[Anonymous]

[business traveller]

Departure Airport: Heathrow
Wow! Great experience at Terminal 5. Super easy to reach by tube! We didn't have to queue at all for check in and everyone was very helpful. It was also a quick and easy stroll through security, as long as you read and follow all the instructions for what you are and are not allowed to have in your carry on bags. My mum forgot about the large bottle of water in her bag so ended up having to wait around for ages while they checked everything out!
The shops at Terminal 5 are fabulous. Loads of choice; very impressive! We had lunch at Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food, which was nice and peaceful with great views.
Boarding was easy. We had to get on a little train to the gate and then it was organised very well. There were plenty of seats at the gate so even if you had to wait a while for your row to be called, it was fine.

The plane
The planes that BA use to fly to and from San Diego are awful. They're really old. BA can get away with this as they are the only airline to fly direct from London to San Diego. There's no incentive for them to provide a more pleasant flight experience because there's no competition. The seats were shabby. We were in the very back row of Economy. Very convenient for the loos and no one kicking the back of our seats, but a busy area of the plane with the queue for the loos.

The worst thing was the outdated entertainment system. Tiny screens, very little choice. It was disappointing when BA have a website which tells you what movies you might be able to watch but then the entertainment system has very few of the movies you thought you'd be able to choose from. And the screen is tiny. And often freezes. And if you pause your movie to go to the loo, it crashes and you gave to start the entire movie again. AAAAAGGGGHHHH! My advice would be to charge up your iPad or take some good books. My husband was annoyed that there was no in seat charging. Just these little things that you'd expect as standard on a long haul flight on a premium airline.

The food was great. I really enjoyed our meals. The service was fantastic as well. Friendly, helpful. They were very patient with my constant requests for more apple juice.

Arrivals: San Diego
San Diego basically has one international flight a day and this is it. They don't have the set up to deal with lots of international arrivals and this made immigration very slow. Being right at the back of the plane meant we were right at the back of the queue and almost the last people to go through immigration. The upside of this was that we collected our baggage immediately as everyone else already had theirs!

Overall, not the best long haul flight. If we were flying to San Diego again, I would probably prefer to fly to Los Angeles on a better plane and then drive down to San Diego. The in flight entertainment system is hugely important to me and this one reminded me of flying to New York with Virgin in 1995. It was amazing, state of the art then, but twenty years later, I expected something better!

Review courtesy of Seatplans.com. Original review by user Daisyduck77 can be found here

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