British Airways “to cap Club Europe business class at seven rows”

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• Colin from Sussex says:

  21 Feb21 February 09:59

  Maybe this could be an opportunity to introduce proper 2-2 seating with a circa 40″ seat pitch.

  3 rows on a 319
  5 rows on a 320
  7 rows on a 321

  Only then could any increase in price to fly CE be justified. Until that happens I will choose extra leg room in a Y exit row and enjoy the food in the lounge, extra bags and first check in that my status already gives me

  At is stands I value the middle seat and the food in CE at no more than £10 and zero if I had to move from an exit row to anything other than the front row.

  The only time I would consider flying it would be for the TP

  • Anthony Dunn says:

    21 Feb21 February 15:22

    If you read the sundry Capital Markets day presentations to the City of London etc fund managers, you will see that IAG clearly wishes to be able to switch aircraft between IAG operating airlines IAW with demand factors. Having an entirely standard interior fit both saves on initial costs and obviates the need for expensive internal modifications if an IB airframe is moved over to EI or BA. This is part of IAG’s drive to achieve “synergy” gains….

    We’ll all see how this works out in practice.

    Beyond that, I have quite enjoyed my recent CE experiences on BA with decent Club tray service and food quality. I’ve even found the seat, tray table, armrests and forward bulk heads to be clean of late – this after my rather deliberately and publicly taking to use the hand wipe on all of those surfaces. This has drawn some rather astonished looks from cabin crew and fellow passengers alike – particularly when i have commented that” I don’t do grime…!”

• Linda says:

  21 Feb21 February 10:04

  After reading this article I checked the CE seat plans for our flights from Heathrow to Malaga in March and May. Interestingly the March flights are showing only 7 rows on an A320 but the May flights on an A321 show 10 rows. Wondering if the seat maps are accurate or will passengers in rows 8 to 10 on the A321 find that they are no longer in CE.

  • Mike G says:

    21 Feb21 February 23:10

    CE was full from/to Verona on the last two Saturdays

• vand says:

  21 Feb21 February 10:31

  CE is never full .. and often they move the barrier to reduce down. Sometimes three rows. Am I missing something on typical CE yields?

  • Rob says:

    21 Feb21 February 12:33

    How many 7am flights to key business cities do you do?

    • vand says:

      21 Feb21 February 12:57

      Depends if Oslo is a ‘key business city’ 😉 but not often the earlies to be fair.

    • Andrew says:

      21 Feb21 February 15:45

      Or some leisure routes. I was recently on an 0650 departure from LGW-MLA on a Sunday and that had 8, maybe 9 rows of CE on an A319. At least being a “very long” flight (as in menu range) they managed the service with plenty of time to spare!

      I’m presuming the blankets and pillows that used to be on the Band 4 flights have been enhanced away though.

    • KP says:

      21 Feb21 February 17:43

      I’ve been flying FRA-LHR pretty much every week since July last year. All flights on ‘peak’ times and the FRA route is probably the most business-orinted route in the European network. CE has been rammed almost every time with at least 7-10 rows of CE

  • Tarka says:

    21 Feb21 February 19:26

    They usually are on LGW-TFS – 8 rows full im my recent experiences

  • Luke says:

    22 Feb22 February 08:37

    I fly LON-PRG-LON every month and CE is always full regardless the time or day…obviously leisure connection route (mostly US flights feed) rather than business. On many occasions, business class pax were seated in emergency row in addition to 11 CE rows…cutting to 7 CE rows will be tough challenge.

• Nick says:

  21 Feb21 February 11:04

  This is ONLY on the longer flights (with full meal service). Short ones will have NO cap on CE loads.
  Most of the T3 flights (where the neos are going first and thus where this is being trialled) operate with fewer than 7 CE rows anyway.
  GIB is the only real one to watch here.

  • Julian says:

    21 Feb21 February 12:11

    They provided a full three course meal service in CE when I travelled from ORY (Paris Orly) to LHR last June, despite this only being a 45 minute flight plus any unpredictable time in the stack waiting to land at LHR (but by which time all meal service must normally be ended). So what exactly are the short flights with no cap on numbers that you refer to? Is this only LHR to MAN? Yet from Prague to LHR on the evening of New Year’s Day this year (2018) they only operated a two course service on a 90 minute long flight.

    The main point surely is that CE now has no more leg room than ET so I can’t actually see the point of paying up to several hundreds more in cash for the product, especially if you are a taller or larger passenger as I am. I am only bothering with this product at all because I have Avios points to use up but the product has no future unless at least half the people (and probably a great many more than that) travelling in Club are prepared to pay the full cash price for the service.

    But given the seat pitch and reduced meal service they plan to offer going forward I can’t see how they can possibly get away with the old level of cash premium for Club Class fares.

• mark2 says:

  21 Feb21 February 11:08

  OT
  Yesterday I added my nephew and OH to our ‘Family and Friends’ list at BAEC. It was surprisingly simple and allowed me to book for them immediately (I had assumed that they would have to reply to the email first).
  Am I right in thinking that I cannot add anyone else to the list for six months?

  • mark2 says:

    21 Feb21 February 11:47

    Thanks Genghis (fount of knowledge).

• Stuart graham says:

  21 Feb21 February 12:40

  Ot – I have a cw 241 booking departing Friday – all seats in manage my booking are shown as taken but one – is this an indication I might have trouble?

  • Nick_C says:

    21 Feb21 February 13:14

    I wouldn’t worry about it. You probably have pre allocated seats, even though you don’t know what they are and can’t see them yet (assuming you are Blue).

    When we flew to LA last year, a lot of seats opened up at T-24.

• Jeremy says:

  21 Feb21 February 12:44

  Is there a new BA CW seat on the way or am I mis-remembering? Any news on this?

  • Lev441 says:

    21 Feb21 February 13:33

    Coming when BA receive their a350’s.. but no news yet about design.

• Kev says:

  21 Feb21 February 13:43

  I used to commute back and forth from Basel quite often and remember seeing 18 row’s of CE rather frequently. That loss in review by cutting capacity by 2/3rd will hit their top-line no?

  • roberto says:

    21 Feb21 February 14:58

    Although for every two business they would sell 3 ecomomy of course. Plus some bags..

    The maths is quite fluid especially with expensive peak school holidays, weekend flights and low cost business fares..

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