Question re flight BA0015 to Syd

nigel

I’ll let other who know the route better answer your other questions, but can confirm that if you try to enter the Concorde Room on a business ticket, with a silver card, that the receptionists will look at you as if you have a large lump of dog poo on your shoe 🙂

I do BA 15/16 quite a lot. My suggestions would be:

If you’re in club, then get a seat in the middle of the cabin (assuming you’re going before end of March on 777 – if after end of March on the 747, get a seat upstairs) – the noise from WTP and the Galley can be loud if you’re trying to sleep

If you want to use the Spa at T3, then get there early. There is only one therapist who works between 5pm – 9pm and she is normally fully booked by 6.30pm

The BA lounge gets crowded and if you get there late, it can be hard some days to even get a seat.

Upgrades are often sold – you just need to ask and they are normally in the £400 per sector price bracket.

If you’re travelling all the way through, I would personally maximise you’re enjoyment of the 1st sector (LHR-SIN) because for those getting on at Singapore, its their evening and most want to sleep anyway, plus its a shorter sector. If you’re hungry, then dine in the SIN lounge before you re board.

There is a few hours to kill between landing in SIN and departing again – more than ample time to make use of the lounge. There are showers in both the F and J lounges – I actually prefer the J lounge, the F lounge needs a revamp

The lounge at SYD is very good – again, if you want to upgrade, especially the first sector, its good value. The F lounge in SYD is superb and the spa knocks spots of the joke that is the BA Spa in T3.The food and beverage selection is also well thought out and quick. The service is great.

And yes, don’t even attempt to use the Concorde lounge without an F boarding pass at LHR T5!! The lounge dragons will have you for breakfast!

T3 is a zoo at night and come the end of March will be horrific with 2 x A380 from QF and 3 x 747 from BA in the space of 2 hours and 5 minutes

BA11 20.25 SIN
BA15 21.15 SIN
QF A380 21.30 SIN
QF A380 22.30 SIN
BA009 22.05. BKK

it is madness and does not include the SQ services. It is madness not only to have so many services to one place at the same time but the aircraft now sit on the ground doing nothing.

BA009 turns to BA010 but sits in BKK for over 8 hours doing nothing but racking up stand charges.

QF is even worse with 2 x A380 sitting on the ground at LHR for 14 hours each. It is hardly sweating the assets.

In total some 350 club/business passengers with a further 70 First passengers have access to the lounge and this is before you add in Club Europe, card holders, any guests and friends of the airline staff. At certain times there could be in excess of 500 and potentially 600 people with access to the T3 lounge. It cannot deal with this number of passengers.

There is no Concorde room in T3 only in T5. T3 has a First Class lounge open to First class tickets holders as well as Gold card holders plus guests. It is very nice but when busy is pretty dire. Galleries for Club World is an oasis of calm compared to T3 generally, but is not a patch on T5.
You will need to be at the spa reception desk when it opens to get a booking. First passengers can now book in advance and it is pretty well booked up before the day.

There have been instances in recent months when the lounges have been closed to certain types of passengers due to overcrowding!

The showers have also been out of action for several months at a stretch on two occasions since April last year.
CX and AA are already restricting access to their lounges due to the demand from BA/QF passengers and card holders and the lack of facilities.

The CX lounge is great but small. AA is nothing special.
Security and fast track in T3 are vile and the trek from lounges to gates horrible. If BAA have managed to park 4 and sometimes 5 departures to SIN at adjacent gates then boarding is at best comical and often farcical.
Better still is when they are at opposite ends of T3 and almost nightly you will have people racing from one end of T3 to the other as they have looked for just Singapore or Sydney on the board and not looked carefully at the 5 or 6 different flight numbers designating the code shares for each flight.

When you leave the lounge confirm with the lounge dragons which gate you are going to. They hate it but have got b…. all else to do and it will save you a long run.

So travel hopefully when using T3 and you will not be disappointed. It really ought to be renamed something more in keeping with the dump it is…

Any suggestions?

Have to agree about F lounge at SYD, superb view across to city and runway.

Binman is correct about T3 in the evening: it is awful.

However, I gather that the new BKK terminating flight will leave from T5 when it starts in late March. The outgoing BKK/SYD flight only used T3 because of the need to run the Australian flights as a joint ground operation with Qantas.

That will provide some – although not a lot – of relief.

Just to update re Spa – am in F on BA15 to SYD and on ringing YouFirst was told could only pre book for T5, not an option at T3.
Only ever flown from T5 – can’t wait for the T3 experience!

– 22/01/2012 21:10 GMT

T3 is a zoo at night and come the end of March will be horrific with 2 x A380 from QF and 3 x 747 from BA in the space of 2 hours and 5 minutes

BA11 20.25 SIN
BA15 21.15 SIN
QF A380 21.30 SIN
QF A380 22.30 SIN
BA009 22.05. BKK

Plus, there is a Thai and Eva air flight currently making a total of 4 heavies to the same destination, all taking off within a very short period of time (although this has nothing to do with the T3 BA lounge), from the same terminal.