FAQ: BA A380 First / Club Suites retrofit programme
Mar 23, 2025 | 5:11 am
#78
Join Date: May 2016
Location: UK
Posts: 595
The upgrade is very much needed. We flew back from MIA in J last week and both of our seats had issues. In particular, the touch pads for seat adjustment were virtually inoperable and one had to be manually placed in bed mode and manually re-set to seat mode. The crew also couldn’t get it high enough to trigger the green light for the landing position. The bulkhead window seat had 3 storage boxes, one of which kept springing open and the other two were very reluctant to open. The alignment between the footstool and seat panels had a distinct drop and, despite trying to improve the alignment, the combination of tired seat and poor touch controls made it impossible. The sooner they are refurbished the better. Does anyone have a good estimate of how long it will take to do all 12?
Last edited by Prospero; Mar 23, 2025 at 5:13 am Reason: Adjust text colour for dark mode readers
Mar 23, 2025 | 6:28 am
#80
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: London, UK
Posts: 5,399
The upgrade is very much needed. We flew back from MIA in J last week and both of our seats had issues. In particular, the touch pads for seat adjustment were virtually inoperable and one had to be manually placed in bed mode and manually re-set to seat mode. The crew also couldnt get it high enough to trigger the green light for the landing position. The bulkhead window seat had 3 storage boxes, one of which kept springing open and the other two were very reluctant to open. The alignment between the footstool and seat panels had a distinct drop and, despite trying to improve the alignment, the combination of tired seat and poor touch controls made it impossible. The sooner they are refurbished the better. Does anyone have a good estimate of how long it will take to do all 12?
Jun 8, 2025 | 6:57 am
#81
Join Date: Oct 2014
Programs: BA GGL, Hilton Diamond, IHG Diamond
Posts: 1,163
Anyone got any more info on the club suite changes that are planned to be introduced through the A380 refurb? I heard that it came up at the recent Engineering Day, couldnt make it so am intrigued to hear / see!
Jun 8, 2025 | 8:34 am
#82
Join Date: May 2014
Posts: 8,119
Jun 14, 2025 | 8:49 pm
#83
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: SF Bay Area
Programs: BA, Lufthansa, Virgin, Southwest, Marriot, Accorhotels, Hilton
Posts: 83
New First suites on A380 question
I have heard that A380s are going to be fitted with new First suites. Does anyone know when this will start and what the rollout will be? Seems to me US West Coast always sees those updates last.
Jun 15, 2025 | 1:13 am
#85
FlyerTalk Evangelist and Ambassador: The British Airways Club
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Somewhere between 0 and 13,000 metres high
Programs: AF/KL Life Plat, BA GGL+GfL, ALL Diam, Hilton Diam, Marriott Gold, blablablah, etc
Posts: 33,203
A necessarily mistaken impression to the extent that BA doesnt allocate specific frames or cabin configurations to any specific routes (except sometimes jfk) or set thereof.
So in practice, an aircraft visiting the US west coast will typically also visit the east coast and whatever little is left of Asia, Latin America Africa etc and for instance with CS, from the very start, LAX for instance had some flights without CS but also some flights with them etc.
of course, in the context of the 380, the options and numbers are a lot more limited, It will all depend on rotations but most likely given numbers in early months, for a given route, some days will get new cabins and some wont.
So in practice, an aircraft visiting the US west coast will typically also visit the east coast and whatever little is left of Asia, Latin America Africa etc and for instance with CS, from the very start, LAX for instance had some flights without CS but also some flights with them etc.
of course, in the context of the 380, the options and numbers are a lot more limited, It will all depend on rotations but most likely given numbers in early months, for a given route, some days will get new cabins and some wont.
Jun 15, 2025 | 1:32 am
#86
Join Date: Aug 2017
Posts: 1,965
Looking like Q2 2026 for the first refurb A380.
Jun 15, 2025 | 7:29 pm
#87
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: SF Bay Area
Programs: BA, Lufthansa, Virgin, Southwest, Marriot, Accorhotels, Hilton
Posts: 83
Thank you!
Thank you, very helpful.
In my experience, most updates on flights from SFO have been quite late. But I am looking forward to new First. Thank you for your reply.
It's always worth running a search before opening a new thread as there's a multi-page discussion on this: https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/brit...es-2026-a.html
Looking like Q2 2026 for the first refurb A380.
Looking like Q2 2026 for the first refurb A380.
A necessarily mistaken impression to the extent that BA doesnt allocate specific frames or cabin configurations to any specific routes (except sometimes jfk) or set thereof.
So in practice, an aircraft visiting the US west coast will typically also visit the east coast and whatever little is left of Asia, Latin America Africa etc and for instance with CS, from the very start, LAX for instance had some flights without CS but also some flights with them etc.
of course, in the context of the 380, the options and numbers are a lot more limited, It will all depend on rotations but most likely given numbers in early months, for a given route, some days will get new cabins and some wont.
So in practice, an aircraft visiting the US west coast will typically also visit the east coast and whatever little is left of Asia, Latin America Africa etc and for instance with CS, from the very start, LAX for instance had some flights without CS but also some flights with them etc.
of course, in the context of the 380, the options and numbers are a lot more limited, It will all depend on rotations but most likely given numbers in early months, for a given route, some days will get new cabins and some wont.
Last edited by golfmad; Jun 15, 2025 at 7:57 pm Reason: Merge consecutive posts
Aug 18, 2025 | 4:25 pm
#88
Join Date: Mar 2024
Posts: 22
I've just read an article from mid July on the Executive Traveller website that's throwing out some (to me) previously unknown information about the upcoming reconfiguration of the A380s.
Apparently it's going to be:
12 First
110 Club
84 (!!) WTP
The article states that 49% of total seating will be in premium cabins. That indicates a total of approximately 420 seats in the new configuration.
Currently WT is 303, so this means it'll go down to 214 in the future.
Does this suggest a more radical internal reconfiguration of the aircraft? Like moving/changing galleys and toilets around?
When I was still crew at BA the A380 was my favourite aircraft. I'm intrigued to know what it's going to be like going forward.
I wonder if this article is correct?
Apparently it's going to be:
12 First
110 Club
84 (!!) WTP
The article states that 49% of total seating will be in premium cabins. That indicates a total of approximately 420 seats in the new configuration.
Currently WT is 303, so this means it'll go down to 214 in the future.
Does this suggest a more radical internal reconfiguration of the aircraft? Like moving/changing galleys and toilets around?
When I was still crew at BA the A380 was my favourite aircraft. I'm intrigued to know what it's going to be like going forward.
I wonder if this article is correct?
Oct 22, 2025 | 5:18 am
#89
Join Date: Oct 2025
Posts: 4
Just found this online::
BA's A380s Will Return To Dallas In May 2026
In the schedule update over the weekend, BA confirmed that the Airbus A380 will return to Dallas/Fort Worth in May 2026. The double-decker quadjet was last used to the Texas hub in March 2025.
Jan 25, 2026 | 5:59 am
#90
Join Date: Aug 2015
Location: Manchester, UK
Posts: 26
Any murmurings of when the first A380 might taken 'offline' to go in for refit? Aware that the delays on upstream manufacturing has compounded setbacks, and have heard the 'mid-2026' line said in several places, but curious to know if there's a commonly understood timeline between taken out of service > refit in progress > back in service.
We had booked the 2nd of the two daily LHR > MIA flights (BA209) for this coming September, as it was billed to be running Club Suites. But alas, the 209 has been cancelled and condensed back down to a single A380 run daily (BA207). Sod's law.
We are putting as many positive vibes into the ether for another change, or if we dare to be so mindlessly optimistic, possibly a refitted model.
We had booked the 2nd of the two daily LHR > MIA flights (BA209) for this coming September, as it was billed to be running Club Suites. But alas, the 209 has been cancelled and condensed back down to a single A380 run daily (BA207). Sod's law.
We are putting as many positive vibes into the ether for another change, or if we dare to be so mindlessly optimistic, possibly a refitted model.