LAX-LHR BA first class
 

INTRO
I have been travelling an excessive amount in the past couple of months, and have not had the time to write a trip report. I am writing about my recent trip report on BA. Next week I will be travelling on VARIG, UNITED, SINGAPORE, THAI and QANTAS all in first. I will be writing a detailed report at that time.
This trip was to meet my family as they were vacationing in London. I was booked on BA 282 from LAX-LHR on 8/13. There are two flights to LHR from LAX on BA and I opted for the earlier flight. As this is a west coast flight BA offers NO pre flight dining, only the BA first class lounge. This lounge is very mediocre. It is a shared lounge with Qantas. Food included goat cheese antipasto, salmon sandwiches, grilled vegetables, and of course an open bar. There were no hot options offered. Our lounge was filled to capacity. We were led to gate 121 by the lounge attendant.

BOARDING
In two words A ZOO. Both first class and business class passengers boarded through one door. I was the last person to board. Upon arrival at my seat 4K I found nuts at my seat, and was quickly offered a drink of my choice( in real glasses ). Amenity kits were on our seat as well as a choice of 25 personal videos. It seemed as if everyone in first class was using the lavatory to change into our grey colored sleeper suits. Out of 14 passengers on the flight, 12 were in sleeper suits before take off. No one slept until after the 2 hour dinner service however.

MENU
STARTERS
Grilled tandoori prawns with minted yoghurt dressing
Sun-dried tomato and basil savoury cheesecake on walnut, almond and pecan nut biscuit
Wild mushroom soup
Fresh salad leaves with your choice of honey Dijon mustard dressing, balsamic vinaigrette or extra virgin olive oil

MAIN
Grilled fillet steak marinated in red wine with fresh asparagus and celeriac mashed potatoes
Seared salmon with warm lemon and tarragon bearnaise sauce served on sauteed spinach
Penne pasta with your choice of roast red pepper or alfredo sauce topped with freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Confit of duck on fresh salad leaves with toasted almonds and sasame ginger dressing

SNACKS
Bacon roll served with tomato ketchup
Wild mushroom soup with a side salad
A selection of cheese and fruit

DESSERT AND CHEESE
Cassis and white chocolate dessert
Vanilla plum torte with Mascarpone cheese
A selection from our cheeseboard
A basket of fresh fruit

BREAKFAST

STARTERS
Chilled fruit juice
An energising fruit smoothie
A selection fo fru;it, plain youghurts and cereals
Fresh seasonal Fruit plate

BAKERY
A wide selection of breakfast pastries and rolls

MAIN
Scrambled eggs, grilled bacon, pork sausages, sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomato and hash-brown potatoes.

CHAMPAGNE
Perrier Jouet Belle Epoque Brut 1996

As you can tell the menu was excellent. I had the salmon which was fantastic. As the dinner was being served all 14 passengers were using the IFE. The selections were fantastic. I watched some episodes of SIX FEET UNDER as well as the older flick CHARIOTS OF FIRE. I had about 6 hours of sleep and awoke to the smell of coffee. Most passengers had the full British breakfast. I opted for the continental breakfast. Landing in London was exactly on time even though we had to circle LHR for 20 minutes.
In conclusion let me say that BA still had an excellent first class product.. The food was excellent, but the selections were less numerous than two years ago. The first class personal video selections were OK but the selection was much better last year with about 35 selections. The FA were fantastic. I have always thought that the BA FA were excellent but this trip was absolutely fantastic. For those of you that do not know, BA first class seats are sleeper pods with a wonderful feeling of privacy. There are 14 seats in first compared to 12 in Cathays first and 10 in ANA new first classs. Until next time...

There are two different FIRST CLASS configurations in Cathay's first class, on the airbuses, there are 8 seats, on the 747s there are 12. Have you actually TRIED its first class? I travel often in the front cabin, and I must say that unless you've tried both, it is difficult to compare.

I've flown LHR-LAX on BA F twice in the past 3 months. On one of the flights, there were no pjs. On the second flight, there were 3 pjs. So - if you fly the day time flight and want pjs - ask quickly.

skye, I'm baffled by your comment. rtw4 gave a nice synopsis of BA first, commenting that BA has 14 seats in F and CX has 12 for 747s. That is a factually accurate remark. There was no other attempt at comparison. I have flown both airlines in F a number of times in the past several months. Both offer excellent products.

rtw4, I look forward to your upcoming review of the many airlines you plan to fly in F. I hope that you give us a summary at the end as to the pros and cons you found for each.

and to add-

"CX101 is operated by an airbus with 3 classes of service. First and Business were packed, as the long line to board showed. I was led to my seat 2A"
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=182338

"Our flight was half full in first class. We were travelling today in a 747-400 with the New Business class installed.... I was in seat 4K and had alot of room for myself. The seat on CX has been discussed before. It is truly the greatest."
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=181654

I, too, understood the comparison to be how many seats that each of several airlines tries to fit into the nose of a 747, which, given that the flight deck is on the upper level, provides a pretty unique FC experience....

I look forward to the rest of the report.

thank you very much for your report!

is stopped chaning into PJs before take off: some weeks ago I changed into the one of the new LH F PJs before take-off. later the captain came and asked me if i mind to change my dress again :) as our plane was defective and we need to change to another 744. of course i was the last to deboard ... much to the amusement of the F/As

Looking forward to reading your next trip report(s) ^

skye, first of all let me say that RTW4 has spend quite some time and effort into writing this (and possibly future) trip reports. After all this effort let me tell you it is not nice to get such a comment. There is a distinct line between critisism and plain rudeness. :rolleyes:

I'm surprised you had any PJ's on a daytime west flight. There usually aren't any as airline staff (BA, LH, AF, etc) seem to believe everyone who flies is adjusted to the local timezone. They don't seem to understand that some of their best customers fly so much that the only sleep we get is on an airplane, no matter where the sun is.

Skye, we ALL KNOW you always travel in F Class, there is NO NEED to BRAG about it! Your rudeness towards other FT Members (incl myself) is really annoying.


RTW is just trying to write a decent TR and you have never contributed anything worthwhile other than criticism after criticism!

Thanks for the BA F update, RTW4.

- RightD

RTW, I know it takes effort to sit down and do these reports and I really appreciate your work. A really good trip report is a sort of journalism and I enjoy yours. I would like to hear about your Varig/UA/Singapore/QF week when you're able to post; I like hearing about the F services I've never been close to. Thank you!

I have had the pleasure of flying BA's First many times on the LAX-LHR route. It's nice to see that, in this age of continuing cutbacks, BA still offers an excellent meal service in the forward cabin. Thanks for yet another fine report, RTW4.

Thank you for this enjoyable read. Just like SanDiego1k and BearX220, I am also looking forward to your reports on the other airlines you've recently flown.

I also enjoyed the read and want to add that I have ALWAYS gotten PJ's on every AF flight in F no matter what time of day or night it was.

RTW4, good news that you find again time to write reports. Keep 'em coming.

I feel compelled to comment that while the menu is exactly as outlined, the quality of the catering apparently varies from day to day by a large amount. On my 2 flights this year on BA LAX-LHR the food in F was poor quality, with some of it rotten to the point of being inedible. Perhaps the catering truck was left out in the sun too long? In any case I feel that BA has serious quality control problems at LAX and the food quality is much worse than from other west coast airports (I've from SFO-LHR and YVR-LHR this year, with much better food -- though a similar menu -- and SEA-LHR last year, also better than LAX). It seems to be a LAX problem. For some strange reason YVR is best of all out of the west coast.
After 2 bad flights on BA out of LAX I flew AA LAX-LHR and that was quite good (complete with Flagship Suite, which is better than the BA seating). Now I'm thinking that AA is the better choice on this route, rather than BA.