British Airways

Vienna to London Heathrow return in September 2015, both flights in Economy on an A320. Crew pleasant but not doing more than absolutely required. A snack and drinks were served on both legs. This time the sandwich consisted of a mini pastrami and cheese sandwich and a mini black currant bun. Edible, but not BA´s best sandwich offering. Additional drinks were served on request. Both legs featured the new slim seats in the cabin with reduced legroom. While the seat are slightly better than the Recaro slim seats, I miss the older more comfortable seats with better leg room. I did not really realize that BA has changed the rules recently and travelling only with hand baggage now also means that one is no longer allowed to pick a seat during check-in, but a seat is randomly allocated. Selecting any seat (even a middle seat in the back of plane now costs EUR 18). Also, if one later decides to check a piece of luggage the costs are a whopping EUR75 at the airport or EUR35 on line. The final fare with BA can be substantially higher than the initial price quote - the additional charges are displayed during the booking process and if one commits to checking luggage during the booking process, the charges are lower. With the exception of a free drink and sandwich, British Airways Economy product is now pretty much a low-cost airline product. Being Oneworld Sapphire does not help either. No privileges here; still the same charges for seat selection and checking luggage. While VIE-LHR was on time, the return LHR-VIE leg was delayed for one hour. After a timely boarding the full plane was waiting for the departure, but then the flight deck announced that they are waiting for some cargo to be loaded and they missed their assigned slot, which meant waiting an hour for a new slot. So, basically BA inconvenienced a whole plane of passengers to load some delayed cargo. Flying with hand baggage only, I used web check-in for both flights which worked fine. Boarding procedures were unremarkable and pleasant. BA uses a shared lounge in VIE. The Lounge as such is acceptable (small and mostly packed), but far from great with limited and lower quality offerings. The selection seems to be more or less the same in all lounges in VIE. BA Galleries Lounge in LHR T3 a comfortable oasis amid a busy airport and food and drinks selection was better than VIE. Wine selection was nice. BA still uses T3 for its flights to VIE, which I consider a huge benefit over using T5, which tends to be a mess for passengers. While I stopped flying British Airways Business in Europe they BA changed Business seating to Economy seats with no additional legroom, I see no valid reason to pay any surcharge for this product, but I still consider BA one of the better options for Economy flights in Europe. However their new low-cost airline concept also means that the times when I was willing to pay higher prices just for flying with BA over easyJet or Austrian on this route are unfortunately over.

The British Airways seats were extremely small, uncomfortable and did not operate properly. In order to recline the seat or return it to the upright position you had to do it manually. The bathrooms throughout the plane were dirty and smelly from the minute we boarded. The meals British Airways served were abysmal. On the way home from London to the U.S. passengers had the choice of a chicken curry dish with saffron rice or the vegetarian option. The smell of curry makes me nauseated so I opted for the vegetarian dish. I was served greasy, overly seasoned pasta soaked in oil and covered with a soggy bread crumb topping. It was inedible. My partner received the chicken curry dish which was small, fatty pieces of chicken overly seasoned and soaked oil. The dishes served are poorly chosen for the general population of people who fly British Airways. The food should be clean, fresh food not covered in grease and oil and not overly seasoned. The portions are too small and the dessert items chosen are also odd and not appealing to people. It appears British Airways will serve just about anything so they can keep the food prices down and the profits up.

Denver to London with British Airways. We were allocated rubbish seats near the toilets. The seats would recline but would creep forward during the night which bent the jack in my headphones. Lately we've found the aircraft are tired and in much need of an update. Poor quality screens - very small seats. Not much bigger than a short haul flight. Find the air hostess / stewards are often quite bored and provide a no thrills service. There's not much wrong with them per se, but a smile would go a long way. We now specifically look for other airlines to fly with as we've had enough of British Airways for long haul flights.

Heathrow to Munich return with British Airways. I have never published a negative review of anything ever before, I work in the service industry and have several friends who are cabin crew. I am not a demanding passenger, I rarely request anything unless invited to do so and I rarely request anything other than water. However my first experience of British Airways business class was let down by crew serving me. The female cabin attendant on my return flight could not have been nicer, but the male attendant on my flight out was noticeably dismissive of me as a female passenger. To the men sitting near me he was chatty and offering them extra drinks etc. I was made to feel like a huge inconvenience. Such a shame and it has made me reconsider whether the extra cost is worthwhile.

Have flown previously in British Airways Business Class. Flew in World Traveler economy class on this trip, with adult children on their first flight to England. Loading was chaotic. Seated middle four seat section, row 49. No air conditioning in cabin. Several of us complained about heat and lack of air flow. Did not get answer from stewardess until an hour into the flight. Took 3 hours before air conditioning kicked in. No room under the seat to store handbag. Seats appear to be smaller. When person in row in front of me reclined, I had minimal room to move or to access my purse. Little attention from cabin attendants. Told them I was getting dizzy from lack of cool air, and they allowed me to move to seat in galley where air was cooler from Business Class seats. Food served was terrible. No advance menu to choose from. No individual lighting or air. I thought it was my worst experience until immigration 2.5 hour wait in line to clear immigration / customs. Our prepaid taxi waited 90 minutes and then left. Horrible experience. The return flight was worse. Delayed 1.5 hours on the ground due to no air conditioning in Coach seating again, though First and Business had it. They brought us water in the last 30 minutes. Will never fly British Airways again.

A very pleasant experience apart from the so called fast track lane that took 20 minutes. The business class lounge was very nice with a great choice of drinks and snacks for early morning departure. As a regular on the Gatwick to Sharm el Sheikh route it was a breath of fresh air to have the option of a full service airline and Oneworld member. The business class seats are the same as economy class on the A320 but the middle seat blocked off worked for me, and the fare paid was very similar to easyJet flexi rates. Excellent service from take-off to landing.

Sharm el Sheikh to Gatwick. I checked in at British Airways business class counter and the agent was unprofessional and unwelcoming. All my questions involved him having to ask a colleague in the adjacent economy class check-in. I asked staff where the lounge access was located and was abruptly told there was No lounge access - despite BA stating on their website that business class passengers have access to the Royal Jordanian lounge (which I saw no sign of) so I had to use the general and expensive SSH airport facilities. Boarding was absolute mayhem with no separate call for business class or Oneworld members to board first. So I jumped on the bus to be called off and told the check-in agent had booked me in economy class row 8D, which was listed as business class at on-line check-in. After a wait of 10 minutes, a new boarding bass was issued for seat 1C, and the aircraft bus had to be called back to pick me up. Onboard things did improve and chatted with friendly crew. However the pre-boarding did not represent a premium product.

First time to experince British Airways new shorthaul cabin on a flight from Heathrow to Gibraltar, and we were pleasantly surprised. I am 6'1 and found the leg room in the aisle seat to be fine. The seat was generally comfortable (though lumbar would be nice!), brown leather looks good and new lighting calming. Overall very good. I did look at the business class seats which are basically the same as economy, so will probably not fly business with BA shorthaul again, but will stay with economy. The staff were very professional and pleasant. You may however want to take your own packed lunch as the morsels given are not good.

British Airways Boeing 747-400 was a bit long in the tooth, with old style Club World seat, old video system, audio jack loose and needed constant fiddling to keep sound coming through both ears. The isolation of the window seat in BA Club World is a double-edged sword : privacy is great but cabin crew tend to forget you - on this flight, I did not receive a hot towel or an offer of a second drink, though everyone else around me did. All said and done, the flight was on time, food and wine were good, and I was pretty comfortable.

Early morning flight from Stockholm to Heathrow on Sep 20th. Sat in the first row which had a little bit more legroom, but compared with the older Club Europe seats, not very comfortable. The purser seemed to have had a relly bad night sleep in Stockholm being really rude and unfriendly to customers, but laughing loudly with his fellow FA's. He kept on slamming the doors in the galley loudly throughout the flight. My friend who flew business class for first time was shocked. Fortunately our late evening return flight was a totally different story with an extremely attentive male purser who was there all the flight.