Will you be the first today to fly the new British Airways A321 with the tiny loos?

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• Mr Sad says:

  8 Mar8 March 07:22

  Not sure why they don’t just go Orange! They have been on a down trajectory toward them for years. Gone is the days of a premium travel experience with BA. They are only interested in short financial gains for share holders, the customer is coming in dead last these days.

  • Froggitt says:

    8 Mar8 March 07:34

    If the customer wont take another downgrade in service, then another carrier will soon fill the “full service” gap.

    However on short haul (and long haul now to a certain extent), price seems to trump all these days.

• Froggitt says:

  8 Mar8 March 07:31

  Maybe they’ll replace their duty free revenue with scratchcards a la Ryanair.

• ebungle says:

  8 Mar8 March 07:55

  At the end of the day it is customers who drive price and service, we have all had choices for years and we chose price over extras. We may not like it and we may blame BA for “not creating a product people are happy paying for” but the fact is people were clearly not happy paying for it. It isn’t just BA all airlines are following suit.

  We may want to go back to the heady days when travel by plane was part of the experience and service was always paramount – but the fact is for 90% of people the choice isn’t between Travel now and travel then, but travel now or not being able to travel at all. LCCs have opened the world to everyone and as a result the traditional airlines have had to compete with this or switch to a 100% Business Class Service (And this is simply not a viable option, even long haul they struggle)

  • Alan says:

    8 Mar8 March 08:17

    Obviously this must be true in general, although I always chose (wherever it was an option) to pay extra to fly BA over LCC as it was a pleasant start to my holiday.

    This I no longer do and will be flying cheapest available from now on as the experience is the same and I can also fly from airports nearer to my home.

  • Marcw says:

    8 Mar8 March 09:24

    A comment that reflects reality!! It is true – the majority fly by price and not by product: it’s a price competition not a product competition.
    I guess there’s another “problem” that BA was regarded as a social “status”: flying BA was a social class topic… nowadays no one really cares whether you fly BA or Ryanair/EasyJet… because essentially they’re all the same.
    BTW Virgin just announced HBO fares….

    • imbruce says:

      8 Mar8 March 12:47

      The costs of fuel, wages, rent on offices, plane leases/purchases etc are all going up.
      the general public want everything cheap, so to run an airline it costs a lot of money,
      so something has to give, otherwise they will go out of business

      • Polly says:

        8 Mar8 March 18:15

        Am afraid, l am coming back from Dublin week after next on Paddy Air. Ticket was just €14.99. Just couldn’t resist it, for a laugh. Big problem at pick up at T5 now with fines galore. Such a shame. But am going out in Y from T5. Am sure a normal config plane. Not worried about no recline tho. Can get messy. One good thing about FR.

• Andy S says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:01

  Same seats as easyjet new aircraft.

  • Brighton Belle says:

    8 Mar8 March 08:08

    30 EasyJet sectors a year and my bum has never been numb. Maybe my bum design offsets the thin seat experience.

    • Save East Coast Rewards says:

      8 Mar8 March 08:32

      I didn’t find these seats comfortable on EZY, but as always everyone is different. Some don’t find the current BA seats comfortable.

    • Peter K says:

      8 Mar8 March 10:24

      ????

    • Lady London says:

      8 Mar8 March 17:49

      My max in these seats is around 2hours. I could never do it Transatlantic in these. Are these the seat Norwegian is using to to the USA?

• Nick G says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:04

  I’m waiting for the fan fare on arrival……having said that I’ve flown Jet2 on a new aircraft with similar low density seating to Geneva and it wasn’t as bad as I thought comfort wise. Having said that BA is allegedly a premium airline I thought not sure how this is premium it seems a classic case of lost sheep in the market following others who appear successful in the hope it will rub off…..

  And I have to say I’ve just cashed in all my MR to try and book a premium experience on Qatar…. However I’ve now found the issue is availability…..in fact I’m fast questioning what my plan is with avios..

  • Rob says:

    8 Mar8 March 08:30

    I would be very surprised if those extra Gatwick flights are not awash with Avios seats very soon.

    • Polly says:

      8 Mar8 March 18:17

      Let’s hope for a March sale, save us all going ex eu next time..,

  • trickster says:

    8 Mar8 March 12:24

    Jet2 have some new aricraft?!

    Seriously though having used Jet2 for summer holidays over the last 4 years, including their logner sectors to the Cannaries, I’ve found their seats comfortable, and with good pitch too. Service is good too. All in all a good quality airline.

• Alan says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:10

  So, presumably, Economy Delight will be along the same lines as their existing “extra legroom” seats.

  Interesting that they say Economy Delight and Economy Classic will have free selection at any time (this is an improvement over their current 24 hours or 72 hours if a Flying Club member) and brings them in to line with Delta. We currently have a Virgin reward flight booked LHR/JFK and they want £30 to select our seats. Shame they aren’t bringing this change in sooner so I could pre-book our seats.

  Shame

  • Rob says:

    8 Mar8 March 08:29

    It is the same extra legroom seats but you now you have to buy a package with premium security etc. I am guessing that a VS Gold will no longer get these seats for free.

    • Alan says:

      8 Mar8 March 09:41

      The official VS blog states that this is being introduced in Spring 18. Hopefully that will mean I will be able to book seats for our upcoming trip (assuming a reward seat will be classed as “Classic”)

  • Umba says:

    8 Mar8 March 13:03

    The press release says “The airline is retrofitting its fleet to provide up to 36 Economy Delight seats on every flight – offering customers an even comfier journey with spacious 34 inch legroom.”

    • Rob says:

      8 Mar8 March 16:16

      It’s not. Those seats are already there, that is why it is confusing.

    • Stuart_f says:

      8 Mar8 March 21:31

      The press release is referring to the 787-9 where they are adding more extra legroom seats. They started in January.
      https://twitter.com/VirginAtlantic/status/957974329605656576

• Dale says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:16

  London to GLA/NCL is pretty short time in the sky so no hardship there – and agree, no reclining on short haul routes can be preferable.

  not sure the Club Europe experience is enhanced with rubbish coming throuhg to the bin or people asking (quite legitimately) for water, though…

• roberto says:

  8 Mar8 March 08:17

  As some with status with BA I have not sat anywhere beyond the exit row seats on more than 50 SH flights in the last couple of years. Thus regular flyers probably wont be effected by these new seats except positively with the addition of in seat chargers..

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