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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.
I wish to praise the CW afternoon tea – admittedly I am a sucker for one but I always find the sandwiches and scones really tasty and the cakes good. With a glass of fizz it feels like a real treat!
I wish to praise the CW afternoon tea – admittedly I am a sucker for one but I always find the sandwiches and scones really tasty and the cakes good. With a glass of fizz it feels like a real treat!
Afternoon tea is certainly a much safer bet as it’s relatively cheap to provide and leaves much less scope for BA to get it wrong. It’s when BA tries to get ideas way above its cost parameters and capabilities like a truffle cream sauce, fish or fillet of beef that it all goes hopelessly wrong. BA’s Club champagne, while not exactly very high shelf, is a whole better than their reds or whites (or indeed the Whispering Descaler).
I can’t help wondering whether that’s better or worse than a Descaling Angel?
Recently flew BA CE from Gatwick to Nice and back. Outbound we were the only two passengers in CE which was nice (pun partly intended). Overall the service was good and the 2 crew members were both friendly but considering there was just the two of us then I think they could in all honesty have been a bit more attentive as I had to ask to have my glass topped up a couple of times which there isn’t much excuse for when there is 1 crew member per passenger. We also had passengers from ET wandering up and down the plane (not using the toilet, just randomly wandering around) which I think they could have tried to do something about. If it was only a couple of times that would be one thing but it probably happened 10+ occasions during the fairly short flight.
The way back was if anything almost better as whilst there were more passengers in CE, the crew were excellent and if anything almost did a better job than for our outbound journey despite having more passengers to look after.
Food I thought was quite good both ways but especially good on the way back with some beef that was actually very tasty.
I wish BA would sort their drinks menu though – really don’t see why they need to offer multiple gins and no Jack Daniels or similar.I think there are going to be small differences between the Euroflyer CE experience vs mainline as many EF staff are going to be far less experienced, so less confident or skilled in challenging ET passengers and also new staff just doing a job, rather than wanting to offer a service, hence absence of refills which I don’t think is any cost saving attempt. The difference in food quality between CE and CW remains an eternal mystery!
Generally speaking I find BA Club Europe a pleasant experience. Perhaps I’m easily pleased, but I enjoy the food and drinks (most of the time). I generally go for beer/G&T, or soft drinks rather than wine. Their champagne isn’t great in CE but it’s not terrible either. They make a decent cup of tea too, which so many, supposedly high end, establishments can’t get right.
Overall, I find service to be good. Sometimes you get really good, attentive service constantly topping up glasses and other times you think that they could have managed another round of drinks, etc.Once you get to long haul, I think Club World generally falls below expectation in terms of service. Too often staff go missing for long periods of the flight. If you ask for food or drinks outside of their normal service rounds you are often made to feel like a burden rather than a valued customer. In comparison to Virgin Upper, it’s noticeably worse in almost all aspects.
BA first however was a completely different story. Staff were falling over themselves to constantly offer me food and drinks. I felt pampered rather than served and it seemed as though cabin crew couldn’t do enough to make sure I was comfortable. All the food and drink was of a really high standard and the champagne was fabulous. I really couldn’t fault anything. It Surprises me when I read conflicting reports about BA First, as my experience was wholly positive.
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