better in every single aspect (just think about the size of the seats when JL has 9 and BA 14 in the same space).
I allways believed the BA seat is a fairly good business class seat, but too small for real F. Btw. the new SQ C seat on the A380 and the 777 is actually much better than BAF in my opinion.

Are all of JL's planes converted to solo F seats? The last time I checked (about a year ago) over half the fleet still had the old F seats -- which are 10 years out of date now. Luckily LHR-NRT is a priority route and generally got new F even when JL only operated 6 flights with it. But NRT-Australia will be getting a worse seat. So you might be getting the better seat for only half your trip. Otherwise JL has cut back on catering cost a lot, so the food/drink quality is way down from 3 years ago. But so has BA. Fwiw, BA is planning to roll out a new, greatly improved F (in the works for the past 5 years) which might be on your route by your travel date. So you are comparing new F on JL to "old F" on BA (but might get new F on BA and old F on JL). I'm pretty sure the final pecking order will be new BA F > new JL F > old BA F > old JL F, and BA is much faster than JL at rolling out product (JL was doing 1 plane per year for new F at one point! absurd).

I do agree that the new A380 products are changing the benchmark considerably, and some airlines are updating some parts of their fleet accordingly (77Ws on SQ and CX, 744s on CX) while others are not (yet).

I didn't even notice that he was going past NRT. In that case, I would absolutely take BA. The old JL seats were terrible, imo. Like the coffin AA seats, just not as packed in. Does Qantas run a decent plane on the NRT-Oz routes?

QQF only offers J between NRT and Australia, with a mix of Skybed and Dreamtime seats.

Dave

I don't beleive that JL has first to Australia either. They use their worst equipment on this route. I think they treat it like a holiday destination.

Thanks for all of the replies. The routing for the trip is:

ICN-NRT (JL C class)
NRT-LHR (BA F)-VIE (BA C)
FCO-LHR (BA C)-NRT (JL F)
NRT-ICN (JL C)

This is an AA 140K First class award ticket. When I last checked, the LHR-NRT route, which we am currently booked on with JL also had 2 BA first class seats. This was the flight I was wondering about changing. From the different comments, perhaps I should try and get JL from NRT-LHR in F instead of BA!

On the BA flight we currently have 4EF booked, and on the JL flight- a 777 with 9 solo seats, we have 2 C and D.

I suppose we were lucky to get First class seats into Europe for Christmas! BTW, and thoughts on the best way to get from Vienna to Rome? I was thinking the train might be good. Oneworld carriers seem a little out of the way (via LHRor HEL) or expensive (via BUD)

Sounds like a wonderful trip. Keep in mind that with the AA tickets, you can only change date after ticketing. You cannot change carrier once ticketed. If you want to change carrier, you have to return the ticket, have the miles redeposited into your account, then issue a new ticket.

Ahh, I didn't know that! It has been ticketed already. I was only told that I could change the routing without a payment of $100 for the booking, and that date changed were free, subject to availibility. I didn't even think to ask if I could change carriers!~

If the worst of my worries is having to take a BA first instead of a JL first flight or vice versa, I am pretty lucky!

Now all I need to do is work out the program between VIE and FCO!

I would drive (spectacular Alps crossing) but in winter the train is a more sensible option. Overnight, direct, with private facilities should run under 200 euros p/p.

for VIE-FCO id suggest checking AZ and OS fares / awards.
both are nonstop.

AZ(Y/J) - KE(25K/40K)
OS(Y/J) - SQ(25K/45K) OZ(35K/45K)

You were told wrong. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. You cannot change anything about the ticket except for the date/time and, as I recently learned, the class. The change fee applies to other types of tickets, but not this one.