Introduction
Like each year at Christmastime, we headed from Southern California to the East Coast to spend a few days visiting friends and family prior to continuing on to Europe for the holidays.
This year we stayed at the legendary Willard InterContinental, which is always a delight around the holidays. It's such a beautifully decorated Christmas wonderland and really got us into the spirit of the season.
The historic lobby–where the term "lobbying" was invented–is like taking a step back in time to the Guilded Age.
As the Willard is right on Pennsylvania Avenue, next to the White House, it was a quick stroll to visit the National Christmas tree and Menorah as well as all the State Christmas trees.
Routing
Flights in this series:
Enchainement de vols
- 1BA292 - Business - Washington ✈︎ London - Boeing 787-9
- 2BA273 - Business - London ✈︎ San Diego - Airbus Boeing 777-200ER
Check-in & Lounges
We arrived at Dulles International Airport a little over 3 hours prior to departure. The beautiful Saarinen terminal was decked out for the Holidays–I really loved the multi-coloured lighting.
Thanks to our oneworld Emerald status, we had access to the First class check-in despite travelling in Business class.
Check-in was quick as there was no one else in the First class queue. We'd already checked-in on the app, but got paper boarding passes when dropping off our baggage. Unfortunatly, there had been an equipment swap a few days before the flight from a newer 787-10 with Club Suites, to a 787-9 with old Club World seats. No last minute swap back to the 787-10 sadly
Whenever at Dulles, we always stop by to see this lego model of the main terminal on the way to security.
Despite the busy holiday travel period, it was actually quiet in the TSA pre-check lanes and we were through in less than a minute.
We took the underground train to Councourse A and headed to the Chase Sapphire Etihad Lounge as I generally prefer it to the British Airways lounge.
Unsurprisingly, being that it was the busy Holiday season, the lounge was quite crowded. Luckily, there was one table open.
I usually find the drink and food selection at Chase Sapphire lounges to be better than BA lounges, especially as there are several dishes made fresh when ordered through the QR menus at each table.
As we still had some time, we did pop in to the BA lounge as it was on the way to the boarding gate.
Compared to the Chase Sapphire lounge, it was much quieter, which makes sense considering the late hour–our flight was the last oneworld transatlantic departure of the day.
We headed for the dining room section.
No problems finding a table here!
Another champagne for the road!
There was a decent selection of hot options at the buffet.
Boarding
We left the lounge a few minutes before boarding was due to begin and arrived just as pre-boarding had begun. Queues for each boarding group were clearly marked, with separate lanes for groups 1 and 2 to the right of the gate podiums and all other groups on the other side.
Boarding began right on time. We were warmly welcomed on board with holiday greetings from smiling cabin crew.
As expected, this 787-9 had the old Club World cabins in a ying-yang 2-3-2 layout–yes, that's quite dense. 787-9s are beginning to be retrofitted with Club Suites, but at the time of this writting in June 2026, there are only 3 frames out of 18 completed. At the time of the flight in December 2025, only 1 frame was outfitted with new cabins.
I guess I should count myself as lucky that despite flying BA long-haul Business several times a year, this was the first time in about 4 years that we hadn't had an aircraft with the new Club Suites.
The old seats are well known for their awkward forwards-backwards layout. When travelling with someone else, it's great as you can easily speak to your seat neighbour; however, when travelling alone, you're face-to-face with a stranger (that can be good or bad, I suppose, but awkward all the same).
Despite their age–between 7 and 10 years old–the cabins appeared well-maintained and were still attractive. Notice, I said "appeared"…more on that later.
There are several positive aspects of the old cabins, however. For example, the legroom is very good and there are no restrictive footwells, as can be found on many newer business class seat models. Also, window seats are very private–at least once the divider is up–as they feel like fully enclosed suites. Window seats in the last row are the best, in my opinion, as they are the only window seats offering direct aisle-access, so no having to awkwardly step over another passenger's legs to get out.
That being said, there are objectively more negatives than positives. For one, the aisle seats are very exposed, offering no privacy–this is one of the main reasons I prefer to select seats in the last row. I don't need anyone watching me drool in my sleep 🤣
The seats feel tighter than the newer Club Suites in this 2-3-2 configuration vs 1-2-1 for Club Suites. Speaking of 2-3-2 configuration, it's the same as in Premium Economy, just one row behind us. Mind you, the Club World seats are wider at shoulder level, due to the forwards-backwards configuration.
The lack of storage is also a problem with the old cabins–this tiny drawer is all there is. A bottle of water and the amenity kit were pre-placed in that space and give a good idea of just how small that space it. You can maybe squeeze a pair of shoes in there. Notice there is a universal power outlet and a USB port right above the foot-level storage drawer–not the most practical location.
In addition to the amenity kit and water bottle, a large pillow, bedding, and noise-cancelling headphones were also pre-placed at each seat. I do like BA's bedding, the pillow is very large and comfortable.
Middle seats are wider than other seats–a small consolation for getting stuck with a middle seat in Business.
Obviously, for us travelling as a family of three, the three seats in the middle work out just fine, but I wouldn't like to be travelling alone stuck in the middle between two strangers.
An old-school IFE remote and headphone jack are located off to the side.
There's another USB port below the IFE remote, which is more practical than at foot-level…even more practical would be USB-C, but these are old cabins–the new Club Suites don't even have USB-C, with a few exceptions.
You'll find the seat controls just below the privacy divider.
As previously mentioned, legroom is indeed quite good with unrestricted space for the feet. A foot stool folds down to complete the bed surface in flat mode.
As we were settling in, were were offered welcome drinks.
A short time later, menus were distributed and the pre-ordered child meal for our son was confirmed.
Pretty holiday edition menu.
As always a decent wine list and a choice of two starters and three mains.
The Flight
Boarding wrapped up quickly despite a completely full flight, and we pushed back from the gate on time.
Once we were above 10,000ft, the Wi-Fi was available.
Oof, with only 6:15 left in the flight, that doesn't leave much time for sleep!
On British Airways, Wi-Fi is only free in First class. For everyone else, full-flight Wi-Fi is available for £17.99 (it's more expensive on longer flights).
There is a digital version of High Life magazine available for free through the Wi-Fi portal.
And the Santa Tracker makes its appearance every Christmas.
Something relatively new-ish is streaming entertainment content for free through the Wi-Fi portal. I like that they have this option as the in-seat entertainment can have maintenance issues, especially with these older cabins. It's good to have this entertainment option in the event that the in-seat IFE doesn't work. Having checked it out, it appears to have the same content as the in-seat IFE.
Speaking of the in-seat screen–let's have a look.
Of course there's a moving map, though it isn't the latest and greatest in graphics and technology.
The IFE interface is quite old and clunky, but it worked generally well and there's plenty of content.
After exploring the IFE content, my screen just slammed back on its own as the aircraft began to level out. It stayed in place as we were climbing, but now that we were at cruising altitude, it no longer held open! 😆
I advised one of the cabin crew as she was coming by to take dinner orders. She was very apologetic and came by with a colleage a short time later. They managed to find a high-tech solution…wedging a plastic knife in the hinge to keep the screen from closing, haha! Funny, but it worked!
Lights came back on for the dinner service, though much softer than the boarding lighting.
Service began with the usual packaged snack and apéritif.
Then came the starter a short time later. Service on these short red-eye flights is usually quicker than on longer flights from the West coast.
Citrus grilled prawns
Mango papaya salad
side salad:
Roasted pepper, artichoke, toasted pumpkin seeds
served with warm bread and butter.
well-presented and tasty.
For the main, I had the Christmas dinner, which was so much food! Overall quite good though, with the essentials of a traditional British Christmas meal.
Seared turkey medallion, sage and onion stuffing
parsnip, brussel sprouts, carrots,
roasted duck fat potatoes, cranberry jus
Being stuffed from the large Christmas plate, I chose the smallest dessert available, which I enjoyed with a Port.
Warm apricot raisin bread pudding
Vanilla crème anglaise
Luckily, the service was well-executed and there were still almost 5h before landing.
Bed time!
While the seats are somewhat narrow in bed mode, they do go fully flat and I was able to get over 4 hours of solid sleep, which is about as good as it gets on these short flights from the East coast.
We were already over the UK by the time I woke up.
I'd skipped breakfast to maximise sleep as had the whole family.
Although there was very little time left before landing, the lovely cabin crew checked in on me and offered a coffee or tea, which I gladly accepted.
Almost there!
Of course we had to do a holding pattern for a few minutes…this is Heathrow after all!
Despite the holding, we arrived ahead of schedule. We parked at Terminal 5 concourse B so I wanted to wanted to take the underground walkway rather than the train for a change to wake up and get some steps in.
It was surprisingly quiet at the UK border. There was no one using the E-gates, though we couldn't use them as we were travelling with a child.
There was no wait for an agent and we were through in minutes.
Thanks for reading!
BA...clinging to former glory whilst slowly going down the drain (with IB along with it).
I still wonder who thought this ClubWorld cabin was a good idea (probably the same kind of people who gave the OK to Jaguar's rebrand).
Thanks for sharing!
Hola, thanks for stopping by!
Haha very true, although I would say in many ways IB have improved service over the past few years where are BA have stagnated (granted, these cabins are rare these days, so not super representative of BA hard product in general).
Back in the day these seats were pretty revolutionary as these were the first fully flat seats in business class of any airlines, I believe---but...that was the 90s! 30 years later, this design is clearly no longer acceptable when full-flat with direct aisle-access has become standard already well over a decade ago.
Hasta Luego!