I am a British man, in a Civil Partnership with “Mr. A”. Until very recently I owned and ran a “boutique” (or “premium” if you hate that B word) Guest House called Nineteen in Brighton, on England’s south coast.  www.nineteenbrighton.com

I am at my happiest in life eating in great restaurants and sitting near the front of an aeroplane on my way to experience different cultures around the world.  I am far from wealthy, but I choose to spend most of my income doing the things I love, because cancer and other illnesses have made me very aware of my own mortality. I just want to have fun! And I want have my fun while enjoying the finest quality foods and travel.

Only this year I was diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Condition, at the high functioning end of the spectrum, commonly called Asperger’s Syndrome.  This makes me moderately demanding, expecting product and service standards to be appropriate for the price I have paid. But I’m not unreasonable in my expectations. Yes, I am quick to complain, but also to praise.  My complaints and feedback is genuinely intended to improve things for other customers. My praise is be considered and genuine; I really don’t like gushing hyperbole, so you won’t hear me say “everything’s amazing, awesome, jaw-dropping, breath-taking, incredible” etc, unless my brain genuinely believes that what I’m describing deserves an appropriately high level adjective.

My first ‘haute cuisine’ meal, which happened to include a caviar course, was also the first time I flew First Class, in 1976. From then on I delighted in trying new things to eat.

The first Michelin starred meal I had was courtesy of John Burton-Race, at L’Ortolan, near Reading in the 1990s.  My memory is cloudy, but I think the restaurant had 2 stars in those days, but it could have been just one. I was blown away my a “menu gourmand” of his (the heavyweight uncle of today’s sometimes feeble ‘tasting menu’), and I ate at the restaurant several times before John B-R left to go to The Landmark Hotel in London.  John B-R has a fierce reputation, but I found him to be a really nice guy and brilliant chef, who found time to talk to a young punk like me. He treated me to Champagne and a good long chat when I went to eat at The Landmark: a good man.

When Alan Murchison took over at L’Ortolan I continued to visit, and experienced a more modern, lighter cuisine than JB-R’s. I became chummy with Alan, we chatted about cars, food and cooking, and it was he who persuaded me to go on one of the cookery courses at Le Manoir Aux Quat’ Saisons, where he used to work.  http://www.belmond.com/le-manoir-aux-quat-saisons-oxfordshire/ The week long course was one of the best food weeks of my life. I had an amazing time in the kitchens, learning so much and producing smart food, and staying in the hotel itself, with it’s fabulous rooms, artwork, gardens and decor. That was when I became a fan of real quality in hotels. And where I became aware that ‘value’ is something you feel as a result of lots of people working hard to serve and support you, and to give you the little touches that make the room/meal/flight a little bit special.  Yes my week at Le Manoir was expensive, but I was cooking in a 2 star Michelin kitchen, eating 2 star food, drinking lovely wines, and staying in a sumptuously decorated bedroom, which even had a large, original, Jack Vettriano on the wall.  The ‘value’ of my week, to me, was far greater than the price.

Since that time in 2001 I have become a very keen amateur cuisinier (I prefer to use that word instead of the somewhat pompous “chef”), and a frequent diner at Michelin standard restaurants across the UK, France and Japan.  I still love to try new things, to taste the results of new cheffy techniques, but I also adore traditional, classical (French based) cooking.

As I mentioned earlier, my first ever long haul flight in First Class was in July 1976, travelling with my family on Air India between LHR and JFK. In the ’70s few would have thought Air India would be a natural choice, but they marketed their new Boeing 747-200s as “The Palace in the Sky” and sought to emulate the service experienced by a Maharaja.  I was a 16 year old, but the wonderful crew waited upon me like I was their most valued customer – I loved it all!

My father worked for BEA which became British Airways, when it merged with BOAC, and through his management flight concessions we travelled the globe in First Class throughout the rest of the ’70s and into the ’80s. I was very fortunate.  And then I got a job at British Airways, and my travel addiction just got stronger and more passionate because now I was seeing ‘back stage’ and learning about all the hugely complex work that goes into getting a few hundred people sitting inside an aluminium tube from A to B.  My first four years were spent in Industrial/Employee Relations, supporting managers looking to develop better working practices and the introduction of new corporate strategies and tactics.  I then moved into Procurement, negotiating contracts and developing procurement strategies for a range of goods and services, including management consultancy projects, temporary labour, flight simulators, aircraft interiors and pilot training. There were also two great years buying BA’s onboard tax free range, which introduced me to the luxury retail market.

My work involved a lot of long haul travel, usually at least 1 round trip a month, to the USA, Japan, Canada and Australia, and this was always in First Class, due to my management grade.  I was asked to be part of a seven person team, drawn from the Marketing, Engineering, Cabin Services and Product Development departments, to envisage and design a new First Class product for BA. This was in the 1990s when some airlines were withdrawing from First and moving to a Business/First product. But BA decided there was still enough of a market for First class, and decided to develop something great to position itself as the best airline in that market.  From that project (code-named Slingshot) came the first ever passenger seat that converted into a fully flat bed at the touch of a button; a truly game changing innovation at the front of the plane!

I am physically unable to sleep in a chair, so on an overnight flight I look for a flat bed. But an airline needs to provide much more than just a bed for the discerning pointy end traveller.  On some of my trips to Tokyo I used to fly out overnight on BA, to be able to sleep in the new First suites, but fly home on a daylight JAL flight. JAL’s First Class didn’t have sleeper seats, but their onboard service was superb: they carried 5 different vintage Champagnes, offered a caviar course during lunch service, and had an electronic massage chair in the centre of the front cabin, where I got my blood flowing again towards the end of the long flight back to London.

Of course, sometimes just the warmth of the cabin crew can make any flight in any seat a fantastic experience. Two of my experiences with good and bad crews have stayed in my memory for years, and continue to affect my choices to fly with certain airlines or not.  The first time I flew on Singapore Airlines, in Business Class between LA and Tokyo, I was served by five different crew members, and each of them addressed me by name, while looking into my eyes (rather than reading a script). My surname is not easy to get right; even in my home country people mispronounce it all the time, but here were southeast Asian ladies and gentlemen getting it right, and doing so with confidence and warmth. Superb service!

An example of terrible service is from Emirates. I was a Gold card holder and the only passenger in First Class on a 03:15 departure from Hyderabad, India, to Dubai. Upon boarding, the stewardess asked me if I wanted breakfast, to which I replied, “I’m very tired just now and want to sleep. Just wake me an hour before Dubai with a coffee and a croissant please”.  But she came back with “we’re serving it now. It’s now or nothing”!  How could an airline or an individual treat a First Class passenger in such a way?!  I used to be an Emirates Gold card holder, but that flight, plus another one in a terribly uncomfortable and dated ‘old style’ business class, plus poor attitudes and security standards in Dubai’s transit process, mean that I have vowed never to travel with Emirates again.

 

In the past four years I have really got into Qatar Airways, and currently have Gold status with their frequent flyer programme. I find them to be a very well managed, customer focused airline, with the latest modern aircraft types and a terrific Business Class product.  Their multi-national crews are polite and professional, friendly, and appear to work well together, which is not easy to achieve, and the onboard catering is actually genuinely good and tasty.  Qatar as a nation, as well as an airline, is not as flash/brash/blingy as the UAE and Emirates Airlines, which suits me perfectly. The Business hard product on their A380, A350 and 787s, in a 1-2-1 configuration is so spacious and refined, and so close to a First Class product of just a few years ago. Compare that with the appallingly cramped 2-4-2 in BA’s Business class on the same aircraft types!  And to top it all, Qatar sometimes offers great fares promotions, so you can fly in a superior product for less money.

In Asia I am a fan of Singapore Airlines, because of their great personal service, but I haven’t flown longhaul with them for some years.  I also highly rate All Nippon Airways (“ANA”) in Japan. Recently I’ve only flown domestic sectors with them, but their Business product and service standards are very good indeed.

I haven’t been to Africa very much, but I have had very good experiences with Kenya Airways’ Business class. And although I’ve been to the USA over 50 times, I haven’t done so since the days of George W Bush and the Patriot Act, so I can’t comment on any US carriers. In the old days they used to be rubbish, but nowadays American, United and Delta are all offering 1-2-1 in Business Class.  I am really sad and astonished that British Airways has slipped so far down the rankings and is not making plans for a new Business product (it’s A350s will just have a tweaked design in Business when they start flying in 2018.)  Earlier in 2016 I flew Business on BA to Kuala Lumpur in a 787, and home from Singapore on an A380. Sat in the centre of the cabin, facing backwards, for 14 hours overnight, was the worst airline experience I have had for years.

When I’m given the choice I always choose a window seat.  Being able to look out at the geography being overflown is a fantastic experience, and it has left me with very powerful memories: I can still recall my first sight of the ice cap over Greenland, and ice bergs in the sea, on a flight to the US west coast; the sight of the slim channel of green fertile land either side of the river Nile, as it courses its way through the arid brown desert of southern Egypt and northern Sudan gave me an anecdote to share with my schoolmates when were were taught about irrigation in Geography classes; the neon of Las Vegas shining out of the Nevada desert after an evening departure from LAX to London; my first sighting of humped back whales, as I flew from Barra in the Outer Hebrides, to Glasgow; the first glimpse of Fuji on descent into Tokyo; and the incredible folding and twisting of rock and mountains in southern Iran, south of Shiraz, when returning to Europe from Dubai; these are all incredible sights which can only be witnessed in all their grandeur and majesty from the air.

So I get very irritated when airline crews try to get you to close the window blinds, and in my experience, the worst at this is British Airways. I remember being asked to close my blinds on a daylight flight from Singapore to London, in First, because some staff passengers sitting across from me “wanted to sleep”. I refused to comply:  I had chosen that particular flight over the more common night time departures from SIN, so that I could enjoy the view; by choosing to stay awake on the flight I was trying to minimise my jet lag as I could go to bed when I arrived in London; and because passengers at the pointy end are given eye shades to help them sleep.

My concerns at the pointy end are that some airlines are introducing ‘window’ seats in F and J which are set quite away from, or at an angle to, the window, so that one can’t press ones nose against the window when the seat belt sign is on. Most disturbing of all are the carriers, such as Virgin Atlantic, that use a herringbone layout, with one’s back facing the window.  Don’t get me started on BA’s horrific backwards facing seats in ‘Club World’; all window seats face backwards, so you can see the sights you wanted to photograph passing away beneath you, rather than coming slowly towards you.

I always check www.seatguru.com before booking a flight, to check the cabin layout. Then, I know which seat to request – as long as I’m flying with a decent carrier which lets you choose your seat in advance and without charging you i.e. NOT on BA!

BA also seems to have a policy of closing all its window blinds before passenger boarding, on night time departures. As I had a centre aisle seat in ‘Club World’, facing backwards, on the main deck of an A380 operating the BA12 from SIN to LHR, I felt totally disoriented during taxi and take-off because I had no external line of sight. When we landed at Heathrow (still in darkness) passengers kept the blinds closed, so I was again disoriented – I was actually following the approach on the moving map display, but we thudded onto the runway at Heathrow long before the map indicated we were anywhere near the airfield, which was quite alarming!  I genuinely feel BA’s practice of blind closing is unsafe, because in the event of an emergency incident on take off or landing, it’s important for passengers to be able to see where they are, and if there is a fire on one side of the plane, so they can use the correct doors to evacuate. I really did not feel comfortable sitting in the middle of a full superjumbo, right above the wings and fuel tanks, not knowing what was going on around me.  In the two months before that flight I flew with Qatar Airways, ANA and Aer Lingus, and each made cabin announcements to tell passengers that “it is a safety requirement” that blinds are opened for take off and landing at night, just as it is to dim the cabin lights for night-time rotations, so what is BA doing??  They told me that making sure the blinds were open would be “a distraction to the crew during critical parts of the flight”, but frankly that’s bull****. It’s just another one of so many examples of BA doing what it wants to do, and not caring about its passengers.  I really do hope that it doesn’t take an accident to make BA realise it’s folly.  I also wrote to the Civil Aviation Authority, but they said BA was not breaking any rules.

UPDATE – I flew shorthaul BA last week and was amazed to hear the cabin crew ask passengers to ensure their window blinds were opened for take off and landing (even on daylight sectors).  When I asked the cabin crew about it I was told “yes it’s for safety reasons, because of lessons learned after the Las Vegas engine fire last year”. I felt very pleased they made the change, and vindicated in my assertion that it was a safety issue. Although I admit I had overlooked one of the safety issues – the need for fire crews attending an incident to be able to see through the windows, inside the cabin, so they know if the fire or smoke is in the cabin, and where the passengers are congregating. I was somewhat disappointed BA or the CAA didn’t write back to me to apologise for dismissing my concerns!  But at least the change in policy has been made, without being preceded by loss of life.

Having access to a calm and comfortable airport lounge is a great perk for pointy end travellers, especially during transits.  Some are better than others and some are more crowded than others – check out your airline’s website for their lounge details, and read the latest Skytrax reviews to see what fellow passengers are saying. www.airlinequality.com

Personally I like a lounge which looks out onto the airfield, so one really feels part of the excitement of flying, one which provides a nice selection of healthy, fresh foodstuffs, which has good clean toilets (with a shower, and changing area, if I’m in transit), and has ample comfortable seating.