BA169 LHR-PVG

December 20, 2019

In-transit:

I landed at Heathrow shortly before 10AM, and my flight to Shanghai didn’t leave until 2 in the afternoon, so I had plenty of time for my connection.

Heathrow Airport’s transit experience can be quite an ordeal, especially if you had to change terminals. I arrived into T3, and my next flight was leaving from T5 C gates - this required me getting on the airside transit bus, re-clear security at T5, and then take the automated people mover (APM) to C gates. Do NOT even get me started on UK airport security’s near fascistic obsession with liquids in sealed plastic bags - I honestly think they get sadistically turned on by this or something because the extent to which they enforce the rule is abhorrent. Oh the Brits and their fetishizing personality 🙃.

Anyways, Heathrow does make up in terms of good lounges, particularly if you’re an oneworld alliance elite member.

I chose to stay in T3 upon arrival, since this is where the Qantas Lounge and the Cathay Pacific First and Business Lounge are located, two of the more premium lounges in my opinion. Sure, there’s also American Airlines Admirals Club there too, but who cares.

Lounge:

I’ve been in and out of Heathrow so many times that I’m buddies with one of the sales girls at Hermès… This also means I have my go-to lounge, which is the Cathay Pacific First and Business Lounge. This is essentially one lounge with the first class section in a different area. Once you pass through the eternally haywire central shopping/dining concourse, the lounge is to your left, conveniently located next to the Qantas Lounge, should you wish to visit both.

The sign led you to a pair of lifts, where the lounge was housed one level up. This lounge was remodeled with Cathay Pacific’s newest lounge décor, in an earthy bronze tone with brass minimalist signages. I absolutely ADORE the design of this lounge.

Being an oneworld emerald member, I was admitted into the first class section of the lounge, which was to the right past reception. This section wasn’t particularly big, with seating for roughly 30ish people.

The interior was coherent with the overall style. One of the main objectives of the new lounge design was to give the space a residential feeling, which I think the lounge excelled at - the place kinda felt like a Soho House rather than an airport lounge.

The lounge bolstered a gorgeous view of the runway not far in the background, and an unparalleled amount of natural light, which sure was precious when you have a clear day in London.

One thing that set the first class section apart was the sit-down restaurant.

Since I was there in the AM, I was presented with the breakfast menu, which read as follows:

I was obligated to order the Chinese set, which came with minced pork and sweet corn congee with accompaniments, fried vegetable noodles and dim sum basket.

I thought both the presentation and the taste were authentic. I was still hungry, so I ordered another eggs florentine with a side of smoked salmon.

The eggs were perfectly poached and runny, and I liked how the dish was served in a deconstructed fashion, with everything on the side. After a fueling brekkie, I decided to get some exercise in, so I went to check out the business class section of the lounge.

The business lounge was considerably larger, with comfortable seating options and a fully-tended bar. There’s also what was called “the pantry” in Cathay’s lounges, which was a snack bar set-up with a communal table.

A signature feature of the new lounge design was the noodle bar, where you could order made-to-order noodle dishes. The menu read as follows:

The noodle bar took up about almost half of the lounge space, which gave a sense of its popularity.

In addition to the booths, there’s also counter seating.

The first and business class lounge shared the same cohort of shower suites, which were beautifully appointed with Aēsop toiletries.

As was the standard with Cathay Pacific, there was even facial cleanser, toner and moisturizing face cream. This was something other airlines should learn too, because obviously there’s no way Heathrow security would let me bring my own bloody cleanser, wouldn’t they?

I had a nice stay at the Cathay lounge, as usual. I would even go so far to say that ground experience was the only redeeming quality of Cathay Pacific, as its onboard offerings, other than first class, were abysmal. But I’ll leave that for another post.

Boarding:

Once left the lounge in T3, I embarked on my trek to board my flight in T5. Having made pit stops at several duty free shops, I still managed to get to the gate at the same time as the crew.

Soon enough the boarding commenced by groups. I was welcomed by the CSD (see reference in this interview with Pam Ann here), who’s obviously, duh, gay, and pointed me towards my seat.

Before I start the review of British Airways business class, I want to clarify that there’s airlines in this world that make money from offering actually decent business class products, while British Airways makes money by making business class so bad so that people would pay for its first class. What is ironic is that British Airways named its business class product Club World. I guess depends on what kind of clubs you hang out at, it’s more like a Dive World.

Now with that out of the way, the business class cabin on British Airways Boeing 777-200 aircraft was in a 2-4-2 configuration. Yes, there’s 8 seats per row in business class. Some airlines only have 9 seats in economy.

Even though I knew going in that the seats were gonna be tight, I still couldn’t help but gagged a little from deep repugnance when I saw the cabin. The seat was about shoulder width. Fortunately, BA had introduced enhanced bedding, which included a mattress topper and a much plusher pillow. I also liked how everything was stored in a case.

There’s one small drawer by your feet, which was literally ALL the storage you got. Again, this was utterly despicable, not to mention the pathetic headphones.

For your feet, there’s the flimsiest possible footrest mechanism that was designed to break. The footrest fell down onto the floor twice during my sleep and woke up, well, me and the neighbor one row behind me.

To give you a sense of the awkwardness with your neighbor, here’s my POV of how you’d be entering into an intense staring contest for the next 12hrs. I mean it’s fine if I’m sitting across from Matthew Goode, but why would any self-respecting D-list and above celebrity fly BA business class…

A brief moment later, I was presented with the new amenity kit from the White Company. While stylish, the amenity kit was only about the size of an iPhone. There’s no slippers, unsurprisingly. The flight attendant then came out with a tray of welcome beverages. I chose champagne.

I was brought the menu and wine list for the flight, as well as a breakfast card, which read as follows:

Inflight:

We were about 30 minutes late when we lifted off, due to runway queues. Service soon started with a hot towel, which was handed to me directly from the flight attendant, and a drink from the bar. I asked for a gin and tonic.

The new serviceware on BA was really cute, however, the glass did seem a bit low-end.

The service felt like an assembly line, as the business cabin was rather massive, and there’s only two FAs serving each aisle. BA eliminated trolley carts in its service, however, I felt like it was actually counterproductive - the FAs had to run between the cabin and galley multiple times for each course. It was well over 45 minutes after apéritif when the starter tray was brought out. I chose the chicken and ham hock terrine with celeriac rémoulade and apple purée.

The terrine was really tasty, though the portion for the whole meal was on the smaller side. There also wasn’t a choice of bread rolls either. For the main course, I went with the sesame chicken with fried tofu, celery, peppers and egg fried rice. The presentation left a lot to be desired, but the chicken reheated well on the plane and was extremely flavorful. To accompany my main course, I had a glass of the Valcarlos Fortius Reserva, which was not good at all.

Another thing to mention is that there’s only a salt and pepper packet, like, am I flying Spirit?

The service during the meal was inevitably a miss. The two FAs had too many passengers to serve so there’s always a long wait between courses. The Chinese FA Coco was very friendly - I asked for a glass of port with my dessert whenever she got a chance, she told me not to worry and returned immediately. For dessert, I chose the cheese plate and a warm sticky toffee and date pudding. The cheeses were great, while the pudding was merely one small bite. The port onboard was the Graham’s Six Grapes Reserve, which was pretty underwhelming.

Also you could see from the below picture, it was the last course of the meal, and the FAs still hadn’t had the chance to clear out the (no longer hot) towel.

After lunch I reclined my seat to catch some shut-eye. The seat itself was actually pretty comfortable, due to the thick padding. However, the virtually non-existent storage meant I had nowhere to put a bottled water within reach when half-asleep, so I had to put it on top of my duvet. PSA I’m not a huge cuddler, it’s too intimate.

The three melatonins I popped after lunch helped make time fly by. I woke up just under 2 hours before landing, when breakfast was served. Everybody received the same starter, which was a plate of fresh fruits. There was also roasted nut and fruit granola, with raspberry compote and vanilla yogurt, and a croissant.

The fruit plate was slightly better than average. For the main course, I opted for the traditional English breakfast, with scrambled eggs, Suffolk sweet-cured back bacon, free-range Cumberland pork sausage, tomatoes and hash brown. British Airways almost never fails at English breakfast, and this was no exception - the bacon was savory, while the eggs were creamy and fluffy.

On Arrival:

As we were descending into Shanghai, the flight came to a conclusion. Obviously the hard product, pardon my French, was trash. There is just no way around it - the cabin was dated, tight, had no storage whatsoever, and 8-abreast business class was just downright offensive nowadays. The soft product immaterially made up for some of it - the new Do & Co catering was a huge step-up than what BA used to offer, even though the portion could be bigger. The bedding collaboration with the White Company was a nice touch. The service was about what you’d expect from mixed fleet crew, and the layout of the cabin made personalized service unattainable.

The good news is British Airways has since introduced a new business class seat with the delivery of its A350 aircrafts and plans to retrofit the whole fleet with those seats. But in the meantime, if you find yourself in BA’s old business class, cancel the ticket and fly somebody else.