Introduction
Hello and welcome to a new series of flight reviews. Taking advantage of being in Europe for the summer, we flew short-haul between the south of France and Scotland for a long weekend. While I've flown Club Europe many times over the years, this would be my first time trying Club on a domestic flight within the UK since it was introduced a few years ago—previously, only Economy was sold within the UK.
Routing
Flights in this series:
Enchainement de vols
- 1BA377 - Business - Toulouse ✈ London - Airbus A319
- 2BA1436 - Business - London ✈ Edinburgh - Airbus A319
- 3BA1455 - Business - Edinburgh ✈ London - Airbus A320
- 4BA376 - Business - London ✈ Toulouse - Airbus A320


Check-in & Lounge
It was a very early wake-up for this 7AM flight. We arrived at Toulouse-Blagnac Hall D about 90 minutes before departure. Having checked in on the BA app the night before, and with only cabin baggage in tow, we headed straight to the security Fast Track lanes where we were through in minutes.
As with most European airports, there is a large duty free shopping area right after security.

And of course, being in Toulouse, the home of Airbus, there's a nice Airbus section for the AvGeeks.
One day I really need to ask them how much they want for the big one 🤣

Toulouse-Blagnac is rather large for a secondary airport—it ranks 6th among French airports in overall traffic, 4th excluding Parisian airports.

Despite its size, there is surprisingly only one lounge, "La Croix du Sud" (The Occitan Cross being a major symbol of the southwestern region).

The lounge is on two levels, but can still get quite crowded at peak hours. At this very early hour it was pleasantly quiet upstairs.



The food and drink offering is mostly basic, though fresh pastries in the morning is nice.



There's also a limited amount of hot food.


Boarding
We left the lounge about 15 minutes before boarding as it's a long walk to the end of the D Concourse where the BA gate is located.


The BA gate is located in the non-Schengen wing of the terminal, so you also have to allow extra time to go through passport control.
It was rather quiet that morning, luckily.


As we arrived at the gate, boarding for Group 1 had just started, so we joined the queue.


There were only 3 rows of Club Europe on this flight—much less than the 9 rows on a recent LHR-TLS a few weeks earlier The seats are the usual Collins (formerly B/E Aerospace) Pinnacle seats first introduced about 10 years ago. These cabins are still looking fresh and modern.

As is standard for intra-European Business class, the seats are the same as in Economy, but with a bit more legroom and a blocked middle seat for extra space.
Normally there are AC power outlets and USB ports at every seat in Club, but there are a handful of A319s, which for some reason never had power installed, and this happened to be one of them.

Seat pitch in Club Europe is 30 inches—not great by any measure, but better than the 28-29 inch pitch in Economy.
The best legroom is found in row 1, which is reserved for Gold status members of BA's Executive Club frequent flyer programme to book prior to 72-hours before departure (After 72h, row 1 becomes available to other status levels).
The legroom is indeed very good in the 1st row.

Even with only 3 rows of club, there were still 2 empty seats at departure time. surprising after seeing such a huge Club cabin just a few weeks earlier, but summer season is always slower for business travel, so that could be the reason.

Views of the Airbus manufacturing facility and the huge Baluga XL transporters during boarding.


Unlike the fresh new baby Airbuses at the factory, the one at the gate next door had been a workhorse for years. So weird to see an A319 with double overwing exits.

Having been around for 22 years, our A319 was even older.

The Flight
Boarding wrapped up quickly and we ended up pushing back from the gate a whopping 8 minutes early.


Views of the Airbus manufacturing facility and new birds about to be delivered, notably the Delta special Olympics L.A. 2028 livery.


Takeoff with more nice views of baby Airbuses



These handful of A319s without in-seat power also don't have Wi-Fi

There's no in-flight entertainment on any BA narrow-body so make sure to bring some reading materials or download some content. However, note that a digital version of the BA High Life in-flight magazine is available on aircraft with Wi-Fi.

Shortly after takeoff cabin crew came by to take breakfast orders warmly greeting us by name and a friendly "Welcome back," which seems to be a common greeting for BA Gold status holders.
Being in the first row, I had first choice of meals and went with the classic English breakfast. It's a smaller portion on these shorter flights, perfectly adapted to the flight time. Somehow U.S. carriers aren't aware that you can have a hot meal on a 1h flight 🤣

We begin our quick English Channel crossing over the beautiful coast of Normandie.


Barely 15 minutes later, we reached the southern English coast, which was also very beautiful in the morning light.


Of course, as usual, we had to do a holding pattern over the London suburbs before landing.


It was a quick wait and we made our descent with gorgeous views over London on this clear summer day. I usually select seats on the right side when arriving into Heathrow in case it's clear like this—there are rare times when arrivals land at Heathrow from the opposite side, but this is the most common approach.


Big Ben, Parliament, Westminster Abbey, the London Eye, and St. Paul's Cathedral are just some of the major London landmarks that can be seen.

Buckingham Palace

With our early departure from Toulouse and short hold time, we landed early and arrived at the gate ahead of schedule.
Let's hope it's sunny like this in Scotland…Mmmyeah, wishful thinking 🤣


Being that short-haul flights mostly arrive at the main Terminal 5 building, we didn't have far to go to change flights.

But first we had to go through the UK border, which was super quick with the E-Gates.

Hi Kevin, thanks for sharing this FR.
Being black and non-fabric probably really helps their longevity with ease of cleaning. The tables across the middle seat is really the best feature of the BA cabins since the pitch is so tight and you got a retro ceo with no charging ports. Those tables are much nicer than having to use the center tray table that blocks your aisle access from the window seats.
BA’s Euro-J product is pretty middle of the road, but at least their “full English” is probably the most consistent breakfast offering! The tray has shrunk in size, but still a good offering for a lighter breakfast and it's really not fair to compare US domestic F service to anything else since it is worse than some countries Y service.
Yup! I suspect that's true. Selecting higher quality materials makes all the difference in longevity. When you see new cabins falling appart after a few months, you can tell the airlines went with cheaper materials, but in the end it really costs more
Yes, it's a shame BA got rid of them on the NEOs, and I'm glad they're bringing them back with the new NEO cabins. As you say the tables are very useful to avoid getting blocked in by a tray table. I can also usually fit my backpack under the table so I can keep it even when I'm in the first row.
Yes, it's definitely gotten noticeably smaller, but I think (not 100% certain) that these smaller trays are only used on the short sub-2h routes like this.
HAH Touché! Can you imagine if US domestic F had the same service on top of having bigger seats! It would just be too nice...no one wants that 🤣
Thanks for your comments!
Hi Kevin, thanks for sharing this report on the BA Club Europe!
Wouldn’t that be THE staple piece for a house at home. Checking in an Airbus onto an Airbus would be funny😅
Very odd, have never seen 3 rows before minimum was 4. I wonder what the drastic difference was from the previous flight was. As you mention business travek during summer but that’s a 66% decline.
Ahh, is this one of the products where you break your back row rule?
A shame to hear these A319’s don’t feature IFE or WIFI which isn’t a great look. However, those views over London are gorgeous, wow! Great pics as well (as always). BA Cluub Europe has always been okayyy hard product wise (I guess a lot of European carriers are eh), but where they really shine is their soft product in my eyes. The breakfast looks decent, tidy and tasty. Plus the good service in which you mention they say “welcome back”.
Thanks for sharing, and looking forward to your Edinburgh trip reports!
Hi there!
It would be perfection! And it'd be like a 100% guarantee since BA only fly A320 family birds into TLS. Though I do often take Iberia so there'd be a chance of a massive airbus model on a .... CRJ...yeah that wouldn't work 🤣
I've definitely seen 3 rows before but it's rare. Yeah I really think it's because of summer season...the premium leisure trend in Europe mostly applies to long-haul. This route is mostly business...Airbus and ATR related business (and suppliers) so it makes sense since French-based companies basically shut down in July and August haha. Usually moreso in August but this year with the Olympics it was weirdly empty everywhere in France the whole summer (I liked it!).
Yeah, Euro-J is never super exciting, but BA has nicer cabins than most other European carriers at least.
Thanks for the comments!
Great review and I'm actually very surprised at the breakfast offerings on this flight. Will be taking this route myself next year so it was good to see what to expect!
I always sit on the right side coming into LHR, and for the last 10 times I've flown in, we've always landed coming in on the Windsor side, so I haven't seen that approach from the air for quite some time now. Maybe 11th time lucky? haha
Great review as always!
Hi there, thanks so much for your comments!
Nice! It seems that the breakfast is a larger portion of food than flights at other times of the day I've taken on this route. It's still always something fresh like a salad, salmon, or finger sandwiches for afternoon team, but the portions are smaller (which is totally fine on a 1.5h flight.
Oh wow, I've only had it maybe 3 times on the last 10 flights. I guess I've been lucky.
Yes, fingers crossed! And for clear skies
Thanks for reading and taking the time to leave a comment!
Bonjour, KévinDC (KévinSD maintenant ? 👀)
Rapport très intéressant depuis la maison d'Airbus ! Je vais vérifier rapidement mon compte pour voir si je peux me permettre un A330neo aaaand voilà, les mouches sont sorties. J'imagine que s'il y a un problème, ils pourraient simplement trouver des pièces détachées dans le terminal d'à côté ?
J'adore toujours l'approche pittoresque de Londres. Et si tu zoomes (peut-être avec un microscope), tu pourras apercevoir mon appartement londonien pour les fois où je n'ai pas envie de faire l'effort de rentrer à Oxford 😅. Pour être honnête, parfois je regarde des maisons depuis un avion et je me dis "hmm, il doit y avoir de la place pour construire davantage, au moins en hauteur".
Hâte de voir comment ta famille a apprécié Édimbourg.
Merci encore pour le Flight-Report !
Bonjour!
Haha oui, enfin j'espère 😂
Un flat bien placé pour le coup. Oui, j'imagines qu'il n'est pas toujours évident de faire le trajet jusqu'à Oxford vue la fiabilité des services ferroviaires au UK. 🤣
La Skyline de Londres est intéressante avec son mélange d'ancien et de moderne. Il est rare de voir autant de gratte-ciels dans le centre d'une ville Européenne. Ce modèle hybride a sûrement une inspiration outre-Atlantique
Merci pour les commentaires 😀
Hey Mate! nice to see you flying over here in Europe! Scotland is such a beautiful country
Indeed! and still connected to Orly quite a lot, as well as Lyon and other french towns - which is not the case the minute a town is linked with the high speed train service - like bordeaux...
Yes always found a shame too that there is only one lounge and if there are various spaces to relax, the food options have always been limited every time I have been there - I can see there is not much change sadly.
Poor of us in Europe with this central useless seat..
coz there are too many seats ahah
I know ahaha but you have the seats in the US lol
Beautiful pictures of my beloved London (I can see my former flat ahah)
except Lyon, always T3 for some weird reasons
Hey Chris, thanks for your comments 😀
We try to take a short trip within Europe every summer when we're in France. Last year we went to Rome...never got around to posting those FRs (tooooo much backlog, haha). The year before we went to Lisbon...never got around to posting those either haha
Yes, the lack of food options is very reminiscent of US lounges. Though I guess I prefer apéricubes and madeleines to fake american cheez cubes and trail mix haha
Yeah, it's never a good sign when there are more exits than the standard configuration. haha
A few years ago it was also the case for TLS flights. It's much better to be at T5 for connections of course, but I prefer T3 for better lounge-hopping options haha
Thanks for stopping by!
Another great report as always!
Just to say that this isn't really true, GCHs can choose row 1 at any time but row 1 seats are released to Silver members at T-72. And then normally to Bronze at T-24 in my experience, I often choose row 3 when I book the ticket and then move to row 1 at T-71.9, lol.
Hi there, thanks so much for your comments!
You're right, of course. Though I suppose my statement was mostly true since row 1 is bookable for Golds at any point from time of reservation (which in my case was almost a year out...a much longer time period than Silver 72h window to book. Nevertheless, I've updated that part to add this context.