[rferguson]

Openyfly while not wishing to cast aspersions on certain groups of staff it is said (and by ‘said’ I mean rumoured) that the low paid newbies will go to great extents to not spend a penny of their per diem downroute and instead take what they can from the aircraft.

ALL flights should have the ambient items I listed in an earlier post as these are loaded ex LHR and for both the outbound and return sectors.

[acireale]

@rferguson. I really appreciate your very knowledgeable response. Indeed BA288/289 have this 3 class layout where the F cabin is now J (it is a 747-400 with the old First cabin), so this may well be part of the issue. I take that flight twice a month (yes) and clearly being in the upper deck or the front cabin does make a difference in terms of the attention you get (we were in the main CW cabin in the flight I was talking about). I do agree that the real cause of many cabin crew being disengaged may well be due to how they are treated and to the stale product around them (per a previous comment) so I am not really blaming the cabin crew (though the specific FA who ‘looked after’ us on that flight was in my mind ‘off the chart’ unpleasant) but rather BA management. Finally, why do I fly BA? Simple. In Phoenix BA289 is the ONLY flight to go directly to Europe. I prefer to swallow the high price/poor service vs. spending more time on planes and/or braving weather/connections in ORD/PHL/DFW and the likes. I am just a (somehow willing) hostage to BA 🙂

[Cedric_Statherby]

I am about to fly BA Club World for the first time since late 2013 – I will offer my (slightly longer) perspective having done so. But I am now very confused; does the Club World amenities bag now contain eyeshades and earplugs again or not. Can anyone advise me?

And if not, what a quite extraordinary decision. They were the only two items I used from it on an overnight flight, and I suspect I was far from alone …

[GoonerLondon]

They are handed out separately for those who want them. It was a good decision as they were often unused by people and therefore wasted. Personally Id have done the same for Socks too.

Had a great flight last week in a 747 J – one of the nicest meals in flight I’ve had for a while, lovely crew, good IFE and some sleep too.

Ive just had a read through this thread and Im not surprised to see its 4 pages of the usual comments from the same people. Honestly! I’m not sure I understand the motivation.

[acireale]

@GoonerLondon. ‘They are handed out separately for those who want them. It was a good decision as they were often unused by people and therefore wasted’. If the intent was to avoid waste, why do this just for this two items (the most used in my opinion) and not do like the Asian airlines that hand them over trays of everything where people can select exactly what they need? I think this still suggests poor customer focus.
Also, and respectfully, if you don’t understand the motivation of the comments why do you participate in the forum?

[GoonerLondon]

Because I like the tips on getting the best out of flying particularly frequent flier schemes. And sharing my own knowledge in return.

You?

[acireale]

Because I like to share my views with fellows business travellers on an activity that occupies a large part of my time.

[acireale]

And the description of this forum says ‘In which our anonymous frequent traveller lets off steam.’….

[CXDiamond]

If I fly with BA long haul it is as a last resort and I tend to use what they call first and expect what others would offer as business class and still tend to leave disappointed. Fortunately I haven’t had to use it in the last year.

In terms of what is offered as long haul business class the hard product is long out of date. Singapore Airlines have introduced three new business class products while the current BA offering has remained current which puts into perspective how old it is.The same is true in F, I haven’t seen Etihad’s new F yet but until I’m convinced otherwise SQ F is the best there is. BA are still the only airline who failed to introduce a new premium product on the A380, such a lost opportunity.

As for BA food, well it’s awful in F so I would probably prefer not to eat in C. I don’t know of any other airline where you so not get your first choice in F but on BA it is common which is another example of where it is really a C product and a substandard one at that. Is it true that it’s pudding or cheese in C? Which moron invented that one? No doubt the result of customer research where no one knows anyone who was asked.

Seating density has been talked about here before, VS have the same number of seats in the nose of a 747 as BA do, VS call it C, BA call it F. Other airlines who have F in the nose of the 747 like LH have eight seats where BA have fourteen. Yet again, BA F is substandard and five years after introduction of a few tweaks marketed as new first it’s still not on all the planes.

Yes, people keep buying BA and to a point they have a loyal following perhaps from people who have never tried the alternatives, after all if you believed BA was the best around you really wouldn’t want to risk things being worse with an alternative airline however I would suggest that anyone trying the competition on almost any route would be pleasantly surprised.

[GoonerLondon]

Well I occasionally fly CX /AA/ LH/LX/SQ. But live in London, so BA gets 70% of my business.

I have had good experiences and bad experiences on most airlines in equal proportion.

But if I didn’t like BA Im not sure how much time id spend on forums like this repeating my opinions about how appalling it is, let alone continue to fly them. There is plenty of Star alliance choices from LHR – I’d never need to suffer BA again if I was unhappy.

Its not what is being said that I’m getting at. As CX diamond says – his views about density, food etc is not new news, but I of course understand that to be a valid opinion. But i’m not sure it needs to be repeated in every thread about BA by the same people. At least I wonder why they bother, the readers here all know, and the company obviously has other data that shows a contrary point of view.

BTW: the worse meal I’ve had in flight is from Cathay! And I hate the SQ seat. And perhaps the reason SQ and CX have had so many iterations of their seats is they struggled to get it right, experimenting with angled seats and narrow seats, unable / unwilling to bite the bullet and provide what BA have offered for years.

[CXDiamond]

Gooner please get it right, neither him nor his are appropriate terms to refer to me.

I also really don’t think it’s for you to determine what does or does not need to be repeated in posts or threads. You don’t need to read them if you don’t want to.

I think your opinions about the SQ/CX seats are quite laughable and as for being unable or unwilling to provide what BA does? Please take your medicine and get an early night dear.

[GoonerLondon]

Thanks for the aggressive patronisation. Only a boorish man would post like that!

But I also understand why anyone with vaguely positive views of BA has gone elsewhere. It becomes tiresome to read clearly disingenuous posts, but truly saddening when you get abuse for attempting to add some balance.

[CXDiamond]

Now dear, you’re looking in the mirror again, aggression is a feature of your posts both here and on FT. You’re also using one of the old Krug tricks of trying to start a row to get a thread you don’t like deleted. It’s not going to work so post away.

[AllOverTheGaff]

GoonerLondon – 08/01/2015 18:57 GMT
Ive just had a read through this thread and Im not surprised to see its 4 pages of the usual comments from the same people. Honestly! I’m not sure I understand the motivation.

I just checked – prior to this thread my last critical post of BA was on the 30th of June 2014, it was a reply about their introduction of the “Happiness blanket”. From what I have read on this thread, the O/P doesn’t seem to have a massive beef with BA either – in fact he opens the thread by proclaiming he/she is a Gold BA member, so I am not really sure where your comment about the *usual comments* comes from. I’ve not flown BA in almost 14 months, so I don’t really complain about them that often, only when I fly with them.

Notably, on your own forum posts, I read three pages, as a rough guestimate I’d say more than 85% of what I read was pro-BA – which you are perfectly entitled to post – on a forum designed to engage posters in conversation, but it is more than a little hypocritical to then remark about the same posters posting the same stuff.

I thought this thread was very reasonable…..to a point.

Rgds.
AOTG.

[MrMichael]

I don’t bash the BA bashers, they are entitled to their views, and I think with few exceptions are genuinely held beliefs as mine are when I am positive about BA. Although suggesting a BA crew tried to poison them is probably taking the bashing rather too far.

Back on topic.

I do most of my travel short haul on either BA or IB, I prefer BA.

Long haul I have a choice when going to other places as it is my own money, so I call the shots not travel mangler (yes, mangler not manager).

For Australia I have a huge choice and have used Thai, BA, SIA and Malaysian. I probably prefer Thai for comfort and service, SIA for entertainment and BA because I like their timetable. I am shortly going to Oz and have chosen BA club, purely based on price…..I got the tickets via Oslo some £800 pp cheaper than Malaysian or the Middle Easterners were offering and over £1400 cheaper pp than Thai or SIA. I did also consider the Chinese carriers. On the way back I have one sector on CX.

I think in many cases BA are cheaper, and you get what you pay for.

[Author]

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