I decided to return to London City Airport (“LCY”) from Amsterdam (“AMS”) on British Airways because I’d never used the Docklands airport before and I wanted to try flying in the Embraer 190 aircraft used on the route.  The route is actually operated by a subsidiary company called BA CityFlyer, though fully painted in BA colours.  We’d flown out to AMS from Gatwick the day before on ‘mainline’ British Airways, which, apart from the ‘Executive Lounge’ at Gatwick, was the usual new-normal rubbish you get on intra-Europe business class these days: an Airbus A319 in a 3-3 economy seat configuration with poor legroom and the middle seat in each row left empty to create the illusion of space and comfort!  Onboard service was friendly but not customer-focussed (drinks and a snack were served so long after take-off that we’d already started our descent and only had 1o minutes to eat and drink!) and in order to cut costs, BA didn’t load sufficient catering.

The smaller E-190 seats 98 pax in a 2-2 layout with a 30″ pitch and 18″ width, which is an inch better on both measurements than the Airbus. But there isn’t the empty middle seat in Club Europe which you find on the Airbus.  Windows are larger, but the smaller cabin means the overhead bins are smaller and they get full very quickly. Unlike on the outbound journey, the FAs (Flight Attendants) did actually help pax to find space to stow their bags, or tag them up to go in the hold.

Before boarding we had a drink in the Executive Lounge at AMS, which has good views across the apron. Apart from that it’s a mediocre lounge – not too many relaxing chairs, very limited food or snacks and a restricted drinks offering.

We boarded our aircraft G-LCYR through gate D28, which is a long walk (at the end of AMS’ D pier) from the lounge.  The flight was full, but despite there being only 98 passengers the boarding process was a little slow and chaotic.  BA has recently introduced a ‘group boarding’ system, where your boarding card tells you which group you are (based on your ticket price or frequent flyer tier) and they call groups to board in the order 1, 2, 3 etc. But half the pax stepped forward to board when group 1 was called, so by the time I got on board it was a struggle to find space for my bag in the overhead bin.  I should also point out that because BA (shamefully) doesn’t allow you to choose your seat at the time of booking without paying a fee and because you can’t do online check-in from overseas, Mr A and I didn’t have seats together.  I was in 2A and he was in 3A behind me, which wasn’t much of a problem.

We boarded at 16:00, doors closed five minutes early at 16:15, but a small delay only had us pushing back at 16:24.  When the engines started I could instantly appreciate that they were quieter than on the Airbus.  We had a long taxi to runway 36L which is several kilometres from the terminal building, and we were airborne at 16:42.

The FA was much better prepared on this flight, and served drinks and a snack at 16:50.  And it was just one FA – the slow service outbound was with two FAs serving fewer passengers in the Club cabin.  I had a smoked mackerel salad and lovely fresh bread and butter accompanied by Champagne with orange juice and I found it very pleasant; certainly of a better quality than the catering out of Gatwick.  I didn’t have the mango cheesecake.

I made the most of the larger windows as we flew over central London and Canary Wharf and landed on runway 09 at LCY at 16:22 local just ahead of schedule, but a congested taxiway meant we got to stand five minutes late at 16:30.

The return flight had cost just over £1000 for two, but I reduced this to £566 by using 76,000 Avios (what used to be called Air Miles).  In Asia one can buy a 6 hour full flat bed business class experience for a similar price, so you can see that business travel within Europe is very over-priced!  After the outbound sector I was feeling very ripped-off, but I actually really enjoyed this return flight; it was the best short-haul BA flight I’ve had in years.  It’s probably no coincidence that the flight and crew were not BA mainline – everything just seemed better, delivered by more motivated and customer-focussed staff who’s morale hasn’t been sapped by mainline’s relentless cost-cutting.

8/10 for this flight, 3/10 for the Gatwick flight.