V-Flyer

Right, now onto the next leg of my BCN-LHR-PEK-LHR(-CDG) trip. BA39 from LHR to PEK this time.

First off, the transfer. This was my first visit to T5, and as a connecting pax at LHR altogether (as I live half an hour away!). As soon as we stepped off the plane, onto the terminal itself following the connection sign, there was a huge queue, and all I could see was people. There were a few ground staff repeatedly asking for “gold, silver BA cardholders, or people with certain Oneworld status, or if the connecting flight is at 15.50 or before” to join the fast track lane. As we had 2 hour 40 for the connection, we remained in the queue.

About 15 minutes later, we were finally able to see what the queue was for. It was passport control. It was another 15 minutes before we were through, and during that time we were able to call our builder, who gave us the first one of our bad news (in the coming days) about the building works that are happening when we were away, that they couldn’t hide the RSJ into the ceiling void above. It was quite a blow, as I do have a pet hate when the beam is sticking out, but after a while I got over it as it’s completely out of my control.
Once we were through passport control, there was another queue for the escalator. After a couple of minutes, we were allowed to go upstairs, before joining yet another queue for security. Another 15 minutes or so, we were through, and hopped onto the little train which took us to the international departures at T5. From coming off the plane to arriving at the international departures, it took us over an hour, and it was not a very pleasant experience. I don’t know whether we were just unlucky, or connecting at T5 is like this everyday, but I now understand why the ex-EU fare was so cheap with BA – (in addition to the APD savings), it had to be cheaper to compete with the other EU airlines when the connecting experience is undoubtedly better. I have had plenty of experience connecting at other European hubs on my LHR-PEK trips over the years, and this was in the same league as CDG in my book, i.e. pretty awful .

The good thing is, Heathrow welcomed me back with 1.30 hours of free wifi, and when I checked the prices online for that travel moisturiser that I wanted at BCN (who was asking for €24), I realised that you could get that for about £18 in a high street shop. I then checked out the duty free at T5, and was pretty happy to be able to buy it for £14.70. A bit surprised by the difference between duty free at BCN and LHR, but I’m not complaining.

Now the flight itself. The boarding was chaotic, where BA bronze holders were invited to board along with the Club World and First customers, then subsequently told that they have to wait. The front of the economy cabin were then called along with World Traveller Plus. If you read my last TR from BCN – LHR, you will know that I was able to check-in for this flight early (ahead of the other LHR-PEK customers due to the connecting flight prior to it), and were able to get OH and me the bulkhead seats in row 40 D and E. First impression of the plane was pretty poor. It is probably a long-serving aircraft, having been in service for 20 years or so! All the plastics have yellowed, the IFE screens full of scratches to the extent that I can barely see anything. The extra legroom was good, but the fixed “pockets” were too narrow to hold most things, and the seats were noticeably narrower. The “amenity kit”, if I could call it that, contained one toothbrush and a little toothpaste. This compared badly to the little VS kit with the cute cotton eyemask, ear plugs etc.

Now, please allow me to set the scene before I go into the details of the flight. Almost exactly 11 years ago, I took my first ever BA flight from PEK to LHR, when I left home as a 17-year old girl to come to the UK for university by myself. My parents wanted me to fly direct to maximise my chance of getting to the UK, and as BA was turning out cheaper than Air China on the one-way fare, we went with BA. Unfortunately it turned out to be an awful experience. I suffer from travel sickness (though generally not too bad on a plane as long as I’m sitting fairly towards the front), and despite my request at check-in, I was placed at the very back row of the cabin, which did not even recline. Also food options ran out by the time it reached me, and I had no choice but to have a cheesy pasta dish, which made my travel sickness even worse and as a result, I was throwing up and was unable to eat anything for the 48 hours after the flight.

Since that experience, I not only steered away from cheese on flights (and ask my OH to also not to have a cheesy dish due to the smell), I have also steered away from long-haul travel on BA for the last 11 years. However, as I’ve settled down in BA, and as a lot of time has passed, I thought it was time to give BA long-haul another go, as I am probably better informed to make my flying experience a more enjoyable one through selecting seats online myself and/or checking-in online. I partially put down my bad experience 11 years ago to my lack of experience in flying, I thought it was only fair to give BA another chance. With the recent changes that VS has made to its network, I also took this as an opportunity to try out BA again, and consider making the switch to the dark side. For all these reasons, I really really wanted BA to impress me, and my expectations weren’t even sky high.

Back to this flight. As mentioned earlier, I checked-in online nice and early, and selected seats 40D and 40E for me and Mr W, towards the front of the economy cabin, and right behind the galley, assuming that I would have avoided the problem of food options running out. So imagine my disappointment when food service began and the trolley started from the very back of the cabin (and the very start of the economy cabin from 33 onwards, but stopping at 39 on this version of the BA 747). And this was made worse when we were offered the option of chicken and rice, and when so chosen, were later told that only the pasta dish was available, whilst we were seeing with our own eyes the chicken dish still being given out on the other side of the cabin in our row.

I asked the cabin crew, whose name will be V for the purpose of this TR, very politely, a specific question about what the pasta dish had and explained to him that I am unable to eat cheese on a plane. He reassured me that it was a pesto pasta, and no cheese was in it. Although I was disappointed with the chicken dish running out, I understood that you can’t always get your preference on-board, and wouldn’t always expect it when I’m only paying for Y, and duly took the pasta.

When I opened the foil lid, however, there it was, the cheese right on top of, and also surrounding the pasta. I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was one of the cheesiest dishes I’ve ever seen in my life, not just on a plane. I rang the call bell. No one seemed to have noticed the bell (until later on) so I got V’s attention when he was serving a drink to 40C right across the aisle from me. When I informed him that there was cheese in the pasta dish, he denied it blankly and was very insistent, and it wasn’t until I showed him how it stringed, then he agreed but informed me that no other dish was available.

I was really quite irritated at this stage, possibly made worse by OH saying “oh he didn’t mean it, he just didn’t know”. But why would someone insist that a dish doesn’t contain a specific ingredient when he is unsure about it, all the while knowing that I am unable to eat it and even after I’ve explained that I would throw up after it? Surely if there’s an element of uncertainty, the appropriate response would be, I don’t know, as opposed to, no it doesn’t contain cheese even after seeing the cheese with his own eyes?

Anyway, I tried my best to manage my rage issues , and politely grabbed the attention of another crew member. After I explained the situation, she apologised and managed to find me a meal without cheese from PE, and it was delicious (noodles with king prawns, what’s not to like?)! OH was very jealous at this point (along with a few others from row 40 who are stuck with their pasta), as the pasta had turned out to be pretty horrible apparently (and the smell was not doing me any favours). This member of CC, though, was very professional and I thought that she had dealt with the situation well. She also gave me the little tip that on these 747s, the front sections (33-39 on this version, and 29 onwards on the other version) are always served first with food and drinks. Thanks to her tip my return trip was much better.

She also suggested taking down some details to make a note on the system about my “dietary requirements”. I was thankful of her suggestion, but I do, probably unreasonably , resent the fact that I will need to have “dietary requirement” with just BA. You see on VS flights, for example, I have never had this issue, as there are always 3 options to choose from in economy class, and even if one ran out, I’m OK with one of the others. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled rotten by VS. Admittedly on a recent DL flight I had to lift a “cheesy hat” off some rice dish (I was surprised too by the rice and orange cheese combination), so maybe I do need to put this down on non-VS flights…

Shortly after the meal service, I witnessed another incident. V had come over with a coffee pot, and appeared to be having an argument with the lady in seat 40A in front of the cabin, and accused her of lying whilst pointing the hot coffee pot at her during the argument. Now I don’t have the full facts for this, but I cannot think of any circumstance in which this would be acceptable behaviour of a CC, or indeed anyone else in the service sector. A number of us were quite shocked by this, with sharp intakes of breaths were heard from across the front of the cabin.

After that piece of unexpected entertainment, I started to get some sleep. This is when I realised that the headrest on the left hand side of my seat was broken. The cushion is half hollow, and doesn’t stay in place when it’s being leant on. I couldn’t help but remember the programme “A Very British Airline”, which I watched with interest on BBC2 a few months ago. I recalled a crew member running her fingers through the first class cabins feeling for the tiniest of scratches. I am fully aware that I was in Y, and the level of attention will inevitably be different, but I was still surprised to find that with such thorough reviews as suggested by the show, the problem with the head rest could not be identified. Needless to say, on a 10-hour red eye flight, it was pretty annoying only being able to lean on one side of the cushion.

I managed to sleep for 3 hours or so though, thanks to my ability to sleep almost anywhere whilst in discomfort (a very useful virtues flying in Y!). In my waking hours, I thought I’d try the IFE. It must be almost as old as I am, as there’s hardly any choice, and it was pretty disappointing to find that all of the shows I picked out reading the High Life magazine weren’t available on this version of the IFE.

Thankfully though, due to the meal incident, as well as the argument a number of us witnessed earlier, quite a few of us have bonded on this flight, and had some good chats which kept us entertained. A few others had some instant noodles from the galley (which are usually available on PEK routes) as they were starving after not eating the pasta earlier (sadly my king prawn noodle dish was the only premium cabin meal left…), and also needed something to warm their hands with in the freezing cabin (I was wearing a jumper, and had a coat, a scarf, and 2 blankets on top of me and still wasn’t warm).

Breakfast service came through, and another CC member remembered that I didn’t want cheese, and saved me a cooked breakfast (as the other option was omelette with cheese). Bless him . I must admit that I was pretty impressed with 2 members of the CC – they were bubbly throughout, and dealt with some of the earlier issues well. Also to V’s credit, he continued serving the remainder of the flight in the same part of the cabin, which I can only imagine would’ve been quite hard, but he managed it well without any further incidents.

Overall it was a pretty bad experience, although a better one than the one I had 11 years ago as I was able to recline and sleep, and there was no throwing up afterwards. I do think though I am a lot more experienced in flying, and being more insistent in getting my message across, but after this experience I don’t think I will be making the switch to the dark side any time soon. Yes, VS is pulling out of some great places outside of the US, but I do enjoy flying with them (even in Y a lot of the time), and will no doubt be visiting the US more anyway. As with travelling to non-VS destinations, I will not rule out BA altogether (partially due to a much better experience on the way back yesterday) but will certainly consider other options.

A few hours after I landed and arrived at my parents’ (using the airport coach followed by a taxi as usual), I sent a very long piece of feedback online to BA (and this TR was very much constructed from that letter, with a few bits added, and a few slightly patronising bits removed, for example, saying something like "the 2 CC were so good that they could've easily passed for VS CC..." ). A week later I received a fairly short (almost standard) response to apologise for the bad experience, to thank me for giving BA a chance in the first place, and to offer me 10k of Avios, and another 10k of Avios to Mr W (I don't remember him complaining ), thereby boosting our household accounts by 20k. Whist I wasn’t particularly impressed with the short response (the only time I wrote to VS following a faulty IFE, I had a heart-felt lengthy response in 2-3 days), I wasn’t displeased with the Avios.

So that’s it for now with the part 1-3. Going to take a quick break now, with part 4 to come later this week.

Thanks for the very detailed TR. V sounded like he was having a very bad day. No doubt another complaint made its way to BA HQ further to the pointing coffee pot incident.

Thanks for the TR, what a poor experience though, and I'm glad you put in some "feedback". I hope the return was better and look forward to reading about it later. Thanks for sharing.

Oh, and I hope your building work hasn't gone too badly. I don't think I could've left to go away whilst that was going on, it would've driven me mad!

A silly question perhaps - but why did you go through passport control at LHR? If you were in direct connection there was no need....

Sarastro - I have no idea why I had to go through passport control - I seem to recall vaguely that they checked our boarding passes too, so perhaps it was more to make sure that we were indeed connecting pax?

And John - being quite a control freak, it did worry me leaving the building work. But generally it was beyond our control, and we were lucky to escape all that mess and dust.

That said, it is safe to say that everything that could've gone wrong has, though it couldn't have been helped even if we were here. We currently have no kitchen (no sink/gas/electrics in it either), and just before we got back the boiler stopped working, too, so I had to shower at work this morning (and a few mornings this week at least). Given the current conditions, I was thankful to have been away, and looked after and fed by my parents in a warm house with hot water, and would be pleased to be away for another week!

OMG! That sounds terrible. I hope all gets fixed ASAP, perhaps it's better you were away then. Anyway, best of luck with that.

mrsw wrote:I really really wanted BA to impress me, and my expectations weren’t even sky high.

Sweetheart, I know exactly where you are coming from.

In the years before you were born (according to your TR you are 2-3years older than my son, Aer John) I had enjoyed BA short haul between Cork and LHR and in fact my first long haul was with them to JNB in 1984. As I had no yardstick, it was an OK flight in Economy but the return journey was dire because, in those days there were curfews about take-offs and landings between the two airports and the return flight had to stop in Nairobi, whereupon the plane was flooded with a multitude of US Renault car salespersons who had won a week's safari in Kenya. We spent the overnight flight as they called to each other such things as "Hey, Lou! You awake?" "Yeah Walt, are you?". Or asked questions on hearing that the flight had come from JNB (during apartheid) "Is there a black president?' or "Is there a Commie government?" (A black president would have been preferable to the Afrikaaans - just!) And this gem, "Do they use knives and forks to eat in South Africa?" OK, so BA cannot be held responsible for the idiocy of some of its passengers but it did rather blunt things for me.

Down through the years, I flew SAA (once long-haul) and VS until I planned a trip to Tel Aviv which, of course is not on the VS network. I looked forward to my experiences with BA, especially as many loyal VS flyers had morphed to the dark side but I have to say that the flight did not exactly float my boat. I'm sure it and the return flight can be viewed in the Other Trip Reports Forum.

The next trip I took was to Buenos Aires in Club World which is again reported in the Other Trip Reports Forum. Like I said above, it was disappointing but the major flaw to my mind, is the configuration of the CW cabin whereby you have to clamber over someone's legs (or have them clamber over you)

In all these segments the service was disappointing, no doubt due to the impersonal service when meals, drinks, etc are handed to you by an invisible person.

Fast forward to this year when, beyond my wildest expectations I snagged a fare in BA First cheaper than any other offering in business. I went with no pre-conceived ideas other than a V-Flyer a week or so before me, had been blown away by the experience. I was not. I had had better flights in UC than this and I, too was bitterly disappointed

Thank you for part three.

What a sad conclusion that one has to be grateful that this flight was at least a bit better than your disastrous earlier trip ! I am hoping that Chapter Four has a happy ending.

You really shouldn't have gone through immigration, you know. Follow the signs for Flight Connections, T5. You get a quick ID and boarding card check, then up the escalator to security. You're then back airside. Easy.

As for your trip, I'm sorry BA didn't impress. I'm a former (long term) VS Gold Card holder, now a renewed BA Gold Card holder, after being screwed around by VS once too often. I've never had a bad BA experience - had way too many with VS...

To all those who hate BA and love VS - well, we're all entitled to our opinions. But if BA is soooo awful, why is Little Red closing? People vote with their wallets....

Sarastro - we did follow the sign for flight connections and were pretty sure that we were in the right queue, having also spoken to the guys in front of and behind us. There's definitely a fast track lane though which was available for people with ba and one world status, so maybe that's what you are referring to?

HL - I read your recent TR for BA first, and recalled the drama on the way out with your purse and then the disappointing lack of drama on the return.

Shall check out the other TRs as I love your TRs

I am generally happy with BA short haul but unfortunately the long -haul experience is not currently sitting too well with me and the OH (it was his first long-haul with BA and he always thought I was exaggerating with my previous poor experience). As I say though, perhaps we have been spoiled by VS too much without noticing. I must also add that I am somewhat relieved that we are not switching to the dark side!

You have two choices at T5 for T5 connections - follow the purple signs to Flight Connections - you then enter an area where your boarding card is either issued or checked for your next flight, then up an escalator to security and back into the departures area. This area has three channels - the standard, one for status FF, and one for Rush - if your connection is tight, BA will hustle you through this irrespective of class of travel of status.

The alternative is to follow the arrivals signs - here, you go up a level without being checked, then enter the large immigration hall, with a variety of e-gates, personal service, or status lines. Then you go down stairs to baggage reclaim and customs, then into the arrivals area.

Sarastro - thank you for the detailed information

We did the former option, and there was huge queues for each of the steps along the way. I think I may have confused matters by calling the first step "passport control" rather than boarding pass check/issuance, as I couldn't remember whether just the boarding pass was checked or the passport as well.