Regular readers will know I’m no fan of intra-european business classes, because they’re often just economy seats with better catering.  When the UK government started to allow some foreign travel in the summer of 2020 I was of course eager to get away, but I was very much restricted to European destinations, and of those, Greece seemed a pretty safe bet (in terms of low Covid incidence).  In normal times I would actually have gone via Istanbul on Turkish Airlines, in order to get their ‘long haul’ business product, with more space and even lie-flat seats. But by August Greece still wasn’t allowing in flights from Turkey, so I had to settle for a direct euro-style flight.  British Airways (BA) was selling business class flights to Athens (ATH) at roughly £500 each – amazingly half the price of it’s Greek competitor, Aegean.  But I decided to get the BA flights using miles from my Qatar Airways frequent flyer account (Qatar and BA are both in the OneWorld alliance). I’m eager to use up those miles, and avoid earning more, because they are such bad value. The return journey cost me a ridiculous 70,000 QMiles, plus about £37.50 in taxes!  BA also wanted to charge me £54 to select my seats! But I overcame this charge when I told them I was a Platinum Qatar member, which is equivalent to OneWorld Emerald (it seems Qatar forgot to highlight this on my award ticket request).

Wearing the mandatory face masks, we arrived at Heathrow’s (LHR) Terminal 5 at 06:00 and I was surprised to see such long queues for check-in, but after asking a BA person I was shown to a shorter queue for business class.  Online check-in wasn’t available for our flight, because someone had to check we had the correct paperwork to allow us entry to Greece.  After check-in the premium “fast track” security lane was closed and we faced another lengthy wait in line with everyone else, which is never pleasant for a disabled person!

Once through security we made our way to the BA lounge. Because if our OneWorld emerald status we were able to access the First Gallery lounge, but I can’t tell you how this was any better than their regular business class lounge; I really expected it to be more plush than it was. In the Covid era you find a seat, study menus using a QR code and place an order online, which is then served at your table.  Even drinks must be ordered this way, though staff are on hand to help anyone unable to use technological approach.

I had only just been served my breakfast when my pre-booked wheelchair assistance arrived to take me to the gate. It was 07:20 and the scheduled departure of our flight, BA640, was 08:45. I persuaded him to give me 10 more minutes to finish breakfast, but he said he was required to get me to the gate at least 1 hour before departure. This irritated me because it was denying me time in the lounge and forcing me to hang around at the gate, knowing I would be among the last to board, because of Covid-related boarding by row number, starting at the back; we were in row 2.

But in the event boarding was smooth at 08:15, and I was indeed grateful for the wheelchair to the distant B gates.  Well done BA for providing this service free of charge!  When we arrived back at LHR there wasn’t a wheelchair to meet me at the aircraft door, so I walked up the airbridge and met the chair on its way down. However I declined the help because it was a slim lady pushing the chair, and because they wanted me to wait until the very last passenger had disembarked before taking us to immigration.

When we boarded, Flight Attendants (FAs) wearing surgical masks greeted us and handed us a plastic bag containing hand sanitiser and an anti-bacterial paper towel. We were to use them to wipe down all the touch points around our seats – I thought the airline’s cleaners were meant to do that?!  I thought this protection pack was quite naff, and used far too much single use plastic. The aircraft (Airbus A321neo, G-NEOT) looked clean – it was only 1 year old.

Doors were closed 5 minutes early at 08:40 and we pushed back from stand at 08:45, before taxiing out to join an empty runway 09R for take-off at 08:55.  I really appreciated the much quieter engines on the ‘NEO’ (which stands for New Engine Option). And a smooth, timely departure is one benefit of LHR operating well below capacity at this time, along with reduced or even no stacking on arrival back into the UK.

I was really looking forward to flying on this new aircraft, mainly because it’s new engines are so much quieter than those on other Airbus A320 family jets. But I was very disappointed with the interior of this plane: “new” leather seats were hard and had a very upright back and legroom was really poor – at 30″ it’s just 1 inch more than on Easyjet!  Armrests were thin and very hard, just like on Gatwick Express trains. I generally choose not to recline my seat in high density cabins (for the benefit of those behind me), but on this flight I was exceptionally tired and I hoped to grab forty winks. But the recline was so small it really didn’t help, so sleep was out of the question.  This supposedly business class seating is just too uncomfortable over a 3 to 4 hour flight!  1/10. And without any IFE this was a very boring and uncomfortable flight!

I said earlier that on euro business classes the catering was just about the only thing better than flying economy. Well things are a little different in Covid times: it’s still better than economy (where nothing is given out), but it’s a long way from a normal expectation of ‘business class’ fare. Shortly after take-off we were all handed a slim picnic box containing a small bottle of water, a small portion of sliced fruit, a somewhat dry cheese and ham croissant and a horrible strawberry mousse. Food was supplied by Do & Co, a name I’m not familiar with, and after this experience I’ve no desire to become more familiar with! 2/10

On the way back from Athens the picnic box tasted better, even though it had been loaded in LHR, so wasn’t at ‘peak freshness’. This time round we had a rather tasty chickpea, tomato and broccoli salad starter, a fairly good chicken sandwich and a “meh” chocolate mousse. 3/10

On the outbound flight the crew didn’t pass through the cabin with a drinks service, though they did provide drinks ‘on request’. I had a coffee and a Bloody Mary (which I had to stir with my finger, because the FA didn’t give me a stirrer!).  Flying back to LHR our crew were much better, providing a drinks trolley with the picnic and I was even proactively offered a second one when the first was finished!  Also, about an our from LHR an FA came through the cabin with a tray of pre-poured soft drinks (water, OJ, or apple) and a bag of nuts.  It’s a very difficult time for BA crew; just a few days before our outbound flight BA had sacked a few thousand crew and reduced the pay of those who remained.  The inference to me was that BA had retained their best crews, but my experience of these 2 flights doesn’t support this idea – there remains an inconsistency in ability and performance.  Some picnic boxes remained uncollected even when we landed.

I found the cabin quite chilly on the way out, but when I asked an FA in the galley if he could increase the temperature he didn’t know how to! Was he not trained on this new aircraft type? Had BA fired those who were trained?!

In terms of onboard Covid rules, pax had to wear a face mask at all times, except when eating or drinking. The FAs suggested that we should change our masks at least every 4 hours, but they didn’t have any spare masks for people to make a change, if they didn’t have their own spare one. We were told not to stand in the aisle, the galleys, or to queue for the lav. But if you didn’t queue you missed your turn, so I just had to make a short line.  On the return flight the lavs were left in a shocking state by parents changing their infants’ nappies, and I had to ask the FAs to clean them before I was able to use them.  This matter, together with the general behaviour and lack of distancing by pax, reminds one that there are many many people who appear not to care less about hygiene and other virus control measures. Very sad.

We landed at ATH on runway 03L at 14:12 and were on stand 15 minutes early at 14:20.

Our return flight to LHR was BA641, scheduled to depart at 15:40 and land in London at 17:35.  We had actually booked an earlier flight, but BA canceled it a week earlier and moved everyone on to this one, as it preferred to operate one full flight instead of two half full ones. BA is clearly focussed on route profitability rather than pax safety/social distancing.  And so a full load was forced to join slow lines at check in, unaware if the line was the correct one, because there weren’t any staff around to give help. And they had stupidly placed the Club Europe check-in right in the middle of four economy desks, making it impossible to find the correct line.  I walked up to the side of one of the desks, with my walking stick, to see if I could be given any priority at all. Despite an agent at the neighbouring (empty) Etihad Airways check-in shouting at me to get out of her line, a man at the BA desk told her to let me be, that I was disabled, and he would check me in next.

My wheelchair assistance then arrived and pushed me past long queues for security and passport control, which I found very handy. I was then pushed to the ‘business class’ lounge used by BA and several other airlines at ATH, even from differing alliances; the Skyserv lounge.

Once a masked person sitting behind perspex screening allowed us to enter we found one of the worst ‘business’ lounges ever!  It was dark and dim, with an extremely poor selection of plastic-wrapped ‘food’, a small selection of soft drinks, and only cans of beer for those looking for alcohol.

Several seats were blocked out to assist with social distancing, but we did get seats together, and we were able to use the free wi-fi.

Another man with a wheelchair appeared and took me to the busy boarding gate, A7. Luckily I was taken to the front of the queue, from where I walked onto the 1 year old Airbus A321neo G-NEOW to take my window seat 6F. From a virus control point of view, I must note that because the seat pitch on this aircraft is so poor (30″) and because of the seat design, it is impossible to stand upright when accessing the window seats, without holding onto the the seats in front for balance.  I guess that’s one reason why we have to wipe down our seat areas with the paper towel they hand out, but I couldn’t see anyone else doing that.

The boarding of the full aircraft took longer than usual and our doors closed 5 minutes late at 15:45, but we pushed back just 1 minute later, and were airborne from runway 03L at 16:01. Unfortunately there were many screaming and shouting infants and toddlers on this flight (even in business class) which isn’t good for an autistic person. Combined with the paltry legroom I really felt like I was on a 1980s charter flight to Spain, a la Monarch or Orion!  It was only the good service from the FAs that enabled me to relax enough to survive the nearly 4 hours flight.  I really find the poor/woke parenting of some Brits exasperating – and the state they left the toilets in was totally disgraceful.

25 Minutes from LHR an FA made an announcement, advising pax that they needed to quarantine for 14 days, unless they were “an exception”, which was wrong information at the time. We landed on LHR runway 27L at 17:22 and were on stand 7 minutes ahead of schedule at 17:28.

Never again 2/10