The last British Airways A350 arrives: how is the Club Suite roll-out progressing?

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• Robert says:

  19 Feb19 February 08:33

  Chicago has a 787-10 scheduled for the summer, so it’s not just the 777 with CS

• LittleNick says:

  19 Feb19 February 08:38

  What other Long Haul aircraft are in the order pipeline waiting for delivery? 18 A350s is not enough to replace the entire 747s that were retired?

  • Rhys says:

    19 Feb19 February 08:46

    More 787-10s and a fleet of Boeing 777Xs from 2026.

    • LittleNick says:

      19 Feb19 February 09:00

      Not sure Id want to step on a 777X given Boeings rep on the 737 Max program.

      • Nhal says:

        19 Feb19 February 09:16

        Then don’t. Many will when it arrives

      • Mark says:

        19 Feb19 February 09:35

        Which is a challenge for Boeing and their customers now of course. The negative publicity is chipping away at passenger confidence. It’s no longer just a 737 MAX issue but one relating to quality control on anything that comes out of their factories and, more fundamentally, their attitude to quality and safety vs profit. Personally I won’t be rushing to get on one (just as, so far, we’ve managed to avoid flying on a Max) – I’d prefer to be on an Airbus, or a tried and tested Boeing that has been in service for some time.

        • Nhal says:

          20 Feb20 February 11:01

          It is but it isn’t. Airlines that operate MAXs continue to see full load factors and customers not asking to be removed off MAX flights

  • Mark says:

    19 Feb19 February 14:52

    Given that the 777-9 certification timeline has been pushed out to 2025 (and that was before the Alaska Airlines incident), and BA are not first in the queue it seems unlikely they will see any deliveries in 2026 anyway. At this point 2027 is probably optimistic, and that would be five years behind the original schedule.

• Mark Hopwood says:

  19 Feb19 February 08:41

  You are being very generous to BA here. The reality is that a massive chunk off all the Club Suite additional capacity has come from new aircraft and in the last eighteen months only 8 aircraft have been refitted with new Club Suites. At this rate of progress (and especially considering size of A380 which you mention) it’s almost impossible to see progress being made to complete by the end of 2026.

  I’d also challenge whether your comment about a year late is really true as BA also committed to complete the entire Heathrow 777 fleet by December 2022 and that looks on current progress to be two years late.

  I’m not sure if the delay is caused by seat supply or an inability to release aircraft to fit them without causing cancellations.

  • Andrew says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:39

    “in the last eighteen months only 8 aircraft have been refitted with new Club Suites”

    If true then that is some quite sensational analysis that should’ve been at the core of this article.

    • TGLoyalty says:

      19 Feb19 February 09:48

      What difference would it make to the fact just over 50% of the aircraft have CS.

      Also seats need to be produced to get new aircraft in the air and increasing capacity is a priority over refurbishments so I’m not sure what’s so sensational

    • Mark H says:

      19 Feb19 February 10:11

      Andrew – I agree. New A350s & B787-10s have arrived in that time as well but no A380s or any B787-8 or B787-9s have been fitted at all. The list of B777 aircraft fitted recently is shown on an authoritative flyer talk link:

      https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/british-airways-executive-club/1979458-boeing-777-club-suites-route-info-updates.html

      In addition, this BA Press Release from late 2021 committed to completing the 777 rollout of December 2022.

      I dont want to overly criticise the HfP team but your comment this analysis should have been at core of this article is the point I was making. If they have fitted 8 planes in 18 months, how can they possibly think they will fit six remaining 777s, twelve 787-8s, eighteen 787-9s and twelve A380s in 34 months especially as each first in class fitment is inevitably going to present new challenges to the teams involved. That’s 48 aircraft so they will need to complete substantially more than one aircarft each month and each month that goes by with no progress makes the challenge harder. Nothing has been outshopped from Cardiff since 11 December 2023 and none of the six 777s that need conversion have entered Cardiff for work – so its pretty much guaranteed that no aircraft will be completed before end of March. I would be happy to bet a substantial sum on the end of 2026 not being achieved! I don’t think that is is pessimistic, it’s realistic!

      • TGLoyalty says:

        19 Feb19 February 10:34

        Because there are fewer new planes that require the seats being built.

        They can do 2 planes a month when they want it’s more about having more planes in service so the can take others out. Than what’s happened to date when capacity was reduced.

    • Mark H says:

      19 Feb19 February 10:16

      Apologies – I didnt attach the link I mentioned in my previous comment!

      https://mediacentre.britishairways.com/pressrelease/details/13494

  • Rhys says:

    19 Feb19 February 10:45

    Not sure I agree that I am being generous. I think I make it quite clear that BA faces an uphill battle and that it is already delayed – see section titled ‘Which aircraft will get Club Suite next?’

• Blind Spots Traveller says:

  19 Feb19 February 08:47

  For those like me, who do not live in the London area and are based in the north-west of England, the Aer Lingus business class to New York is infinitely a better choice than the roulette of getting which British Airways business class cabin. We just want to see more long-haul shamrock tailfins at MAN in the near future

  • Rhys says:

    19 Feb19 February 08:50

    New York isn’t a roulette though. It’s one of the few routes where you are pretty much guaranteed Club Suite.

    Although I agree, it is hard to beat the direct flight from Manchester on EI!

    • Andrew says:

      19 Feb19 February 09:40

      Tell that to the suckers on today’s 16:20 to JFK 😉

      • Sarah says:

        19 Feb19 February 11:12

        Indeed, I’ve seen quite a lot of reports on FT recently of JFK flights being switched to old CW, so no guarantees there either.

    • Bervios says:

      19 Feb19 February 15:30

      Unless of course you get one one of the two EI A330’s fitted with old Qatar airways seats …..

      • Rhys says:

        19 Feb19 February 15:47

        Is BA still using those?

  • Catalan says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:06

    Let’s not forget the roulette of getting a window seat where you have to climb over your neighbour in EI’s 2-2-1 business class config.

• Gareth says:

  19 Feb19 February 09:14

  Does the Tokyo HND route ever use an A350, its always been a 787 when ive flown it, as is my September flight later this year?

  • Thomas says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:26

    I am flying to HND in October and BA7 is showing as an A350 currently.

    • Gareth says:

      19 Feb19 February 09:58

      It appears they are using the A350 for BA7 and 787 for BA5

  • dst87 says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:36

    I’m going to HND in Nov > Dec and in both directions the aircraft is the 777-300 with Club Suite. I guess this must be a change from the current schedule based on this article?

    • Mark says:

      19 Feb19 February 10:15

      The article refers to the schedule for this summer. There significant differences between the summer and winter schedules, and the arrival of new aircraft / refits are no doubt also driving change.

      For this winter, BA5 is currently a 777-300ER – albeit it only operates 3 days/week at the moment.

      • dst87 says:

        19 Feb19 February 11:12

        Ah, up – sorry my bad. The reference to summer schedule is clear and I just wasn’t thinking at all. 🤦

  • Ianmac says:

    19 Feb19 February 10:09

    From April one of the two daily BA operated flights will be an A350. Currently scheduled for BA7/BA8.

• David S says:

  19 Feb19 February 09:17

  I wish BA would have taken aircraft from defunct airlines as a temporary measure to gain capacity. Airlines like Delta do it. When we went through BKK a fortnight ago there were huge columns of no longer used aircraft. I just sense that BA doesn’t think laterally or aspire to be great in the eyes of its customers (think Gatwick aircraft for example). Does Lufthansa push all its old and tired out to a particular hub ?

  • Rhys says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:30

    Lufthansa is 7 years delayed rolling out its new business class, so probably not a great comparison!

  • BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

    19 Feb19 February 12:56

    BA have done exactly that with IB and AY wet leased on short haul and other wet leases on long haul (including one on one of the ORD rotations last year)

    But then passengers complain they aren’t on a BA plane!

• Claire says:

  19 Feb19 February 09:35

  I thought the Singapore route had a club suite too on one of the daily flights

  • Rhys says:

    19 Feb19 February 09:45

    In the winter yes (Sydney flight). In the summer no.

• MA says:

  19 Feb19 February 09:39

  Next week marks the third time that I have been booked to fly on Club Suite and it has changed to old biz class/777 in the week(s) before the flight. Two flights LHR-IAD, and now LHR-LAX. I’ve never flown on it and it’s extremely frustrating it keeps happening!

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