Review of British Airways flight London → Singapore in Economy

hello singapore!

 My Partner went to give training to his team in Singapore, his company got him to stay at the Carlton with a lot of nice work events so i took this opportunity to come along and enjoy Singapore! Unfortunately we were travelling on different classes but so here is the flight report!

British Airways gives the possibility to their customers to group two avios account under a single household account, which meant that was great news for a potential next holidays!

Miles earned with this flight: 3372 Avios
Status earned: 40 Tier points

We flew British Airways on different dates on the way out but on board the same plane returning to London.

It was my first time flying long haul with BA so i decided to use their website rather than their app to book my flights.

I chose the basic tarif that still included a 23kg piece of luggage on the hull. I flew a few times on the B777 however i read carefully reviews of the BA cabins - you never know! I only then after paid to choose for my seat, one of the last window seat available but towards the rear.

at london heathrow airport

I made my way to heathrow using public transport, TFL. I used to live in West London where journey time to reach the airport is a tad quicker, however now living in Shoreditch (east london) there are not that many options: district line and piccadilly line (1h15, £8) / hammersmith and city line then heathrow express (1h05, £27) or a cab (1h00 fastest but horribly expensive).

The AvGEEK bit
The airport is Europe busiest's airport (although Paris Charles de Gaulle has more movements). The airport is the hub for British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. Heathrow, together with Paris Charles de Gaulle is famous for having hosted Concode for 27 years, and holding the record of the fastest transatlantic flight between New York Kennedy and the airport in 2h52 min. The airport runs in an overcapacity state, and it has been decided to built a third runway in 2016. Heathrow is recognizable with its red-belted control tower in Terminal 3.
➡ The airport has been opened since 1930
➡ There are 2 parallel runways and the airport features the following buildings:
➡ Terminal 1 opened in 1968, now closed when newer Terminal 2 reopened.
➡ Terminal 2 opened in 1952 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, closed down, demolished, rebuilt and reopened in 2015 over the surface of what was both T1 and T2. It is now known as the Queen's terminal (as inaugurated by her - most of us believe the whole airport will be named after her) and home to Star Alliance airlines.
➡ Terminal 3 was opened in 1961 is mostly used for long haul flights, home to Virgin Atlantic and Delta Airlines, some of the One World members like American Airlines and Cathay Pacific, and all other airlines. The Terminal is also used for some european destinations of British Airways that T5 can't accomodate (mostly French cities i.e. Lyon) It is split into three concourses: gates 1 to 9, 13 to 22 and 23 to 36.
➡ Terminal 4 was opened in the 1980s by the Prince of Wales for the newly privatised BA at the time. It is now almost exclusively used by Skyteam members, split into two concourses: gates 3 to 21 and gates 22 to 25.
➡ Terminal 5 was also opened by the Queen in 2008, is exclusively used by British Airways and Iberia, split into three buildings: A (gates A1 to A20) for short haul flights, B (gates B32 to B42) and C (C57 to C66), both for long haul flights.

I arrived at Heathrow Terminal 5, went upstairs at departure to the giagantic BA only checkin hall.
I dropped my bag very quickly, the staff was efficient and made sure the boarding pass i downloaded on my phone was ok.

British Airways has an App that is well designed, quite robust, user friendly and fast and of course download your boarding pass.

at london - heathrow airport

I arrived at heathrow airport with the piccadilly line trains. I must say the check in hall is bright and clean, as well as very organised. It is really hard to miss your departing checkin coutner!

There was a lot of people at security and equally as many people in the food court as you can see.

I was super early so I went around in the terminal A

I bought a few things and had a coffee on the main building (A) awaiting for my gate to be displayed on the FIDs.

About an hour before departure the gate was shown so i used the driverless transfert train to reach the third building of terminal 5 that is almost dedicated to long haul flights, the C building. The building in itself looks very similar that of Building A and equipped with the same furniture. I will say that for not being the main concourse ot T5, there was surprisingly a good amount of shop and food/drink options.

A few pictures from the C terminal.
And of course the Queen of the skies. 

 For an airport of that size, Heathrow is very well organised, with a lot of standardised signs, constant announces, colours and patterns, making the airport too well organised, giving this impression of a nunny state!

We were invited to take a seat, awaiting to board. Our gate was on of the corner of the buidling, meaning there is a long tunnel before going through the jetway and that you could have a great side view of her!

on board the B777-300er

Aircraft: Boeing 777-336(ER)
Registration: G-STBD
Engines: 2x GE90
Age: 3 Years (in 2017)
Layout: F14 C56 W44 Y185
Observation: Retrofitted with a high density configuration

The AvGEEK bit
One of the 12 B777-300s of BA (the other 46 are B777-200), however half of them are not owned by the airline but leased Gecas. The type is used by BA as alternative to A380s on high demand long haul routes.

Boarding happened in a single queue/group old fashion way, this was the time before the boarding group were created (personnally i am not convinced of the benefit of boarding groups, apart from being an additional mean source of income). The flight was very close to be (if not) full, after almost 2 hours of stop in Singapore, the plane takes off again towards Sydney, so there were a lot of australians on board.

My seat was clean but with a pitch of 31, which is below average, and if you add to that the obstructing metalic box on the way, the relatively little thickness of the seat, this wasn't a very good hard product at all. A few months earlier the new CEO, Alex Cruz, decided to retrofit the 777 fleet with a higher configuration and I could feel it litterally. On top of that, i was seating next to two rather big men, so i chose to keep my backpack with me to have an easier access to it, which meant no access to the armrest nor much space for my legs as my bag and the bad design of the seat in front of me was on the way… I knew that was the start of a long and tiring flight!

The classic boarding music of BA was played, the Flower duet by Lakme

The crew assigned to the economy cabin seemed professional and kind, they were smiling at a couple of occasions. After push back we had the regular announce by the captain and the IFE displayed the Safety Video of the time, the well know cartoon-ish one.

 After take off and the seat belt switched off passed 10,000 feet, the crew quickly started their on board service offering us drink and meal at the same time, where other airlines first offer a drink and then the meal, the attention to us, as a passenger, felt a bit rushed.

 IFE screen was ok, although i felt it was smaller than average. There was a good selection of movie, although very British and American produced, the international section was inexistant. 

I tried to take some rest and sleep a bit, despite the two other large passengers seating next to me, that were now snooring!

We were served breakfast a few hours before landing and there was no sweet options.

Since flying over Malaysia the flight went really bumpy and it got worse during the approach as we went through thunderstorm.

British Airways offers two magazines: the highlife magazine for destinations, news and airline bits and the business magasine, targeting the entreprenarial clientèle. We can only regret that BA doesn't present its fleet on the magazine.

The landing was smooth on runway 20C after 13 long hours of little rest with a terrible legroom.

arriving at singapore changi airport

We arrived at gate B7 in the northern part of the terminal building, next to this A330 of Qantas, bound for Melbourne.

Changi airport is known as one of the best airport in the world and rightly so… From the minute you leave the jetway it is like stepping into a luxury hotel with fountains, plants, red carpet, relaxing zones, helpful staff, and the very efficient staff at passport control.
The baggage reclaim hall felt a bit old but my luggages arrived soon after.

About less than a hour later, we could have enjoyed a drink with this spectacular view. 

And where we were crushing at!!

And for the stamp collection!