Review of British Airways flight from London to New York in Business

First Trip to the Middle East

After spending a couple of days in London and catching up with an old friend, it was time to head home to the US.  This leg was a rescheduled part of an AA/BA ticket I bought in 2023–Etihad cancelling and delaying my flight from Bangkok at the beginning of 2024 meant I had to figure out what to do about this leg.  That's why I made this very roundabout trip back to the US from Cairo, stopping in each Dubai and London.

British Airways First Wing

I took the Heathrow Express since it was quite convenient from where I was staying.  It was a smooth and efficient ride, albeit more expensive than other forms of public transportation.

It was a fairly normal day at Heathrow.  I had BA Gold status temporarily as a result of a status match–ended up not going for BA status in the end (and with the recent devaluation, I feel justified in my decision).  You have to head all the way to the end of the entrance to find the BA First Wing.

After walking for a while, the First Wing (Gold/First Class check-in area) came into view.

There were plenty of passengers using the First Wing when I arrived, but also plenty of check-in counters so I only had a short wait.

What took a lot longer was that there was a holdup at the document check because of some sort of computer system issue.

The reason you go through the First Wing is because it has own security passage, which lets you out right into the BA Galleries First lounge.

British Airways Galleries First Lounge

Here is the back entrance to the lounge.  Interesting choice of decoration with the horse.

This lounge is massive, with tons of seating areas, but also packed given how many OneWorld Emerald passengers are going through Heathrow at any given time.  I'll let the pictures speak for themself as to what the seating situation is.

There is also a terrace of sorts that is more "out" in the terminal, it was also much quieter here than in the main part of the lounge.

There were a variety beverage stations throughout the lounge: liquor, beer, coffee/tea, juice, and soft drinks are all readily available.

There were plenty of snack/food stations as well: including various baked goods, breakfast, fruit, and ice cream.

Hot breakfast and lunch were also available at the buffet, as well as cold food like sandwiches.

At the center of the lounge is a bar with a variety of wines, and a self-serve champagne bar.

I helped myself to some food from the buffet, which was decent.

Then I had a glass of Besserat de Bellefon Rose Champagne and some ice cream (the rose was fairly mediocre).

I realized at one of the tables that there is also a lounge web portal that allowed for orders (see below for the available wines in the lounge).  You can also directly reserve a shower from here.

While I didn't actually need a shower, one was available when I checked.

Walking around I noticed an old BEA livery A319:

Overall, because of how the lounge is set up, it's pretty hard to do any plane spotting from the lounge.

Individual gender-neutral bathrooms were available.  They were clean and plain, nothing much to report on.

BA provides Elemis amenities in the bathrooms.

After staying in the lounge for a couple of hours, I left through the front entrance to head to my gate.

BA115

Preboarding began at 1:36pm (4 minutes ahead of schedule), but in actuality it was just having people queue closer to the gate.  The FAs for the flight didn't show up until 1:46pm and boarding began in reality at 2:03pm.  It started first with a Group Zero (which I understood to be BA Gold Guest List, followed by BA Executive Gold).

My flight back to the US would be on G-STBK, a 10-years-old Boeing 777-300ER.

BA's business class on the 77W is absolutely massive.   There is a mini cabin of 3 rows, then ~16 rows of 1-2-1 seats for a total of 76 business class seats.

I was seated in 15A for this flight.  It's quite a striking seat.

At the end of the day, it's a reasonably modern Collins Super Diamond reverse herringbone seat.  The main difference is the addition of a door.

BA had its own branded headphones, which were decent.

A small White Company-branded amenity kit was waiting at my seat.  I was also shortly served with a glass of sparkling wine.

The contents of the kit are fairly standard and includes all of the usual amenities.

The retractable tray table slides out from right underneath the IFE.

BA has overhead compartments both on the side and in the center.  While travel bloggers love to talk about how open it makes the cabin feel without the central overhead storage, realistically it's much better to have it absent significant storage in the seats.

There was some sort of miscommunication with the ground crew regarding a pushback tug.  Apparently the ground crew was sure we had one, even though there clearly wasn't one.  This delay gave enough time for Julie, the IFM, to stop by and say hello.  I believe she was greeting all of the OW Emeralds and not everyone in J.  After a tug was found, there was yet another delay (unclear what the reason).

We pushed back at 3:09pm, but the captain immediately said that our takeoff time was actually a good bit later–we were just vacating the gate.  This gave the crew enough time to take everyone's orders before takeoff.  I asked for the chicken course.  At first the FA said they were out (does BA not guarantee OW Emerald or BA Gold their first choice of meals in business?).  Then after checking, turns out they had more available.

We finally took off at 3:53pm–roughly an hour late.  The captain promised to do their best make up time in the air.

Meal service started right after takeoff, so let's take a look at the menu.

10 minutes after takeoff, service began with a hot towel.

I asked for Digby Brut NV instead of the champagne.  I've had a good experience before with Rathfinny's sparkling wine and was curious to try Digby.  It wasn't as good, but maybe partially a result of being up in the air.  This took about 30 minutes to arrive after the hot towel.

In the meantime, the captain said that we would land around 5:45pm ET thanks to a faster flight plan.

It took another 43 minutes for the appetizer to arrive.  I know it's a large cabin, but this pace surprised me.  I had the roasted red pepper soup, which was pretty good.

The main came very quickly afterwards (which leads me to suspect the earlier delay was mostly a result of reheating most of the courses for the entire cabin).  I had the mushroom and kale stuffed British chicken.  It was a reasonably good dish (albeit rather dry as things tend to be in the air).

For dessert, I had the chocolate, walnut and orange cake, which was really sweet, but still quite good.

To polish it all off, I had some green tea before taking a nap.

After the meal service, I checked out the lavatory and changed into pajamas (from my previous Emirates flight).  As expected on a 777, it wasn't very big.

White Company, which also provides the amenity kit and pajamas (on long-haul flights).  

I returned to my seat and set up just the duvet so I could nap.  It was a reasonably short daytime flight after all.  I did not want to do much more than nap.

Here is what it looks like with the door closed.  The doors are locked on takeoff and landing, but has a tendency to get stuck (one of the FAs had to unstick the door several times so it could be opened/closed).

There is also a gap such that the door doesn't entirely closed.  Given that the height of the seat is rather low, the door doesn't add much privacy outside of when in lie-flat.  Otherwise it is rather easy to see over the door (unlike on QSuites).  Overall, it's better to have the door than not, but I wouldn't consider it such a vast improvement over an older Collins Super Diamond seat.

I woke up after taking a nap for about 2 hours and rang the call button to ask for a cup of green tea.  The tea never came.

Breakfast was served at roughly 70 minutes before landing.  I thought it was a nice touch to have an individual bread cup for the rolls.  Like lunch, it was also a reasonably tasty meal.

Soon we were flying over Long Island.

The Captain announced that we were expected to land at 5:55pm.

We touched down in reality at 6:07pm and arrived at our gate at 6:21pm.