In my experience of BA they tend to let the Upper Desk business passengers off after First but before the lower desk business and economy classes.

we were on a ua 747 upstairs twice. once by choice, thee second time we got stuck there. seats 15 AB both times. noisy, leaky and cold. i would have liked it better if they had sealed the door better.

Thanks for clarifing, now I feel better.

747s aren't going anywhere any time soon.

I never find it slows me down, just merge with the traffic when I reach the bottom of the stairs.

I love the upper deck for reasons already mentioned here, the same reason that I like to get in mini-cabins in planes that have them. The only drawback is the smaller overhead bin, when I carry a rollaboard they have to stow them in the cupboard as they won't fit.

Air Pacific also has coach on the upper deck - although they try and sell this as 'stretch-out-class' - seating is 3+3, but you can pay a surcharge and they will block the other two seats for you, so that you have a triple unit to lie down on.

Others that used to (not sure if current) are companies like Air France or Corsair (now part of Thompson), particularly with their flights to the French Caribbean and places like Reunion.

Air France 747 manages to squeeze 60 seats in its upper deck in Voyageur (Y), according to their cabin map.

that's generous!! standard seating for EUD is Y69!!

Virgin Atlantic has some 747-400s outfitted in "Configuration 4" with Upper Class in the front part of the upper deck and Y in the back part of the Upper Deck. Configuration 4 is not very well liked by VS customers, especially for those who paid for Upper Class, who have to schlep through Y to get to their mini-suites and then are let out of the plane after the Y customers disembark.

Note the above posts.

Chornedsnorkack, didn't we and some others have a lively discussion on the pluses and minuses of the 747 upper deck over a year ago? I remember you might have posted extensive photos of 747 upper decks of many carriers back then. I seem to recall we had some discussion about "openness" vs. "intimacy" of the upper deck, depending on the configuration of the seats, storage, etc.

I can't find that thread. Perhaps you can.

I prefer the UD generally. On empty(ish) flights on BA however, sometimes it is nice to take the centre rear facing seats downstairs as one gets like a large(ish) cubicle to oneself if the next seat is empty. However those seats are the worst possible if there is soemone next to you...so, something of a gamble.

Also, when I fly into Lagos, which is not the most efficient or pleasant airport on the planet, I prefer to be on the 1st row on the left hand side of the aircraft downstairs. Every person in front of you takes circa 1 minute at passport control, and I have tended to find that people climb down those stairs quite slowly. Luckily for me the flight into Lagos is a day flight, so its no great handicap to sit downstairs.

But for night flights, UD is great for sleeping

I've only ever flown J on various airlines in the upper deck, so for me it just sounds squeezed

On JAL, the upper deck biz class was fantastic. Unfortunately, JAL no longer flies any version of the 747.

I've flown on the upper deck several times:

LH F on the A380-800
LH F on the 747-400
SQ Y on the A380-800 (some of SQ's A380s have Y/J upstairs and others are all J)

Given a choice I'd take the upper deck every time.

Errr yes - but in your example you can ONLY fly the upper deck for LH F

But compare LH F (1+2+1) on the upper deck to SQ F 1+2+1 on the lower deck - much more room - at least 9 inches more width per pax on the lower deck with SQ.