Hello again everyone and happy Friday to you all. I hope you are looking forward to the weekend.

Even though British airways has just given us horrible news that they will be taking away our free food and drinks within Europe, I can still at this time be thankful that we get it on longhaul flights.

Here is the video trip report I made from my flight last month from London to Los Angles.


And for those who like the class trip reports, here we go.

After my trouble with Air Berlin in Düsseldorf I found myself up early the next morning heading back the direction I had already flown and had been put on a connection through Heathrow moving me onto the British Airways A380, which in all honestly was much better than Air Berlin business class.

I arrived on a short-haul flight from Düsseldorf and had just over two hours to make my connection, which would give me plenty of time to clear security again at terminal five and spend some time in the lounge.

First I made my way through connections and passed through airport security, it was busy and the entire process took me around thirty minutes and this was a terminal 5 to terminal 5 connection.





After security I went to the nearest galleries lounge to grab a drink and snack, most of the time they are always packed so I don't spend that much time in them.



Sadly it was the same story today and the lounge was very busy, not the worst I have ever seen it, but it took me a while to find a free seat.

After putting my bag down I first grabbed a coffee





Is it just me or are the bacon sandwiches disgusting ? What with the stack of them and how they are presented just makes me never want to have one, I always notice the bacon used seems to be mainly fat and no actual meat.



There was also the usual Yogurt and fruit selection







I do however enjoy the views from the lounges,







Around twenty minutes in the lounge I decided that I would take a wander around the airport and take a walk as I would be sitting down for the next eleven hours.

I left the lounge and went downstairs to the departure gates,



The departure board was now showing "go to gate" and today our flight would be leaving from one of the satellite terminals

Now you can reach the satellite terminals two ways. The classic route is by taking the free train underground between them which I would say almost everyone does, or if you stay in the lift and go down another floor you find yourself in the empty walkway, I mean it can be a little bit creepy down here.



Making your way to the C gates from the main terminal is about a twenty-minute walk down here, so be prepared for that if you decided to take the walk way.

During my entire journey I passed just one person, it was very relaxing and made the chaos of Heathrow a bit nicer to handle.



I arrived at our gate with plenty of time to space, we would be pushing back today from gate C64



Today we would be flying on the A380-800, I pulled up the registration of our aircraft to find that it was one of newest Airbus A380's British airways had with just two months in service.

This was a last-minute irregular ops booking and so I had limited choices for seating, I would have liked to experience club world on the upper deck, but all the good seats had been taken, thankfully there was still a few good choices free on the lower deck.

The main reason for me being able to get a fairly good seat at the last-minute was due to the fact the day before one of the A380's had a technical issue and they cancelled the flight. This cancellation was on the early flight at 9.45am. What BA then did was bump as many people to the two remaining flights later that day and they also brought in a 777 to fly an additional flight to LAX, you can even see the BA 777 in my video parked in the middle of nowhere when we arrive into LAX which is strange to see as all the BA flights back to London leave in the afternoon or night-time, so that explains what it's doing there at midday when we were the first flight in.

I had gone with seat 15K, mainly because it was one of the few window seats free, but also 15K is one of the only seats on the A380 that has direct aisle access, so no stepping over my seat mate on this flight if they decided to sleep.



The cabin was nice and new and very clean and the seat had no signs of ware & tear and everything looked in great condition, which is what I would hope for from an aircraft that had only been in service for two months.



The main downside that seat 15K has is that it's pretty much on the wing, and lets face fact's, The A380's wing is massive and you have no view at all, but I do prefer the direct aisle access, a small price to pay.



The Captain then came on to welcome us and said we would be pushing back shortly as we had a small IFE problem that needed to be fixed before we departed. I took a look around my club world seat on the A380, which is a newer version of the same seat I had flown on the 747 a few months ago, I have flown the A380 club world seat before and definitely enjoyed it more with its updated IFE.

Though it still annoys me that if you want a window seat you need to fly backwards (First world problems)



I might be one of the few who thinks that the club world seats are pretty comfortable when in the sitting position, I do agree however they are not very comfortable when it comes to sleeping, but this was a daytime flight, so no sleeping for me.



I then flicked through the entertainment selection and noted in my mind all the new movies I wanted to watch, the entertainment selection of British airways is always fairly up to date with a good-sized selection.







I was then handed a menu for the flight today and asked If I would like a drink before take off, I decided to go with some Rose Champagne to start my adventure today.

Whilst sipping on my welcome drink I took a look through the menu







The first thing that I noticed on the menu this time around since the cut backs, There was only 1 starter this time around, British airways had decided that people should no longer be given a choice and should just enjoy the one starter the provide.

I was going to risk the main course today and give the Beef a try.





We then pushed back about twenty minutes behind schedule and had a short taxi to the runway



The take off roll was pretty smooth and we slowly drifted up through the clouds into clear blue sky, it took us a fairly long time to reach the cruising altitude, which is something I notice the A380 takes it's time doing.



After around fifteen minutes up in the air, the crew came around and passed out the amenity kits sacks which have always been really unimpressive compared to other airlines in business class.
I'm fairly sure if BA could avoid giving these out they would, they might become a distant memory soon.





I was then given the expected hot towel,



and asked again what I would like to drink, since I had made them open the Rose champagne I decided to carry on drinking it.



We had reached our cruising altitude and the weather was rather nice up in the friendly skies today and at this point we were passing over Ireland.





Shortly after passing over Ireland lunch time service was in full swing.
Unfortunately I had no choice on my starter, so it just arrived.

Today's starter was Tomato, mozzarella and avocado served with a tomato sponge and basil dressing.
It also came with a seasonal salad served with vinaigrette.

Normally I find these types of dishes to be uninspiring, but on this occasion the starter was absolutely delicious and the side salad was exceptional, the salad leaves were crispy and the olives had actual flavor, something I have never had from an airline salad before.

I finished both starter dishes as they both tasted really good.



My table was then cleared as I awaited the next dish



For my main I had taken the risk of an airplane steak.

I had the seared fillet of Beef with dauphinoise potatoes, fine beans, chantenay carrots and peppercorn cream sauce.

The presentation of the dish was fairly disappointing and a bit sloppy, but the actual taste was really good.



The steak was overcooked, well I would say well done even though I had asked for it medium rare, but it was not cooked so much that it was chewy, so that was a relief.



The dish went down pretty well and I finished the entire dish

Next up was Dessert, they said I could have one dish, I then asked as the flight was so empty if there was a possibility of being able to try both dishes to which the crew agreed.

To start things off I enjoyed the strawberry and mascarpone cremeux torte with strawberry compote, which was enjoyable



This then led me to the very disappointing cheese plate, I mean this was shocking, can you really call this a cheese plate.
Its more like a cheese snack, 2 tiny pieces of cheese and two crackers and some apple jelly.

The cheddar tasted great and the Brie was a complete disappointment. To me Brie is one of the most flavorless cheese's around, my taste buds at 38,000 FT are already damaged enough, so why serve me a cheese with no flavor at all.



I then grabbed my headphones and watched a few movies to pass some time,



For some reason I decided to watch Keanu, I can't watch serious films on flights as I'm always distracted by something, so I normally watch the most ridiculous films.



The picture and sound was very good on this IFE.



No turn down service in Business class on British airways, it's make your own bed.
So I made it myself and relaxed for about an hour.





I will point out just how handy it is having direct access to the aisle in these seats, it makes the seat that much better.



After relaxing in bed for a while and watching some IFE we started passing into North east Canada.



I then found Pac-Man and got a bit addicted to it. A great bit of retro entertainment to have on the aircraft.



After some avid pac-man time I was hungry from all of that activity so decided to check out the Club Kitchen (if you can call it that)

There was plenty of snacks out for me to pick at and some sandwiches, so I grabbed a few and went back to my seat.







The sandwiches seem to be the exact same ones BA serves on its afternoon tea service on some flights, so nothing amazing, but certainly made me full again.



I then went back to playing pac-man before we got closer to our destination.



With just under two hours to go we passed over Utah and Light meal service started,



Today's light meal was a brown rice salad with pumpkin and sunflower seeds, borlotti beans, almonds and coriander in a lemon and garlic dressing.
To my surprise it was a healthy and tasty dish, well done BA.



It was served with some seasonal fruit,





I then tested out the Cajun-spiced chicken sandwich with rocket and sour cream. Lets just say this was less than tasty and sort of had that rubber chicken taste and feel to it.



After the second meal service was completed we passed over Las Vegas and that gave us just forty-five minutes flight time left.



I decided to enjoy one more glass of champagne before we arrived.



The arrival into LAX was the normal long approach down with sunny skies around us and we touched down about twenty minutes early.



It had been a fairly enjoyable flight with British Airways again on the A380, nothing exceptional, but the normal consistent service I find BA always offer, they don't go over the top to make you have an amazing flight, but your food is served quickly and they make sure your drinks are always full.