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British Airways to Las Vegas in F

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  • British Airways to Las Vegas in F

    I did this trip just over a year ago and never thought about turning it into a Trip Report. In the last few weeks though British Airways have announced that they will withdraw first-class from their un-refurbished 744s and one of the routes affected in LAS. I thought it might serve as some historical record of when first-class was on the route although another irony of course is that BA will continue to use the venerable, but lovely, 747 for quite a few years to come, whilst it has already been consigned to the history of SQ.

    The flight is mostly covered by video trip report, and I hope people do not mind if I post a link to this at the end of the post? It's not actually very good as this is my first attempt at such things, but I hope it gives an impression as well as the written report. Perhaps the main thing to note is how often my glass was empty - would that happen on SQ?

    You could say this trip began in the long-stay car park on the edge of the Northern Perimeter Road. It’s an excellent place to watch the aeroplanes take off and land, but try and park away from the fence as the number of car alarms which go off is significant and I am sure the battery is drained before some return! A bus soon came along to transfer us to the terminal and here the first-class experience began. Now I must warn you, this is British Airways and some of you will be slightly incredulous at the lack of premium ground handling – some may even question how different it is to the SQ economy experience! I merely pass on what it is like and do not pass judgment.

    First-class is at the far right of the terminal in its own cordoned off area. It’s pleasant but is also used by numerous BA Executive Club gold card holders travelling in second, third or even fourth class! It is not unknown for the queue to stretch outside the entrance. Fortunately today we had one person in front of us before being allocated a check-in desk. The Rimowas were tagged, F priority tags applied, boarding passes issued and we were on our way. It was all rather perfunctory; not unpleasant but a smile wouldn’t have gone amiss. Then it was off to Premium Security, a narrow lane alongside the regular South security point. All lanes moved at a similar speed and really there was nothing premium about it. Once through we made our way to the Concorde Room (CCR) – now this is exclusively for First passengers and a few other BA passengers who clock up significant tier points, often by running with AnotherAirline from LAX-LAS-MIA-SJU and repeating until 5,000 tier points have been accumulated.

    For those here lucky enough not to have to use Heathrow Airports you may not be aware that it is one of the largest shopping malls in Europe, and the airport side of it is secondary to the retail business of encouraging passengers to part with their hard-earned money. From security the lounges are a mere 50 metres away, however Heathrow Airports Limited (HAL) insist you walk a mile past just some of their shops to reach it. BA paid a small fortune for its First passengers to be allowed direct access through what has become known as: “The magic white door./millionaires door” It is manned and a quick look at our boarding passes gained us entrance. On entering, there is a second desk inside just in case you somehow snuck in to this hallowed lounge.

    We thought we would have a little bite to eat and went into the dining section. Alas it was full. Its guardian informed us this simply by saying “it’s full. There is no space.” and turned her back and walked away. We too turned and left, heading to the gold card holders lounge, which BA term, The first class Lounge. What a contrast; this lessor lounge held a warm welcome and we could self-serve food, Laurent Perrier Grand Siecle champagne and a host of semi-decent wines and spirits. It was a triffle busy though but we found a sofa out on the terrace and set about relaxing. We went back to the CCR after a while and managed to get a seat in the restaurant – complete with view onto a dais with cleaning products hanging in full view.

    I won’t say too much about the journey as that is self-evident from the video but I should remark that this service was crewed from BA’s Mixed Fleet. This can be good or bad depending on your viewpoint but for those of you who are not aware, many of BA’s long-haul staff have rather generous contracts which the airline argues are significantly higher than current market rates. Following an industrial dispute an impass was reached in which no new cabin crew would be taken on with these old contracts. All new applicants would join Mixed Fleet or inferior terms and they would crew aircraft on certain specified routes. These could be long-haul or short-haul. Crews would not mix on the same flights.

    In reality what you have is a new set of cabin crew who are excellent, very enthusiastic and keen to do a good job. The downside is they are not as polished and professional when it comes to first-class service. This is most evident in the meal service which takes too long to deliver. With World Wide fleet you have more mature crew who have been flying for years. Sometimes the service can be exemplary, other times non-existent. For this flight we had enthusiasm, but a few hic cups. This can best be illustrated by my empty wine glass following dinner. A crew member came through the cabin, noticed it was empty, reached over and picked it up and went back to the galley with it. I pressed the call bell and asked for a glass of wine, which was duly delivered.

    All in all it wasn’t a great flight, but certainly far from being a bad flight. With 14 seats crammed in the nose of a 747 I think it’s fair to compare it to a very good 2nd class/business product, but it does somewhat miss the mark in comparison to say SQ or CX.

    Viva Las Vegas

    Immigration was quick – we were at the front of the line and following a wait of ten or so minutes, a miracle occurred. First class passengers’ bags came off first! Now please, I know this happens consistently with SQ but it certainly doesn’t with BA. The only consistency with BA is that Crew bags come off first and then, well take last week, Business, Economy, First and then Transfer. So I nearly fell over when I saw my Rimowa amongst the first out.

    This was all part of a holiday to Las Vegas and various canyons, before heading down to Los Cabos for a week. If people would like to see some of these pictures I will be happy to post more about my trip?

    This is the video link - please enjoy.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxYk...yer_detailpage
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