Fly The British Way (British Airways in general)

Member Name: daylelisahall

Product:	British Airways in general
Date:	29/05/07 (1038 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Clean plane, friendly staff, can check in online.

Disadvantages: They do not carry extra veggie meals

I have just returned home from a lovely holiday to Sharm el Sheik in Egypt. My least favourite part of going on holiday is the aeroplane journey, it always seems to take so long and I absolutely hate being stuck in one seat for hours on end but if we want to go and see all these lovely places, then we have to put up with the flight.

Flying to Sharm el Sheikh we decided to book with British Airway aka BA. For the first time ever we actually booked out hotel and our flights separately and not as part of a package.

Booking Our Tickets
When we decided we were going to be buying our flight tickets separately we had a quick scan through various airlines and found that BA offered fairly well priced tickets.
Actually booking the tickets was very simple and straight forward. One thing I especially liked about the BA website was that the price was displayed on the screen from the first few pages of purchasing your tickets. With other airlines I have used, they give you one price and then on the last page they add taxes etc and you find that the price has nearly doubled and you have wasted your time! The BA website didn’t have any of that and all added costs were added to the main page from the beginning of the booking.
After I had booked the tickets, British Airways sent a confirmation email (which can actually be used as our ticket until we get to the airport). We booked our flight in January and obviously didn’t take the flight until May, so since we actually booked our flight there were several changes to the flight times. British Airways kept up informed of all these changes by email.
About 5 days before we were due to travel, British Airways sent me an email with various useful links such as directions, parking and also information about the online check in.

Checking In
As with many airlines, British Airways now give you the option to check in online. This was totally new to me as I had never done it before. With the online check in, you can check-in, reserve seats and print your boarding pass online before you even get to the airport.
The online check in function opens 25 hours before your departure time so as long as you can get to a computer 25 hours before you fly, then this is a great idea.
The online check in system was extremely easy to use. You have to type in your reference number and the passenger names onto the website (reference number is on email BA sent to you) and then you are greeted with a seating plan of the plane. I chose seats by the emergency exit for myself and my boyfriend which also meant we got the extra leg room!

Arriving At The Airport
We arrived at the airport around 2 hours and 30 minutes before we were due to fly. Check-in at Gatwick was the quickest it has ever been due to the fact that we had already checked in at home. When we arrived we spoke to a member of staff and asked him what we were meant to do as we had already checked in and were unsure as we had never done it this way before. He explained that we just needed to go to the check in desk to show our passports and drop our luggage off and to inform the person at the desk that we had already checked in.
At the desk, we had to produce passports and answer the security questions, but it was so much easier than the normal check in procedure. The whole process took no longer than 10 minutes.

Boarding
We began boarding about 5 minutes early which was a nice surprise and also meant that we boarded at a nice relaxed pace. I also liked the fact that they didn’t board us too early as it meant that we weren’t sat round waiting for the plane to take off! I liked the fact that the boarding was done in a organised fashion and seat numbers from 1-30 then 30-60 etc were called out which meant everyone was clam rather than all scrambling to try and get to the front of a queue. As we boarded the plane, we were greeted by a friendly member of staff who asked to see our boarding pass, she then directed us to our seat.

The Plane Journey
We were in economy class for our flight but my first impression of the plane was that it didn’t look to bad. The seats were a dark blue colour and were made from blue leather, they were soft and comfortable and more importantly, they all looked very clean.
There was plenty of leg room, especially as we had the emergency exit seats so we had double the leg room of everyone else!
The seats reclined easily and the pouches on the chair in front had been cleaned out and were full of all the normal items such as magazines, sick bag etc.

The Plane Journey
Once we had taken off the complimentary bar came round offering a range of drinks including alcoholic ones, I think this is one of the good things BA do, as a lot of airlines do charge for alcoholic drinks. Unfortunately we didn’t know that the drinks were complimentary on our journey out, they only told us this on the way back which I thought was a bit naughty as I would have taken advantage if I had known!

Soon after the bar service the in-flight entertainment started. As we were only on a 5 hour flight, we were shown one film and then a couple of 30 minute shows such as Little Britain and The Catherine Tate Show. There were several TV’s placed along the plane but unfortunately the TV nearest to me was near enough directly above my head and I had to look almost straight up which wasn’t very comfortable. The next nearest TV was a little bit too far away!! To be honest, for a 5 hour flight I wasn’t too bothered about watching any of the entertainment anyway and was more than happy to read my book. The film on the way out was ‘Music and Lyrics’ and the film on our return flight was ‘The Painted Veil’. One thing which I disliked was the fact that they charged you £3 for a set of headphones so you were able to watch the movie!

We were served with a meal about 2 and a half hours into the flight. I am vegetarian and although I had ordered a meal online when I checked in, I was told it hadn’t been ordered so I didn’t have one and had to pick through what I could eat from the normal meals they provide. You would be surprised how often this happens! It mazes me that airlines don’t think to carry spare meals with them! Anyhow, my veggie meal was not booked for the outward journey but I booked it for the journey home and I did receive it too so can’t complain too much. And to their credit the staff were very apologetic about the mistake with my meal.

Finally, the last past of the journey was the air stewards bringing the duty free round, items such as make up, perfume, chocolates etc. On this flight I decided against buying anything as I wanted to save my money for the scuba diving when I got there but you can sometimes get some good bargains and you have a chance to look at what they will be bringing round as all the details are in the in flight brochure.

In Summary
The staff are well presented, polite and helpful. BA flights are rumoured to be quite expensive so I was surprised to see that our flight was reasonably priced compared to what some other airlines were charging.
The online check-in is a brilliant idea and I would certainly use it again if given the option.
Assistants on the desk are friendly and well mannered. The boarding of the flight was well organised. The planes are comfortable and the food although not great, is fairly tasty and certainly fills a whole. My only one complaint about them was that they didn’t have my veggie meal booked when I know that I booked it but apart from that, they certainly offered me the service I paid for. I would recommend them and would have no problems using them again!

Summary: Would certainly use them again, they provide a good service.