[Anonymous]

[MarkCymru]

I mentioned a few months ago that BA rarely seems to board business class passengers first. VK and others immediately said that I was out of date. Well, guess what? The last three BA shorthaul flights: it wasn’t just that they didn’t board first, they didn’t have any way to do it on two of them.

1. The flight LHR to HEL was by bus but Easyjet maker sure their Plus customers get on and off the bus first. It matters less on BA (with assigned seating) but there is still a spirited fight for overhead space. BA had no way to do it — no separate queue set up, even if they had wanted to use it. Most C-class ended up on the second bus being chased into their seats by FAs saying, “please hurry up”

2. LHR to LYS. From the cluster of A gates at the far north end of T5. At all of them, BA has one queue to get to the gate and no way for F/B business passengers to by-pass it so, obviously no call was made to do so. I got on early but the man next to me in row 2 had to stuff his bag into an overhead around row 15. Crew make no attempt to keep business class overheads free until bus class passengers arrive.

3. LYS to LHR. They have no ropes or queuing mechanism here so it could have been a chance to try. Instead, they called the last ten rows, didn’t mention F or B and had the usual gaggle of C class passengers parading up and down the plane looking for spare slots. Obviously, I ignored the instructions, boarded with the first ten rows and watched the proceedings.

So, explain to me, why would I want to pay the £100 a sector to upgrade that they always seem to offer these days?

— Lounge entrance — the card gets me that and, in any case, their latest customer irritation initiative of not posting the gate until 45 minutes before the plane goes, means you’re always in the wrong lounge.

— Food? — Some kind of sick joke. A couple of sandwiches and a scone with a wilted lettuce leaf? I stopped at the sushi place

— Extra leg room? Well, yes, I would pay for that but you get it in the first few rows of convertible economy too and I’m not sure that I’d pay £100 for a 90 minute trip.

— Empty seat next to you? Again, worth paying for but a bit gutting when economy is pretty empty.

— the laughable “Fast Track” security clearance (usually slower than normal and when it’s not, it’s just taken over by people from the other queues while a BAA employee looks on). Value about 5p

[Binman62]

Mark
Agree it is galling and it should be better. With specific regard to gate publication. This is not just down to BA it is also the BAA. BA will plan the gates and publish them when it is confirmed that the aircraft is on that stand/gate. This could be as little as 50 mins before departure as it depends on the inbound aircraft. If however, the aircraft is on stand 2 hrs before departure, then the BAA will block public publication of the gate number as they do not want you leaving the shops.
Another reason for delaying publication is that if they give a “B”gate number and it changes to an “A” gate then you cannot get back from B to A without a lot of fuss and a great deal of time…thanks to the cut price design of the trains
At times of disruption the situation is worse due to the complexity of the operation and the number of delays…..this does help the limp sald of course.

[MartynSinclair]

Question

Why do you want to get on first. I usually the last to board – shut the door and off i go. Its not as if the plane will go without you or you dont have your seat.

Why the rush????

Have a great bank holiday weekend.

[MarkCymru]

Martyn

On a A330 or something, I’m like you. But on a shorthaul flight, there is always a fight for overhead locker space — especially on BA because they have a “one size fits all” hand luggage policy which says that every passenger can bring on a US-size carry-on and a briefcase. (By contrast, LH and AF allow bus. class passengers two European-size bags but economy passengers can only bring one) . I’ve never seen BA try to stop Y passengers using the C overheads so, if you’re not on early, your bags might go in the hold (and BA don’t do delivery at the door of the plane so you’re in for a nice, long wait at T5). Finally, I hate standing in queues when I could be sitting and doing email or catching up on reading.

[NTarrant]

I agree Mark, but it is not just T5, it happens sometimes at LGW. I regularly travel LGW-JER in Club and usually they invite Club and Exec card holders first. But sometimes they don’t and then it is a scrum.

I also have not see the crew stop Y passengers from putting their luggage in he C area and they should.

On domestic it can be a free for all as well. I recall some years back travelling LHR-NCL, I was in row 5, this guy bounds on and chucks his trolley bag above row 3 on the other side. As he went past all cocky and much to the annoyance of a number of people seated in the area noticed he had row 19 on his boarding card. When we got to NCL they decided to unload passengers from the rear doors, needless to say he was not very happy!

[MartynSinclair]

if iam travelling club on any airline, i politely hand ny briefcase to the flight attendant and ask them to stow it. If there is no room in the club area, the attendants will usally put it in the forward ground locker, which is generally filled with crew bags.

[Potakas]

Agree and i would like to ask something, also from ATH and LHR the announcement says something like ”Club passengers and Gold Silver Executive Club members can board when they want”, what that means?

That we have to deal with every person and cut the queue ? And i know that the only important thing on that is that we will have storage space, but it is a service that is included on the price that you pay and should be offered to you.

[DisgustedofSwieqi]

I’ve stopped using CE (unless it is bundled with CW), it just isn’t worth the price differential for the reasons pointed out by MarkCymru and others.

[NTarrant]

Potakas, what it means is that if they have asked for boarding by seat row Club passengers and Y passengers with Gold and Silver can join the queue when they like.

Today I travelled MAN-LHR and that was boarded by seat row, the announcement was for rows 17 to twenty something and gold and silver card holders. I was in 2A and one of the first 20 or so to board. This is the first time I have had this at MAN

[Author]

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