Sky High Critique: Unveiling the Experience on BA460 from London Heathrow to Madrid in Club Europe

On the way to Ecuador, flying via Madrid with Iberia, we opted to fly a day early and have an overnight stop there to enjoy the city again (and try out a different ‘Leading Hotels of the World’ hotel). I checked the flights the night before and, despite not getting any alert from BA, realised that our domestic connection had a delay (due to “staff needing the appropriate rest period”) which would mean we would miss the Iberia onward connection we had planned. The alert from BA about this delay (despite me seeing this by accident around 11pm only came in at 4:52am the following morning). I phoned BA to see about getting alternative flights, eventually (being the operative word as it took a long, long time for the operative to work out what to do) we were rebooked on a later domestic and the BA460 to Madrid from London Heathrow Terminal 5. Immediately I wondered if this could be the aircraft where they are trialling the new Club World, but on checking Seat Guru this didn’t seem to be the case. What I did realise however was that there was a first class cabin as the aircraft was a standard 4-class configured 777. I think I’ve seen someone much more knowledgeable than me in the #avgeek world write about this before, the reason for using such a large aircraft isn’t necessarily for passenger numbers (there are numerous flights on this route between BA and Iberia) but more about the freight capacity. I’m sure if I’m talking nonsense on this someone will correct me……….

The flight to London wasn’t exceptional, as this had changed at short notice there was no vegetarian meal for me and the standard ones they had were proffered to other passengers as an alternative choice before they got to our seats (we’d lost our prime 1D and F with moving to a later flight). It also got off to a bad start a check-in with a surly check-in agent. As we were flying onto Quito in Ecuador the day after, we’d organised all our checked baggage such that we wouldn’t need it in Madrid for the overnight, and we would just make do with hand luggage. I thought the general rule was that onward flights could have baggage checked all the way through, as long as they were within 24 hours and ticketed on the the same booking reference, though (as always) subject to the check-in agent. When I asked for this to go all the way through to Quito, she first said it could only go as far as Madrid. On asking why, she said initially it was because of the e-ticket. I then said that I suspected when the London and Madrid flights had been rebooked by BA, they were ticketed using a different booking reference. I explained that they were originally all ticketed together, but with the delay to the domestic flight BA had changed this. She then said it was to do with Customs at Madrid - I asked what she meant by this and she said it would just be better to retrieve the luggage and check it back in the day after. This didn’t really make sense so she then said she could indeed check it all the way through and gave us the appropriate baggage tag receipts - we asked if there would be any issue with “Customs” in Madrid and she said no, it was all be perfectly fine. Kind of begs the question as to why she couldn’t have just done this in the first place?!

When we landed at Heathrow Terminal 5, we saw that the onward flight would be departing from C gates - with not having a tremendous wait time, we opted to go to the Galleries Lounge at B gates rather than our normal lounge in the main terminal building (there is no lounge at C). The lounge was very respectable, a pleasant welcome, spacious and not as manic as the First Class lounge can often be - there were plenty of seats, enjoyed a quick drink and a snack (and downloaded some magazines and newspapers from the new British Airways / PressReader app tie in) and then made our way onto C gate 52. We boarded easily, and there was a reassuring beep at the gate which indicated our seats had been changed. Although booked as Club Europe, with the aircraft change we were booked into Club World seats, however the new change meant that we had been “upgraded” to seats 1E and F in the First class cabin of the aircraft. Although no change to service (they just use this for additional Club seating on this route) it was a very nice surprise after a rocky start to the trip so far.

There was a very pleasant welcome on boarding and we got settled in to our seats - it was a bit disconcerting (not only because the Cabin Service Director announced the flying time for the flight to BARCELONA (!) when indeed she meant Madrid) but being in this configuration for a very short flight. The flight time was announced as being around an hour and fifty minutes as opposed to the scheduled two hours and twenty-five minutes. It’s been a few months since we’ve done any Club Europe flights with BA and the catering has clearly changed, much improved. There was a choice of three main courses on the menu - chicken curry, rigatoni pasta or roast beef. 

Again it was a bit disconcerting being in the amazing first class cabin and being presented with a small tray with the meal all there, but it was very well done for what it was. There was a small salad (cos lettuce, cherry tomato and topped with Parmesan shavings) accompanied by a balsamic vinegar and olive oil dressing (which was a bit congealed) then very hot rigatoni pasta served with a slow-roasted cherry tomato sauce (very splashy unfortunately) and mozzarella. Not quite restaurant standard (pasta just slightly overdone) but it was a really good meal. A selection of warm breads and rolls were offered, followed by a choice of drinks from the bar. The tray also had some Peter’s Yard crackers and a slice of both blue cheese and a Red Leicester accompanied by fig chutney. For desert there was a layered dark and white chocolate mousse. Having a very strong caffeine intolerance (even from the minuscule amounts within dark chocolate), I gave my desert to the other half, explaining that I couldn’t eat the dark choclate layer, but would be able to have the lower white chocolate layer - what came back however was an empty container, the white chocolate layer of mousse having gone too.

Throughout the flight, I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that we were only travelling a couple of hours to Spain, instead I kept thinking that it was time to get on the sleep suit and bed down for the night. I took the chance to catch up on my blog and I tried out the BA WiFi to see how Instagram was going. After a late night of packing and getting organised for going away for a long trip, an early start to finish things off and a decent sized lunch after snacking throughout the morning (and a cheeky noon G&T) it would have been good to actually get the seat put into the lie flat position and have a snooze. The only thing I find with this is that if I’m tired, a short snooze doesn’t cut it and I would want to sleep for hours. The WiFi actually seemed to be free, despite the announcement at the start of the flight about checking out packages, or for whatever reason I was able to get email and Instagram updates without being asked to purchase a package. I spoke to soon - the log on page was just incredibly slow to appear and indeed you do have to pay. The cost was £4.99 for an hour, £10.99 for 4 hours or £14.99 for the full flight. Considering I only had 50 minutes left of an already short flight the whole flight wasn’t an option (though actually wouldn’t be too bad on a really long haul) I opted for the hour to try it out. Was surprised that there wasn’t a more flexible array of payment options (like PayPal or ApplePay to speed it up) but it actually didn’t take too long to enter credit card details (once I was able to navigate past the Captcha type having had three failed attempts). Speed was ok when it worked, but service seemed to be patchy and it took a while to get some Instagram updates. All in all though it’s good to see BA are catching up with what other airlines have been offering for some time.

Overall the flight was a very pleasant experience, albeit rather strange as I said with the clash of First Class cabin with Club Europe service and the short timing. Would have been exceptional if we’d been able to test our the new Club World experience but hopefully we’ll be able to book this sometime soon.