-
One of the most interesting things I find about this forum is the huge variation in both expectation and experience of the BA Business Class product. So I wondered whether a master thread of forum members experiences might be a good idea to get a sense of how good or bad it really is. No discussion just simple feedback on cleanliness, food, maintenance and overall service. I am sure flyer talk might do something like this but I’m interested in views of this forum. If no one else agrees, it’ll fade quickly into obscurity.
Many HfPers are well aware that the product is highly inconsistent and my view is that this won’t change.
Yes I think that’s the real issue. Just because there is a nice clean plane with good service on flight x or route y on a given occasion, means nothing at all about the same journey a week later.
Some general feedback, BA CE and CW food is universally terrible. It ranges from mediocre at the best to inedible in some cases (breakfast at the end of a long haul flight being one of the worst offenders).
The wine is also mostly crappy
I love this. These threads are good to see trends in service, etc. (main find will be how inconsistent things are)
On my last JFK-LHR flight in CS I simply asked to skip dinner and be woken up for breakfast. I woke up when the gear was coming down … I obviously was given nothing to eat as it was too late.
The only consistent criticism is the awful longhaul breakfast. Personally I prefer just cereal and fresh milk to the rubbish attempt at english breakfast or omelette. IF YOU CAN’T DO IT WELL KEEP IT SIMPLE
CW Dinner can be good , or just OK.
Boarding is a circus unless you just wait to be last on , which is fine with club suite plenty of locker space.
Gatwick longhaul is to be avoided at all cost.
However it’s not bad enough to make me take an indirect flight with someone else , except Gatwick.
@LondonPerky, you must enjoy different food from me. I find the CE food from LHR to be consistently good considering the restrictions of the environment in which it’s served. Others here have often said the same.
One thing that’s consistent is the crew. More than any other airline, I find that BA strikes a good balance between friendliness, efficiency and professionalism. I don’t think I’ve ever suffered poor cabin crew from BA, and most crew are really excellent.
Aircraft cleanliness needs improvement, as does outstation check-in, especially for CE.
I find cabin crew in CE on Euroflyer to more often be poor than good…crew on the Titan Airways flights were FAR better.
I’ve found LHR based crews to be better, in CE at least.
@LondonPerky
One thing that’s consistent is the crew. More than any other airline, I find that BA strikes a good balance between friendliness, efficiency and professionalism. I don’t think I’ve ever suffered poor cabin crew from BA, and most crew are really excellent.Not in my experience. One thing that is consistent on BA longhaul is that the cabin crew will serve the first meal as quickly as possible, then hide in the galley until 90 minutes before landing when they will serve a second meal of some sort. Doesn’t matter whether it is a 7 hour flight or a 13 hour one.
BA used to be good before the pandemic, when they still had legacy crew flying dedicated routes. Rare to find those old timers anymore.
For consistently friendly, professional, proactive cabin crew, fly Finnair.
Some general feedback, BA CE and CW food is universally terrible. It ranges from mediocre at the best to inedible in some cases (breakfast at the end of a long haul flight being one of the worst offenders).
The wine is also mostly crappy
I don’t think the general feedback is that CW and CE food are both terrible. They aren’t in fact remotely comparable in terms of content or presentation. CE food is modern, well presented, well thought out and delivers what it says on the menu. It’s actually very decent.
CW food is totally different – old fashioned with poorly conceived menus, pretends to be fancy but systematically doesn’t deliver what it says on the menu with ideas above its station – burnt food, frozen dishes, gloopy sauces, split sauces, artificial ingredients/flavourings galore, appallingly low quality meat/fish then badly cooked etc.
Admittedly, the wine on both CE and CW is now very poor and not worth drinking, so the silver lining is that one probably arrives in better condition.
But, oh for BA to serve CE food on long haul!
I find CE crews generally to be better with a semblance of enjoying their jobs, something increasingly rare on BA long haul.
I find the crews to be the most inconsistent element of BA…a lot of them are great and a pleasure to interact with, others are just shockingly bad and you wonder why they even do the job. The problem is you never know what you are going to get!
Agree with many of the comments about how inconsistent BA service is. I’ve flown BA F, CW and Economy this year, and the CW service was by far the worst. Crew didn’t seem welcoming and did not engage in any conversation or show any personality, and seemed to disappear for hours on end. I found the Economy service much better, and left positive feedback for one of the crew, as she had a great sense of humour, but have never found that in BA CW. Much prefer VS UC service.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
