Review of British Airways flight Venice → London in Economy

15 July 2009
British Airways
BA 2585
Venice (VCE) - London Gatwick (LGW)
A319
G-EUPA
EuroTraveller aka Economy Class

After a fantastic day in beautiful and romantic Venice, we proceeded on to Dublin. Initially we had planned just to go to London but due to some H1N1 flu restrictions in place, we changed our plans to Dublin and thus added 2 more flights to our itinerary. Would by flying BA to London and changing onto Ryanair to Dublin.

Arrived at Venice airport 2hrs before the flight and the check-in queue was quite long. Did not check-in online before as we had no internet access in Venice and the internet rates were atrociously high (Venice is really an expensive city!!).

After check-in, proceeded straight through security and grabbed a light lunch at a cafe. Venice airport's departure hall only consisted of a few shops and nothing much else. Plane spotting was also not too interesting as there were quite few plane movements. The only interesting aircraft is the EK A332 which would be departing to Dubai very soon.

EK A332 to Dubai


We then proceeded through immigration to our gate. Just 1 counter is opened, manned by 1 very bored immigration officer and with no queues at all, we were through within seconds. Interestingly, the male immigration officer chopped both our passports coincidently on page 69 when the pages beside were empty. Hmmm…

Our Gate.


We could not see our plane from the gate as it was blocked by another aerobridge. Boarding started 15min before depature and was quick. Finally caught a glimpse of out plane while walking down the aerobridge.

G-EUPA


Welcomed aboard by the purser. The A319 definitely felt much newer than the B757 we took earlier. Cabin was clean and there were overhead LCD monitors installed. Newspapers were also available during boarding at the door. Surprised!

Club Europe seats


Eurotraveller cabin


Seat pitch was about the same as on the 757s and was quite generous.


All the stuff in the seat pocket.


My seatmate had a B737 safety card instead of the A319 in his seat pocket!


The plane filled up quickly and was quite full. There was a big group opf Italian students heading to Southampton. Doors were closed and the safety demonstration was shown via video monitors. Flight time was announced by the friendly and chatty captain o be 2hrs 5 min. The crew just stood in the aisle and posed, pointing out the emergency exits when the video instructed to. There were 4 crew on this flights, 2 serving Club Europe and 2 in Economy. The crew seemed to be much friendlier than my previous flight.

After a short taxt, we took off.


Overflying some Venetian islands


Throughout the flight, the flight map was shown on the overhead monitors, which served as my form of entertainment. The sandwich service was started shortly for us in the back. It would be the last few sandwich runs was BA would be scrapping the sandwiches starting Aug 09 as part of their cost-cutting measures. The crew was came down with the sandwich cart and distributed the sandwiches.

Crew serving sandwiches.


Our sandwich. Quite good. But no chocolate bar with the sandwich.


Overflying the Alps.


We overflew the city of Zurich!


Zurich Kloten airport


After distribution of sandwiches, the crew came down with the drinks cart, offering the full bar selection, along with coffee/tea.

Crew serving drinks.


Reaching our row.


All our drinks. At least BA is generous with their drinks.


After drinks were done, trash were then collected, followed by the duty free sales service.

View of the galley during visit to the aft loo.


Interesting BA history plague outside the lavatory.


Cabin view.


Soon, we started our descend into Gatwick. Flying into UK.


We were in a short holding pattern due to traffic. Circling over the fields.


As Gatwick is quite a distance south of London, we could only see freen fields and farms during our approach, unlike Heathrow when we could see the whole London city.

Landing into Gatwick.


Taxiing to North Terminal.


We landed a right on time. During disembarking, the real friendly captain was outside the cockpit saying goodbye to the passengers. You would never see this happen on Asian carriers. I asked the captain if we could take a photo inside the cockpit and he allowed and told us to go ahead! Woots!! The captain really made my day! Entered the cockpit and took some photos!

Our plane again at Gatwick.