British Airways has taken delivery of its new A350-1000 aircraft.
It has three classes – economy, premium economy, and business. British Airways calls these cabins World Traveller, World Traveller Plus and Club World.
There are two cabins of economy seats, a smaller front cabin and a larger rear cabin. Seats are in a 3-3-3 configuration of ABC-DEF-HJK. Rows 30-35 are in the front cabin and then 40-59 are in the second.
We took a tour of the World Traveller cabins and made some seat recommendations. You can watch the video below
Best seats
The front row of the front cabin is the best, and the seats to choose are obvious from the video – 30A, 30B, 30J and 30K, although 30DEF are pretty good too.
In the row behind this there are two seats, 31C and 31H, that have no seat in front of them and so have lots of leg room. Those are the best seats in the front cabin.
The back row 35 has some advantages as well.
Firstly, when you recline your seat, you aren’t disturbing anyone else and can’t be disturbed by them. Why might this happen? Well, imagine if you are sleeping, and therefore don’t want your meal, but the person behind you does want to eat – you might be woken by the flight attendant and asked to put your seat upright. On the back row, that obviously wouldn’t happen (though note what we say about 6 of these nine seats, below.)
Secondly, when passengers get into and out of a seat, they often hold the top of the seat in front. If you are in that seat, you are disturbed during this process, but if you’re in the last row, you’re free of that as well.
There are two big ‘buts’ though.
Firstly, look where the washrooms are. Four of them, being used by passengers in the front cabin and in the rear cabin, which means 219 people potentially using these four washrooms (OK, there are some at the rear of the aircraft as well, but you get the idea.)
Secondly, in row 35 the seats do not recline. They get an extra inch of leg room (32 inches instead of 31 inches), but seats 35ABC and 35HJK have no recline. Imagine that on a ten hour sector.
In the second cabin, there’s less to debate. Front row 40 is best, and these have more leg space – see the video above.
Readers will have their own favourite seats if the front rows aren’t available. Bearing in mind the desire of many to sleep on long haul flights, particularly overnight flights, then the potential noise from galleys can also influence choice, and send you to (perhaps) a seat in a row between the front and the back. Maybe row 33 or 34 in the front cabin.
Lastly, when it comes to the best seats, whether you choose a window or aisle seat is largely a matter of personal preference, but the seats to avoid are the centre seats B, E and J in each row.
Here’s another piece on that.
BA’s A350-100 also has 56 seats in premium economy and 56 in business class (these new seats are called Club Suites). You can read a review of the Club Suite below
…and read our guide to the best premium economy seats here
The best premium economy seats on British Airways’ A350-1000
It’s also worth noting that the A350 is a great new aircraft, and you can read more about the improved quality of the flight experience here:
