London and Toronto on BA's 77W and 787 Dreamliner

[yflyer]

Menus were handed out...



Before dinner, there was a round of drinks served.

Wines were served in bottles, with proper wine glasses. I appreciated the real glass goblets, they do make a difference.



Dinner was served all at once on a tray. You were offered a selection of bread rolls from a basket.



Starter and dessert appeared to be Economy fare....



However, the main course of braised short rib of beef would have been similar (or identical) to the J main course.

The main was served in a ceramic casserole. You also had real metal cutlery and a cloth napkin.

[yflyer]

The braised short rib of beef was delicious. It was warm, tender and flavourful, with great texture.

This was one of the best mains I have had in-flight, whether in Y or J. This was as tasty as the mains in BA J. I found this even more delicious than some of the SQ J mains I have had.



The cabin crew came round with coffee and tea afterwards.

[yflyer]

Here is another view of the seat, in fully reclined position.



I slept very soundly in that seat, with at least 2 stretches of 3-4 hours of sleep each.

A couple of other views of the Premium Y cabin.





One quirk of the Premium Y cabin is that there are no dedicated premium Y toilets. Officially, one had to go back to the first Y cabin and use the toilets there. That said, just in front of the premium Y cabin were two J toilets, and many premium Y pax did go past the curtain to use the J toilets.

[yflyer]

The flight information function of the IFE on this flight included interactive maps, which show not just where the plane is currently flying, but also allows you to interactively explore the map in full, including the past route of the aircraft.

Enroute to London, my flight overflew India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and I could zoom into those parts of the map to view the terrain.



The resolution of the map view was very impressive, consisting of what appeared to be detailed satellite images.



From the yellow line on the map, it appeared that we overflew Kandahar while pax were sleeping.

[yflyer]

Breakfast was the regular Y breakfast. Back to plastic cutlery and paper cups as well.



It was a choice of omelette or English breakfast. I chose the English breakfast, which on this SIN-LHR leg, tasted bland and uninspiring, compared to the Y breakfast I had in the other direction LHR-SIN on my previous tip in Y, where the English breakfast actually tasted quite good.



We landed on time in the early morning.

One positive development on BA is that you are now allowed to use IFE and even small electronic devices like tablets and eReaders during take-off and landing.

This was so new that they even announced that the safety videos had not been updated with this directive

[yflyer]

Overall, a very comfortable flight. While BA Premium Y is not as impressive as Qantas Premium Y, which I think sets the standard for this class of travel, I felt that it did represent a big enough difference from Y to justify the additional cost.

Certainly, the larger seat and recline made it much easier for me to sleep than regular Y, and the catering for the main meal was superb as well.

BA Premium Y on the 77W is also much nicer than premium Y on the old 744's.

It also helped that the cost I paid for my ticket (it was on sale) was not that much more than Y on SQ.

Overall a thumbs up.

Thanks for reading!

[yflyer]

Back in the BA F Lounge at T5, waiting for BA15 to Singapore.

Headed to my favourite spot, the Champagne bar.



The champagne selection was also unchanged since my last visit.





The menu was unchanged since Nov 2013, reference post #60 earlier in this thread.



I decided to try the BA Burger this time. It arrived looking like it had been sitting around for a while, and was a little dry, but tasted fairly good after a generous dob of mayonnaise and ketchup. The thick-cut chips (they weren't kidding about them being THICK...) were quite tasty.

[yflyer]

The red wine selection was quite different from the last time round in November. Apart from an Australian Shiraz, there were three pinot noirs to sample, each quite different...







My favourite was the Merry Edwards...lighter, delicate and more distinctive than the others.

[yflyer]

Not a lot of new material in this addendum to the earlier trip report, but by way of compensation, here is a link to a pics from a recent meal at Passadis del Pep I had in Barcelona before heading back to SG via London..

[Singapore Guy]

Looks like BA has improved a lot since I last flew with them. Great trip report. Too bad SQ, your competitors have caught up.

[jjpb3]

yflyer, a top TR -- informative and insightful -- as always.

[SQueeze]

Great TR an eye opener for me to the world outside SQ and *A

I am impressed by the PY and Y quality, including their food esp ex-LHR. And oh boy, that impressive lounge is accessible to PY and Y flyers. SQ, come on, you have some real competition out there.

For J, looks underwhelming to me, as are all J which is staggered a la NH, LX, OZ, etc. but this one could be better and less claustrophobic because the feet do not need to slot into the seat in front. Still, I won't pay the premium for such J considering how good the PY is.

For me, J no 1 is still SQ's. 2nd is CX/BR's. 3rd is herringbone from 9W.
Sorry to say, don't consider stagger and any 2-4-2s configuration as J, may be will call it J minus and will only fly happily as upgraded pax which I would then appreciate fully.

[yflyer]

Looks like BA has improved a lot since I last flew with them. Great trip report. Too bad SQ, your competitors have caught up.

Thanks, Singapore Guy! The BA 744's are really old, but their brand new 77W's are great and mostly spanking new. It should be interesting when their A380's start flying here.

I think J in SQ is far better, but Y is mostly comparable, and in premium Y SQ don't offer this, so it's a walkover for BA...

[yflyer]

yflyer, a top TR -- informative and insightful -- as always.

Thanks, jjpb3!

I've covered Y, PY, J on the BA 77W ... guess there is only one other place I need to get to on the plane to make this thread complete !

[yflyer]

Great TR an eye opener for me to the world outside SQ and *A

I am impressed by the PY and Y quality, including their food esp ex-LHR. And oh boy, that impressive lounge is accessible to PY and Y flyers. SQ, come on, you have some real competition out there.

For J, looks underwhelming to me, as are all J which is staggered a la NH, LX, OZ, etc. but this one could be better and less claustrophobic because the feet do not need to slot into the seat in front. Still, I won't pay the premium for such J considering how good the PY is.

For me, J no 1 is still SQ's. 2nd is CX/BR's. 3rd is herringbone from 9W.
Sorry to say, don't consider stagger and any 2-4-2s configuration as J, may be will call it J minus and will only fly happily as upgraded pax which I would then appreciate fully.

Thanks, SQueeze!

I fly both A* (mainly SQ) and Oneworld (BA/QF/CX/JL) on a regular basis mainly because that seems to work best for my travel profile. I am SG-based and need to travel a fair bit for my work. At one point I was doing in excess of 200K BIS miles in a year i.e. qualified for KF Gold 4 times over in a single year. For many years I flew exclusively SQ, which remains my favourite airline. Then at some point I realised that this was one-way loyalty and that SQ didn't do a whole lot for this admittedly small customer segment (Extreme travel in Y). That was when I began to fly Oneworld as well which also "opened my eyes" to life beyond SQ. SQ remains my favourite, and I still fly them a lot, but they would have to do just a little more for me to fly them 100% like I used to.

Regarding the lounge access, you do need Oneworld FF perks to get in if in Y, but it is interesting that for similar amounts of Y travel, SQ will only give KF Gold access to the KF Gold Lounge in Changi, whereas Oneworld Emerald (attainable with only Y travel) will give you access to pretty much any Oneworld F lounge (QF, BA, CX etc) anywhere except for the BA Concorde room in LHR.

I really like SQ J as well. I have not tried the SQ 77WN but I am looking forward to doing so at some point in future.