How are BA these days

[SoftKittyBazinga]

I need to book some long haul flights for a trip I’m taking. BA has the better timings, but Emirates also do one that I could probably make work. Comparable on price.

Is BA still underperforming? The online stuff isn’t great. I’m just wondering how much weight I should give to the difference in service and I know some MNers will have recent experience

thanks

Emirates is definitely the superior airline but it's whether you can stomach the inevitable 4 hours in the hell that is Dubai airport?

Well that’s just the thing putting me off. One of my stops is 7 hours in DBX. Not appealing. I might just commit to BA. 🤣

Where are you going? You may have better options than BA or a long layover in Dubai.

From Newcastle to Delhi Without ridiculously early starts. My favourite flight times that I’ve found online are between Emirates and BA, they work for my glorious and my holiday leave from work!

my only really strong opinion is to not fly KLM after an awful experience with them!

From Newcastle you have fewer options but I personally would avoid any 7 hour connection.

There's a hotel at Dubai airport and you can pay to use the showers - did that in the past and it makes you feel so much better when travelling. But yes, a long layover there is not something I'd want to repeat if I could avoid it.

Purely because I'm nosy and can only dream of such trips right now.... can someone please explain what makes Dubai airport so bad?

I fly long haul regularly, usually once a month, to the USA. I always use BA for these trips - they work well with my AMEX & I can stack up Avios fairly quickly. People have mixed opinions about them as a carrier, but I find them great for the most part, but then my expectations for flights aren’t over the top. In the last 30 flights I’ve had 2 delays - one because of broken air conditioning and one because of an incident at the US side airport. I usually use premium economy or club world and would say if you can do at least premium then do, it’s worth it for the extra room 100%. Food is typical airline food, better in club, they don’t update the films as often as I’d like (but if I flew less that wouldn’t bother me!) and my one complaint is that sometimes the staff can be a bit passive when dealing with problem passengers. Club service is great in my experience and the seats are really comfortable.

Oh god what was your bad experience with KLM? I’m just about to book flights to Hong Kong with KLM, I assumed they’d be pretty good!

Ah well. KLM were my H’s carrier on a journey back from his trip to Kilimanjaro. They messed up on his European change over to his UK flight and he missed the connection, everyone connecting did. Their customer service was absolutely atrocious. We’re a “shit happens” sort of attitude, so the missed connection itself wasn’t really an issue, but the way they spoke to him and the other passengers was awful. They just washed their hands of everyone. We were really disappointed.

i guess he’d say they were ok as long as everything goes swimmingly!

@QuizzlyBears as you’re experienced…if I book the cheapest flights now will I be able to upgrade nearer the time if I have funds? Premium economy wasn’t to huge a difference I’m a bit tight pre Xmas but will be better off come the new year. I’m not flying until Easter.

I've just travelled with BA to & from the US/Canada. T5 at LHR was a breeze. It was my 1st ever business class trip and worth every penny. It's a shame we came back to T3 which is one reason for avoiding Emirates - T3 is like hell on earth. The Business lounge at T5 was lovely. Staff were all great. Loads of space on the aircraft and we were able to get a decent sleep both ways.

Terrible. Repeated cancellations of the Heathrow to Joburg flight. DH just got bumped down to economy on a flight to the Middle East.

Fly BA regularly and never have any problems!

In response to the poster who asked what is so hellish about Dubai airport -

It's chaotic. It's crowded, noisy, confusing and badly signposted. They make you go through security twice when getting a connecting flight. You go through a large security check for everyone - shoes off, liquids out etc and then go through another one at your gate, where, depending on their mood, they may or may not take the liquids that you've just bought. I find it more exhausting and stressful than other airports.

never had a problem with BA and flown with them loads over the past few years

OP if you are in newcastle, have a look at qatar from edinburgh via doha

Always fly with BA when possible. Usually economy unless we have airmiles or I’m feeling flush. Both long and short haul. I have no complaints.

BA are absolutely fine. I've flown long haul with them in the past month.

Thanks everyone!

Recently flown BA and found them fine. I'd be tempted to look at trains down to Heathrow rather than out of Newcastle but then that's down to personal choice.

Last two long haul flights I’ve done with BA they’ve messed stuff up.

They ‘lost’ my luggage for an entire weeks holiday, when they finally located it it had never even left the first airport. We also didn’t get the extra legroom seats we’d booked either way.

They totally disregarded a huge amount of requests and planning for a family member with mobility needs where everything had been booked & confirmed in advance, when we arrived at the airport nobody had a clue about the accessibility requests and they also didn’t allocate us the extra legroom seats we’d paid for.

Shambles, I won’t fly with them again.

Thank you for answering that! So interesting

Yes you can, when you check in you get the option to upgrade during that part of the process! Ahead of that you can log into your booking and the option to upgrade will be there too.

Fab. Thanks! I went ahead booked BA 👍