I recently flew in British Airways Club Europe from London Heathrow to Geneva. As with so many of my recent experiences with British Airways the experience was mixed and frustrating. Service on the flight was good and everything was comfortable. I found lounge access and fast track security to be good to. However, several delays at various stages of the airport soured the experience. Making me question why I even bother with British Airways anymore? So please read below for my Infuriating British Airways Club Europe Flight Review.
The Airport and (Terrible) Check-in
Terminal 5 at Heatherow Airport is one of my favourite airport terminals. Interestingly it is the largest free-standing building in the UK. As the biggest and (probably) newest airport terminal in the UK, it pretty much sets the standard for airports in the UK. It is great for shopping, with a lot of food options. It’s also very good for plane spotting, with views of aircraft taxxing and landing/taking off depending on which end you are. However, our experience on this day was pretty abysmal for two reasons I discuss below.
Disaster Number 1
Having booked this flight using Avios points, British Airways said we had to check-in at the airport for this flight. I didn’t worry too much about this as we could use the business check-in desks which I assumed wouldn’t take long at all. However, this was far from the case…
Firstly we tried using the self check-in desks, this simply told us to contact the BA staff. Luckily there was no queue so we walked straight up to an agent. Of course, just as we arrived this agent was clocking out so we had to wait a few minutes whilst the new one logged in. We handed over our passports and ticket reference but after a few minutes of typing the agent looked confused. I explained the flight had been booked with Avios, showed the confirmation and asked what the hold up was. She wasn’t sure and spend the next 10 minutes talking to the BA ticketing office.
Eventually she said she couldn’t print our boarding passes as they didn’t have a record of our ticket in the system. She then said we hadn’t paid for the ticket so would have to pay before a ticket would be generated. I explained that, no, we had paid using Avios. After a few more minutes of typing away she gave up and took us to another agent. The next agent was obviously new to the job and also couldn’t help. After about 5 minutes of trying to do the same thing as the first she eventually called over a manager.
The manager looked at our booking and instantly managed to generate the boarding passes (the printer was out of paper so we had to wait some more whilst they refilled it). The manager explained that the fact it was done through Avios caused an issue hence the hold up.
This seems absurd to me as how could they not train their staff on printing a ticket for Avios bookings? And why was it the manager could sort it instantly after it took half an hour for the other agents to fail. Very bizarre and very annoying.
Disaster Number 2
After that first ordeal, we thought “hey, at least our flight is on time!”. When it came time to go the gate we arrived, sat down for a few minutes and then another odd thing happened. The screens at the gate, which had been displaying our gate, suddenly said “GATE CLOSED” then turned off. The British Airways staff had also all disappeared.
We looked at the departures board and our flight had just disappeared. No announcement or anything. A group of us had to go to the support desk to ask. We were then redirected to another gate, where it turned out we would have to get a bus to the plane. Even at this new gate there was no information displaying our flight. And the departures board never showed the flight again.
It turned out that when our plane arrived at the gate the jetbridge broke down. Heathrow then had to scramble for stairs and busses to get everyone off the plane. Then had to change our gate last minute to a gate where busses could leave from. For “technical reasons” they could not update the system with the new gate, hence why it completely disappeared.
All told this delayed the flight by about an hour and caused a lot of confusion and annoyance from people who couldn’t find their gate.
The Galleries Club Lounge
My full review for the British Airways Galleries Club South Lounge, BA’s flagship business lounge can be found in my Youtube video below. I will write my main takeaways just beneath that though…
The Galleries Club Lounge are on the top floor at Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 5. However, to access from after security you have to go down to the departures lobby then back up two floors to reach them. The lounge itself is large and well equipped with some surpisingly tasty food and lots of alcohol and coffee. Being the main lounge at Terminal 5 comes with some downsides however. It was extremely busy throughout the visit with the two of us struggling to find empty seats next to each other. The crowdedness also meant people left dirty dishes all over, and staff struggled to keep up.
Seat and Flight
Our Aircraft for this flight was a 22 year old Airbus A319 (callsign E-GUPW). Considering it’s advanced age the cabin felt very new so I assume it had been recently refurbished.
Once we had finally boarded I can’t really fault British Airways. The cabin crew were genuinely friendly and helpful. The flight was smooth and overall experience was comfortable. We even managed to cut about 25 minutes out of the delay so didn’t arrive in Geneva too far behind schedule.
The food was the highlight on this flight. A main of Smoked Salmon salad with some sort of cheesecake for dessert. Warm fresh bread was optional and it’s nice eating with metal cutlery. Of course being Club Europe you have a wide range of drinks (alcoholic or otherwise) included. But bizzarrely due to a “catering malfunction” there was no coffee on the entire plane. Which was pretty disappointing. Overall I was pretty impressed, but if it was a monring flight the lack of coffee would have been disasterous.
I sat in seat 6A for this flight (picture to the right is seat 1A which I took on the return flight). The seats felt new and were comfy enough with a lot of leg room. Unfortunately despite paying extra for Club Europe, the seats are exactly the same as economy with the middle seat left empty. Kind of disappointing that we can’t get a full business experience but can be forgiven for a 1 hour flight.
Final Thoughts
Overall today’s experience with British Airways was a tale of two British Airways, if you will. Except for having no coffee the flight was flawless, with tasty food and brilliant service.
Unfortunately our airport experience was terrible. The delay at check-in was undoubtedly due to poor training of the check-in staff. The flight delay itself was probably due to bad luck, and to be fair, the ground workers did quickly find a solution. But still, it was frustrating and the complete lack of communication was unprofessional.
The value proposition was pretty good though. 60,000 Avios plus £2 for a return trip for two was effectively a redemption rate of ~1.3p per Avios. I would say this is pretty good and saved us around £800. Luckily we had a high balance build up over Covid, but in the future I think I’ll probably limit
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Thankfully my return flight from Geneva to London was much smoother. It was still delayed 30 min but they managed to reduce that in flight and the service was once again fantastic. To read my full review click the link here
For my ultimate guide to the British Airways Executive Club please click here