My readers will know that I despise the so-called “business class” offered by most European airlines on short flights.  My last disappointment with British Airways’ (“BA”) European business class, which they brand “Club Europe” was to and from Athens in 2020.  A few years ago BA introduced Club Europe on domestic flights which means, amongst other things, Club pax can make use of airline lounges.  Whilst there is free food and drink on board there’s very little difference from economy class in terms of the seat and its 30″ pitch. Occasionally special offer fares come up for Club Europe; I’ll leave it up to you to judge when it’s worth it.  At first I tried to buy my ticket with Avios points, but the only return flight with award seat availability was at 8am, which was not going to be possible for me to catch after a big night out with my cousins!  So I paid cash for two return tickets at £624.04, in order to get an afternoon flight home, which included the scandalous fees BA charges for reserving our seats. In business class!

We arrived at Heathrow (“LHR”) terminal 5 around 11am for our 1pm flight, BA1416, and made our way to the First class check in area (thanks to our Platinum status on BA’s OneWorld partner Qatar Airways).  We were checked in smoothly and then the agent, who noticed my walking stick, proactively asked if I needed wheelchair assistance.  It’s been a long time since a BA person showed such care towards me!  She also escorted us to the secret ‘side door’ route reserved for First pax, which has a small security area before direct entrance to the First lounge.  There, we had a coffee, croissant and a bucks fizz, before my wheelchair arrived.  I was very grateful for this because we had to go to the far opposite end of the terminal to get a bus to the plane which was parked off stand.

Most pax don’t like having to be bussed to their plane, but it’s something an AvGeek looks forward to. I’d already checked flightradar24 and found that our flight was being operated by an Airbus A319 painted in the old BEA colours (a predecessor to BA), so I could see us getting closer to it, with its distinctive livery.  The aircraft was registered G-EUPJ and was 21 years old.

I moved from Northern Ireland to England with my parents when I was 7 and all of our flights ‘home’ in the following several years were made in BEA aircraft, so this livery was particularly touching for me on my last ever flight to Belfast.  We boarded at 12:45 (a little tight for our 13:00 scheduled departure) and found a bright and clean cabin, properly “dressed” in business class with special headrest covers, the middle seat in each set of 3 was left vacant and had a smart padded tray table over that empty seat.  We were able to give our seat area a wipe down with an antiseptic tissue handed out on boarding.  The (full) plane pushed back at 13:20 and after a short taxi to the threshold of runway 09R we took off at 13:35.

Drinks and a light lunch were served after take-off.  It was good to see meal trays back again, after the cardboard boxes used earlier in the pandemic.  Mr A went for the chicken caesar salad, while I opted for the “vegetable salad” which consisted of chick peas, cauliflower and carrots on a bed of hummus, with a light North African spice.  It was quite pleasant, but I skipped on the chocolate mousse dessert for diabetic reasons.  I ordered a Bloody Mary, a drink I fell in love with on BA flights, but this time it wasn’t well made.

I mentioned that the seat pitch was the same as in economy, at 30″. Fortunately on this flight the person in front of me didn’t recline his seat, so my legs weren’t crushed.

We landed at George Best Belfast City Airport (“BHD”) at 14:30 on runway 22 and were on stand at 14:34, just 9 minutes behind schedule.  For once on BA I thought this was a good flight. 7/10

NOTE: a sniffer dog checked all the bags coming off the baggage belt at BHD, and several were pulled aside. I think the dog was looking for food, not drugs, because the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol does not allow undocumented food imports from Great Britain; so be warned!

On the flight home 4 days later things were a little different.  BA does’t have its own staff at BHD, choosing to outsource to Swissport, and for some reason only one of the 3 check in desks for our flight was manned, and the agent didn’t seem to be giving priority to those of us in the business class queue.  But after check in we went through security and the compulsory routing through duty free, to find the business class lounge. This has also now been outsourced, so it’s now an “Aspire Lounge” shared with other airlines and some paying pax.  The lounge is a good size with apron views, a small selection of food and a decent choice of drinks.  By the time we left it was full.

The departures board indicated a creeping delay to our scheduled 15:15 departure, because of the late arrival of the incoming aircraft. It landed about an hour late, but I was pleased to see it was a 3 year old Airbus A320neo registered G-TTNB. Neo means New Engine Option, and these newer Airbuses are a lot quieter than the earlier models.  We were called to board at about 15:45, but then had to stand and queue on the jet bridge, which became a bit much for me, so I sought out a staff seat at the top of the jet bridge. A member of Swissport was accommodating and said she would order me a wheelchair for our arrival at LHR.

On board, I saw that the aircraft had not been properly cleaned (because they were rushing to turn it around). Crumbs and greasy finger prints were on my seat. This is just unacceptable during a pandemic, and shines a light of reality on BA’s claim to do “enhanced cleaning and disinfecting” before every flight.  The middle seats hadn’t been set up with the smart table, which I took as simple laziness.  The cabin was warmer than it should have been, and when the doors shut at 16:00 (45 minutes behind schedule) the captain explained that the delay leaving London was down to a broken Auxiliary Power Unit, but it was still broken, which was why the air conditioning wasn’t working.  Frustrating.

We pushed back at 16:09 and took off from runway 22 at 16:20, softly after which “afternoon tea” was served: one finger sandwich of coronation chicken and another of prawn, a scone with clotted cream and strawberry jam, and a lemon cake.  I had a bucks fizz to wash it down.  We made up some time on the journey and landed at 17:12 on runway 09L at LHR. When we taxied to terminal 5 we had to wait off stand for more than 10 minutes because no-one was there to operate the airbridge! During this time a strong smell of kerosene filled the cabin (because the air conditioning air comes from a bleed from the engines).  We finally got onto the stand at 17:25, some 50 minutes behind schedule.  And that’s when I found that my promised wheelchair had not been booked!  So we walked into the terminal and Mr A found a discarded wheelchair and pushed me to the baggage hall. Further frustration followed because the bags were late onto the belt; they only started appearing at 17:45 and, as is so often the case at LHR, the bags labelled “Priority” were the last to come out!

BA’s new CEO has said he wants to recover customer service standards which used to be a key part of BA.  He still has some work to do. I wrote a complaint through BA’s website the next day, but I still haven’t had a response. 2/10