Avion Express operating some British Airways flights

[SamG]

As the whole LGW operation is there and back + the config is the same as the other BA A320s I imagine it may be quite a flexible thing, potentially even on the day. I’m not sure how much switching between A320s and A321s dependant on loads they’re doing which could also have an impact – a Avion Express A320 might be upgraded and a BA A321 switched to Avion Express for example

[Richie]

They are already switching planes, I noticed the other day on flightradar that a 16.45 departure would not be made because an aircraft switch mean’t the re-allocated plane would not be back in time causing a 45min delay.

It’s still early May, the peak half term weak will be a bit of a test.

[Lyn]

Thank you very for this information, @pj51182. Not good news, but good to be warned ahead of time.

[sjclub]

Just experienced Avion Express from Gatwick to Heraklion in business. In short, awful… seat pitch well below 30”. Tray tables so small that they don’t safely secure a meal tray on. No divider on he aircraft so it was a free-for-all for passengers from economy queuing for the toilets at the front all flight long. Service standards where no existent (no serviettes, coasters, no drinks opened before being given to passengers, no drinks brought into the cabin on trays). Clearing in of finished food and drinks was hit and miss, meaning another queue formed with passengers returning finished items. There was a BA crew member on board and she was kept very busy taking feedback from very unhappy passengers. If you have an upcoming BA Euroflyer flight due to be operated by Avion Express, think carefully about your options before taking it.

[Richie]

sjclub wrote:

Just experienced Avion Express from Gatwick to Heraklion in business. In short, awful… seat pitch well below 30”. Tray tables so small that they don’t safely secure a meal tray on. No divider on he aircraft so it was a free-for-all for passengers from economy queuing for the toilets at the front all flight long. Service standards where no existent (no serviettes, coasters, no drinks opened before being given to passengers, no drinks brought into the cabin on trays). Clearing in of finished food and drinks was hit and miss, meaning another queue formed with passengers returning finished items. There was a BA crew member on board and she was kept very busy taking feedback from very unhappy passengers. If you have an upcoming BA Euroflyer flight due to be operated by Avion Express, think carefully about your options before taking it.

Are you going to request Avios from customer service as compensation?

[marshy11]

sjclub wrote:

Just experienced Avion Express from Gatwick to Heraklion in business. In short, awful… seat pitch well below 30”. Tray tables so small that they don’t safely secure a meal tray on. No divider on he aircraft so it was a free-for-all for passengers from economy queuing for the toilets at the front all flight long. Service standards where no existent (no serviettes, coasters, no drinks opened before being given to passengers, no drinks brought into the cabin on trays). Clearing in of finished food and drinks was hit and miss, meaning another queue formed with passengers returning finished items. There was a BA crew member on board and she was kept very busy taking feedback from very unhappy passengers. If you have an upcoming BA Euroflyer flight due to be operated by Avion Express, think carefully about your options before taking it.

Club Europe is 30″ pitch. Surely they cannot reduce this and not have any consequences.

[NorthernLass]

I thought there was no difference in seat pitch on BA short-haul and just the blocked middle seat and CE cabin service differentiate the 2 cabin classes?

[pj51182]

In response to a question regarding this, BA have tweeted that they have leased nine aircraft from Avion Express.

[Peter K]

I assume you can still do Twilight check-in with Avion Express at LGW as the baggage handling will be the same?

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

To all intents and purposes these are still BA flights with BA policies, checkin, lounge access etc.

[Peter K]

BA Flyer IHG Stayer wrote:

To all intents and purposes these are still BA flights with BA policies, checkin, lounge access etc.

That’s what I thought. Thanks for confirming.

[Ant68]

Over last few days I was considering booking a 241 (old-style voucher due to expire end Sept) to Dubrovnik. There were plenty of reward seats showing on Seatspy but when I went to book on BA yesterday there was much less availability. I checked what the non-reward prices were and saw that the flight operator had changed to Avion Express. Could that explain the sudden lack of reward flights, or was I just too slow to book? I assume that despite the flights being operated by AE, they’d still be eligible for reward flights?

[NorthernLass]

Possibly not, because one of the Ts and Cs relates to the actual aircraft – it has to be BA “metal” as they say, not just a BA flight number. Don’t ask me how SeatSpy would know about the change though!
(With the new vouchers, presumably this also applies to IB and EI “metal”.)

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Reward flight availability (above the guarenteed allocation) is flexible and can soon be taken away as well as added.

If the avion express plane had fewer seats (no idea if they do or not) then BA would likely reduce the number of reward seats so as to maintain some sort of cash advantage to them.

Equally they could have sold a few more cash tickets so BA might see that as a trend so switch some reward back to cash.

All we can do is guess. The only people who know are BA revenue management and they don’t talk!

[sjclub]

I have feedback my experience with Avion Express to BA and await their response. I’ll update when I hear back.

[SamG]

if it was CE it’s also possible that Avion Express are being capped at less rows than they’d send out a BA flight with. I do also recall some weirdness where wet leased flights couldn’t be booked via Avios

[Roberto]

SamG wrote:

if it was CE it’s also possible that Avion Express are being capped at less rows than they’d send out a BA flight with. I do also recall some weirdness where wet leased flights couldn’t be booked via Avios

As I understand it currently all LGW flights are capped at 8 rows of club on the A320 (which Avion use) due to the number of crew on the plane. Exit row seats for those with status are easier to find than on flights out of Heathrow where club can go back to row 12 and the number of crew fluctuates depending on the load. My Malaga flights are a case in point, if flying economy and not connecting in the UK I will choose LGW as the exit seat sticks.

[sjclub]

A quick update as I have heard back from BA. To say it was a “generic” reply is an understatement and makes me wonder if the points raised will actually be reviewed, acted upon or just filed…?

We’re sorry for your recent experience with us… your feedback has been shared… it will be used to help us improve… was the very short and brief email reply. Not sure how they’ll turn a 28” seat pitch in business (as advertised and promised) into a 30” one overnight, but there’s always hope that the Avion Express crews get the full and complete training that they need and should have received before operating. I did also have some avios credited to my account, but would have much preferred our outbound flight to have had the BA aircraft, BA crew and BA service that we did thankfully receive on our return flight.

[andy66]

We have a flight changed to Avion outbound, so interested to hear your views sjclub and pretty much expect to get the same ! Feel the service and CE cabin have got progressively worse over the years , but my flight was booked with a FTV which incorporated a 241 voucher about to expire , so less AVIOS used and only £100 in cash for 2 people return, so my expectations are set low !

[pj51182]

Currently waiting to board BA2566 at LGW. Surprised to find a BA aircraft waiting for us. We’d been notified it would be operated by Avion Express.

Aircraft is ATK if anyone’s interested.

[Mr Sound]

I’ve had the same email for our flights in late August to Menorca, CE out and Economy return. MMB doesn’t mention Avion, only BA Euroflyer but if I do a new search for the same flight it is Avion. If I look to pay for the seat selection the only seats not available are row 1 so has no one pre booked their seat?

We are also going to Crete in June from LGW, there has been no email and a new search only says operated by BA. Should I expect an Avion A320?

Has anyone other than sjclub flown on Avion hardware?

[FFoxSake]

Mr Sound wrote:

Has anyone other than sjclub flown on Avion hardware?

Flew on Avion Express metal LGW-AMS last Saturday 6:40am. Unexpectedly upgraded to CE, service was fine for the 45 minutes we were airborne. It was a Spanish crew and no sign of any BA staff member on board.

Biggest problem was prior to departure where the crew and the BA gate agent (dispatcher?) were unable to agree the count of passengers for at least 10 minutes despite 5 recounts. The crew were counting passengers and the BA guy was counting empty seats. Perhaps the config of the aircraft was slightly different?
In the end the BA guy agreed to count passengers and matched the crew counts. Cue much eyerolling and raising of Spanish eyebrows after he left the aircraft!

Return flight that night was BA metal and BA crew. No upgrade this time.

[Peter K]

Anyone else had any experience of these avion express flights and any thoughts on how well it works or otherwise?

[Ant M]

Peter K wrote:

Anyone else had any experience of these avion express flights and any thoughts on how well it works or otherwise?

I flew to Amsterdam on Friday on a flight they were doing. It definitely seemed like their first day flying for BA so they had a BA crew member to provide advice.
Boarding was slow but that’s down to the gate staff not making enough people check in their cases so we had the usual game of luggage Tetris before half a dozen people had their bags taken away to be put in he hold.
As someone mentioned already here is no dividing curtain between club and economy so the crew spent a lot of time telling economy passengers trying to use the front toilet that they had to go to the back for the toilets there.
The service was a bit slow to the extent that we were minutes out from landing before they collected the last of the meal trays in club, but I’d put that down to them still learning on their first day.
Overall not a bad flight but I expect them to get better as they do more BA flights.

[BA Flyer IHG Stayer]

Thanks always good to have first hand experiences.

So same service as BA provides which should stop some of the moaning?

What about the seats though? Similar to BA – empty middle seat in “club”? Leg room?