Review of British Airways flight Edinburgh → London in Economy

Greetings! Today will be a very special day as it will be my first time flying an A320neo! I had purchased a ticket on the flght before the one I ended up taking since at purchase it said it was operated by an A320neo. Unfortunately, I relized at 11PM the night before that it had changed to a normal A320. The horrors ;-). I did some research and figured out that British Airways allows same day flight changes at no additional cost. The catch was that I'd have to wait until midnight until I'd be able to make the chnage. As the dedicated Avgeek that I am, I decided to wait it out and make the change. Thankfully it went through, though I was forced to sit closer to the back of the aircraft, due to many of the seats being already assigned. I had specifically selected seats closer to the front in order to hear the (albeit toned down) engine buzz, though that wasn't going to happen. After a night of limited sleep I took a cab to the airport. Thankfully the airport is very close to the city center so it was a relatively painless journey. I arrived with plenty of time to spare so I headed straight to the No. 1 lounge that I had access to from my Priority Pass membership. The lounge was surprisingly nice and modern. It had a limited food buffet in adition to some complimetary items that you could order from a menu. I just had time for a coffee and a croisiant, though. 

Soon, it was time to board my flight to LHR. There was a decently long boarding line which snaked through a restaurant, so it's fair to say that the design was less than stellar. After 20 minutes I was onboard the virtually brand new A320neo. I thought British Airways' short haul operations couldn't sink any lower, but I was wrong. They got rid of their "old" seats in Euro Traveler and only kept them for the footprint of the expandable Club Europe cabin. That left me with a sour taste in my mouth, since British Airways has pretty much given up on any way of differentiating themselves from an ultra low cot carrier as the Euro Traveler seats are the same as the ones Easyjet has. On the bright side, at least Club Europe is technically differentiated from Euro Traveler in terms of the seat. Anyways, rant over-back to the review. I was greeted by a set of friendly FAs and headed back to my seat. The seat was comfortable enough for the short flight though due to the lack of padding, I'd probaly eb extremely uncomfotable for a flight any longer than mine. The seat was equiped with USB ports though they weren't functioning during my flight. 

After the safety demo, a flight attendant came to the row in front of me. It turned out a passenger in that row was a first time flyer and the flight attendant was assuring her that everything would be ok. The FA handled the situation very well and ended up checking on her a few times throughout the flight. 

Soon we were cleared for departure and had a smooth and noticably quiter compared to a normal A320. As we were ascending, the flight attendants started the buy on board service which I didn't partake in. 

Before long we were approaching Heathrow. We had unbostructed views of the city which was much appreciated. Before taking his seat, the FA checked in on the first time flyer again. It was quite touching to see how much he cared about the wellbeing of his passenger. 

After landing, we taxiied past a BOAC livery British Airways 747 and an A340 of Air Belgium, which was operating flights for British Airways to suplement their aircraft due to their 787s having engine issues. 

I bid farewell to the crew and headed to the train station to take the Heathrow Exprss to downtown London.
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